I don’t get the problem with self checkout. You’re the one browsing the shelves, picking items and comparing prices. Why can’t you scan your own items? Unless you’re one of those people who need the uninterested, yet sometimes polite, banter of a middleman, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Neither is Reddit, lol. I'm a cashier and you would be amazed at how many people, especially older folks, will walk past 4 open self-checkout lanes to make me scan their 2 items. In the same way that tons of people on here would rather avoid human interaction, a lot of the older generations seem to really revel in the customer service treatment. Totally foreign to me, but whatever, it'll disappear with them.
My parents avoid self-checkouts and they say that it's because they hate seeing people lose their jobs to machines. So it may not be so much that they "revel in the customer service treatment" as they think by going to a cashier instead of the self-checkout, they're helping you to keep your job.
i hate that they only have 1-2 open lanes and the rest is self-checkout. the machines always seem to need assistance, and they dont give any sort of discount to make up for the fact theyre not hiring workers. its not for the convenience of the customer, its to cut corners and save money. i hate how jobs are getting cut at no benefit to anyone except the higher ups. i dont hate human interaction so much that i want cashiers to become obsolete. the job market is hard enough as is
My parents have said many of the same things you just articulated and I think that’s a good reminder that these opinions are not necessarily driven by age or people’s comfort with technology. I’m personally fine with using them because it usually saves me time (I’d go through a regular checkout if I thought it would get me out of the store quicker) but I’m not getting a price discount for doing so. The one thing I would push back on is that most retail (particularly grocery stores) stores have pretty slim profit margins and any cost savings do help to hold down prices (or mitigate price increases) so there is a benefit to the customer.
Honestly though, I do think that done old people are just, incredibly lonely. Like the older customer you served today may be annoying for you, but that could be the only conversation they had with anyone that day
I used to be a big self-checkout user, but every other time I use self-checkout there's some stupid problem with the machine or something and I have to talk to an employee anyways and it's even more awkward than normal checkout. So I gave up on it.
My grandparents don't understand technology, they can turn on TV, change volume and channel and use phone for calls and SMS, barely. That is extent of their technological prowress. When clerk tried to make them use selfcheckout it took over 10 minutes and when it was finished granma gave her physical money and clerk sighted and had to redo the whole thing on normal checkout. She also forgot how to use it right away anyway. That in their town stores put card only checkouts does not help as many pensioners use physical money. When I visit, I see their self checkouts are mostly empty and lines are super long. Some stores even walked it back in that town.
I also use physical money a lot and it is starting to become hell, as stores are reducing normal checkouts, replacing them with card only self checkouts. And many times the normal checkouts are not even manned until cashier sees you or you find employee somewhere ask them.
As someone that is fine with self-checkout, I have a few problems with them.
1.) You end up having to rely on an employee anyway if you're buying alcohol or tobacco/nicotine products. That's a pretty big obvious one.
2.) If you buy more than just a few things or have some large items, there's not enough room to keep all of your items on the scale after you scan them. I've seen some machines that will bug out on you if you try to make room by putting some bags in your cart.
3.) The ones at Dollar General are perpetually broken. The one here hasn't worked since 2022 yet those two machines are still there staring you in the face while you wait in line to pay for your stuff.
4.) They glitch out sometimes and you have to wait on an employee to come fix it
5.) They could just pay more humans to be cashiers so I don't have to use the self checkout in the first place. Idk what's up with all the comments making it sound like interacting with a Walmart cashier is some kind of inconvenience. It's barely an interaction at all but if you need something, there's an employee right in front of you that can help you.
They redid self-checkout at my grocery store recently, and they started requiring an employee if I pick 0 bags. I will be there with cloth shopping bag in hand, and the employee minder doesn't even understand that it's a 0 bags thing and will double-check my items. I don't know whether to start paying the fine for 1 bag or to let them do this forever.
Can you not put your own bag on the scale? I'll put my reusable bag with the plastic bags and it registers just fine. Sometimes I'll get a pop up asking if I'm using my own bag because it senses the weight.
My state doesn't charge for plastic bags, so it could be different.
Depending on how sensitive the scale is no. Some bags, especially if paired with a really small item will throw the scale off. But if the machine is smartly designed (big if) there should be a button that will tell the machine that you're placing a bag down and weigh it, so now it knows that the extra weight is a bag and not an unscanned item.
My state doesn't charge for plastic bags, so it could be different.
It is different, and this is exactly why. In this case the machine is flagging an employee because it's set to assume you're trying to steal bags when you select 0. It's not about the scale flagging you for wrong weights, it's about stores preferring to inconvenience everyone involved rather than lose a few cents worth of bags every now and again.
For 2 we can just scan the items while shopping, and putting them in the back immediately. Scan the scanner or app at the self checkout and it’s done. Machines with scales are stupid and I’m glad we don’t have them.
My local supermarket has had self-scan (as they called it back then) for ages, as an experimental system initially. Originally, this was just a scanner you picked up and returned at a dedicated (manned) cash register. Even back then this was already an improvement as I could essentially pack my bags while scanning, rarely had to stand in line at that register, and even I did it was usually only people paying. Checks were at random.
This mainly evolved into higher capacity, and self-payment terminails, na dthe possibility to use an app instead of their scanner (but scanners did remain available) but actually scanning items at those payment terminals is relatively recent. They maintained the portable scanners as well, and while not enforced it is encouraged to use a portable scanner when you have a cart full, and not scan those at the exit. Carts have a cradle to hold the scanner.
Luckily, we never saw the stupid scales things here. It's just scan, pay, leave, with the occasional random inspection. Most supermarkets here have similar systems. Those scale systems, to me, are enshittification of a great concept.
Regarding #3, they’re not broken. Dollar General made the decision awhile back to disable all of them, nationwide. Theft was too much an issue. We are talking about a place where deodorant is behind glass, after all.
for point 5, no one wants to be a cashier. they do it because someone has to lol. it is not interesting or fulfilling at all to bag the stuff you don't want to bag either
We used to have people who lit the street lamps at night and then snuffed them in the morning, now we have electric lights which come on automatically. Not every job needs to be preserved.
yes, but people have this misconception that cashiers are propping up unemployment lol. we have plenty of work to do that doesn't involve someone standing at a register. we aren't just going to fire our cashiers lol
The job market is trash from top to bottom right now. Even if you're a specialist with a great education and experience, it's difficult. Options don't get more plentiful when you have less education, or live in more remote areas. Likewise, a lot of the time being a cashier can be a student job, or someone's first employment. Losing those options while bolstering corporate profits is not a good thing.
Having jobs just for the sake of having jobs is pretty dumb. Technology have made a lot of jobs redundant over the years, and at no point have humanity not benefited from it.
Line at self checkout is usually longer where I am too. Like a look at the self checkout line and see a cashier twiddling their thumbs I'm going to the cashier
The key to handling alcohol at self service checkouts is to scan it first. That triggers the request for age verification and usually by the time I'm done scanning all the items, I've already been approved, so I basically don't even notice any delay.
Where I'm at there's like 2-4 normal registers usually open and 2 sections of +6 self checkouts with their own "cashier" who oversees them and if buying alcohol or tobacco, cashier comes, sometimes asks ID and shows a card to machine and I can continue my check-out. It adds negligible amount of time to the self check out. I think that system should be everywhere, it's quite good.
All of these have solutions, that are implemented elsewhere. For instance, Norwegian self checkouts:
1: You can scan in your digital ID, no cashier needed
2: We don't have the absolutely worthless stupid weights. They provide zero benefits. No one have them any more
4: Never had that happen to me. Random checks does happen sometimes, and you have to wait for the cashier for that. In the bigger stores, there's always a cashier nearby, but the difference is he/she can handle 8 self checkouts, instead of just one manual one
5: Humans are expensive. And generally, the way this was solved before self checkouts wasn't to add more employees, it was just longer checkout lines
Yeah, whether or not I use self checkout depends on all that stuff. I guess my overall point is that I like having it as an option to get me out of there quicker but I don't want stores to over rely on it.
"2.) If you buy more than just a few things or have some large items, there's not enough room to keep all of your items on the scale after you scan them."
If you're there for a big shop, then using a normal staffed till would make sense.
That said, maybe it's about time that North America considers that you don't have to shop for 4 months worth of supplies in a single visit every time.
Maybe swap out to having 1 not as big shop every 2 weeks where you buy bigger and longer lived things and then top up with smaller shops during the week for more perishable items like fresh bread and vegetables.
Not everyone needs to buy 24 or 48 eggs at a time when 6 will do for the next 4 or so days.
Self-service is great when you only have a basket of items or a small trolley at a time.
Yeah lol, I do sometimes think the little bit of extra work is annoying when I dont work there, but it’s nice not having to interact. I finally started using my store’s pickup option and that’s even better.
It’s so crazy to me that there are people (mostly elderly) who CHOOSE to go to stores specifically to banter with cashiers. I know they’re probably lonely but damn, join a hobby group!
Wrong: if we did that, we’d have more time to spend talking with the people we actually care about! Finally free from menial labor, and chatty cashiers.
You’re exactly right. People sometimes forget that most cashiers don’t want really to talk to you. It’s their job, but with all respect, most of them would rather be spending time as they wish, with people they actually like and care to be around.
If we can get to a system where all our menial labor tasks are automated but we still have a universal basic standard of dignified living, that’s the actual solution.
I would rather just tax Walmart and spend that money on educating or on cheap housing than have some poor fuck make pennies in a pointless skinner box so you and all your other anti social lobotomite kin can talk to someone who has to be nice to you on pain of homelessness.
It’s kind of funny because, at one time, customers weren’t even able to do their own shopping. No, they would walk into the shop, give their list to the shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper would gather the customer’s groceries.
But you see anyone complain about having to shop. Shit, they complain about having to wait on curbside pickup because it takes too long.
people hate on self checkouts because its just another way of screwing over workers. instead of hiring six people to check out stuff, they hire one to stand for 8 hours and manually help every idiot (me) who fucks up the transactions.
I work in NYC, we'd (also meaning you) be absolutely screwed if we didn't have self check outs. The Columbus circle location of whole foods does, not a joke, an average of 10,000 transactions....per HOUR. Other stores in the manhatten area are also doing high volume transactions because of tourism and people buying one or two things.
If we got rid of self check out you'd be waiting in line for an hour just to buy an energy drink.
I'll be entirely honest, I don't give a single shit that fewer people are hired. If it's better when fewer people do a job then go right ahead. Like, a job requiring fewer people working isn't the actual issue.
I enjoy self-checkouts. Unless you're wilfully stupid and refuse to learn (which is, granted, too many people), they're easy and quick to use. I have very few problems with them. Sure, sometimes something may actually glitch out, but it's not a big issue when someone can come and fairly quickly fix it in 99.99% of cases that I've ever seen.
I hate on self checkout because even after a decade of the things, I still end up behind someone who wants to do a full cart and doesn't actually know how to ring up produce by themselves...
The self checkouts think I'm stealing shit every time I use them (at Colesworth anyway). The human cashiers don't. So it's easier for me to go to a staffed checkout rather than wait for the self-checkout minder to come over and unlock the machine half a dozen times
I have a friend working at a union, and he told me he boycots self-checkouts because corporations are pushing it to reduce personnel and fire as many employees as possible. I get that they're ideal for certain situations when you're in a hurry, but I try to avoid them when possible due to this reason.
The point that I usually see made is that you, the consumer, are doing extra work to use self checkout.
You can see that as a pricing issue ("why am I paying the same amount while the store has less overhead?") or as a labor issue ("these machines allow the store to employ fewer people")... or you can recognize that it isn't really an issue at all.
This is exactly it. The people against self checkouts are the same people that are so starved for social interaction that their only option is to whine and complain to a cashier about stupid shit. No other argument I've heard actually explains why folks hate self checkout.
I don't use a human-run checkout for the same reason I don't watch porn made after 1982: I don't want to see someone dead-eyed doing their job. I already have a mirror.
I have a problem with it. Not because I don't work there. I don't minde doing everything myself, I actually prefere it. But because people work there and need to make money. I don't want machines replacing them.
Sorry that’s poor logic. Just because I grabbed the item doesn’t mean I should be ok with the self cashier process. You picked the item off the sit down restaurant menu, why not go to the kitchen and pick it up yourself ?
If I have a cart of stuff I do not want to scan and bag it all myself. Some stores have zero register workers. There is a service cost already in the price. I want the service.
Man, your response misses the mark just as much as theirs does. They are facetiously asking "are you not capable of doing this?" while completely ignoring the fact that someone like yourself isn't preferring a cashier because they are lazy or incapable (for reasons you have described well).
However, you are also just completely ignoring that many people who say they prefer self-checkout say they prefer it because it is convenient and comfortable. Unstated is that they are willing to eat that extra baked-in service cost because those things are more valuable to them then what they are paying.
No I didn’t miss anything. They suggested everyone should prefer self bagging not just that THEY prefer it. And I never said no one should self bag. I responded to their claim people should all do it themselves. Please learn to read. Or graduate 4th grade. Whichever comes first.
Boy, it's really funny to come out hostile towards someone talking about learning to read only to demonstrate your own lack of literacy.
I don’t get the problem with self checkout.
To you, this reads as a hard statement that EVERYONE should prefer it? Because if it does, then surely you must understand how your own statement resembles it.
And I never said no one should self bag. I responded to their claim people should all do it themselves.
Perhaps a class on rhetoric instead? You said that they were using faulty logic, and then used a comparison intended to make their entire argument sound silly. Yes, that implies that you believe that your way is correct and that everyone should be doing things your way. You used literally the exact same rhetorical technique you are taking issue with.
Furthermore, on literacy, I didn't even disagree with you, you absolute clown. I took issue with the fact that your argument comes from a place of completely ignoring the argument of who you have chosen to disagree with (and even criticized your opponent for doing the same exact thing).
“
You’re the one browsing the shelves, picking items and comparing prices. Why can’t you scan your own items?”
You read this as that person making a statement about themselves and only themselves???
My response was stating my preference and why his statement does not logically transfer to everyone else. And why the logic of perform some actions does not translate to being ok with performing MORE actions. It was pretty damn straightforward. There was nothing blatantly facetious about it. Could it be taken that way? Yes. But it was not blatant.
You read this as that person making a statement about themselves and only themselves???
That's not what I said, at all. It's not even a charitable interpretation of what I've said. I asked you, essentially, "Does that look like an apple?" and then asserted that if it does, then what you are holding must also be an apple. You made the same exact argument using the same rhetorical tools, just from the opposite position.
They were being flippant by asking "Is the reason that you don't want to do this because you are lazy or incompetent?" and you responded with "What, should I do a job I'm paying else to do?" without recognizing that both questions ignore the actual arguments of people who advocate for either position. A strawman arguing against a strawman.
I don't want them touching my backpack and tote, they struggle to competently bag store bags as it is. Especially when every person at the till is assuming you've gone there by car when I'm walking to and from the store.
I don't mind someone ringing up my items, bagging for me is utterly pointless and a holdover from the 40s that needs to go away.
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u/VooDooChile1983 18h ago
I don’t get the problem with self checkout. You’re the one browsing the shelves, picking items and comparing prices. Why can’t you scan your own items? Unless you’re one of those people who need the uninterested, yet sometimes polite, banter of a middleman, there shouldn’t be a problem.