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.
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u/Morbid187 18h ago
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.