[gnufied]

Same goes for almost all grocery shops here - Publix, Kroger, target etc replacing checkout with self-checkout kiosks completely.

I absolute hate using self-checkout for non-packaged groceries items. Especially if I have lots of stuff. Freaking "unintended item in baggage area".

Not to mention, I feel like Publix etc in particular employed lots of folks with disability. It warmed my heart to talk to them.

I don't know what humanity plans is. Even if we pay folks free money, they still loose on social interactions.

[ghaff]

Grocery stores and others absolutely still need cashier checkout. If I have a handful of items I can barcode swipe and even a couple pieces of produce that's fine. But they simply aren't designed for a full shopping cart which includes a ton of non-barcoded items.

Ditto with home repair stores. Scan a new smoke detector? Sure. Check out a bunch of lumber etc. That would be no.

In my experience, most stores are finding a reasonable balance. And one of my cheaper grocery stores doesn't use self-checkout at all for now. Which is just fine.

[techsupporter]

> In my experience, most stores are finding a reasonable balance.

I hope you're right but this hasn't been the case at the grocery stores around me. QFC (a Kroger-owned brand in the Pacific Northwest) has, at least at two I usually frequent, stopped staffing checklanes after 8 or 9pm. It's self-checkout only. These are at stores that have a lot of signage advertising that "summer hours are here, all locations open until 1am!"

I normally shop around 9 or 10pm and there has historically been at least a "push this button to ask someone to come to the in-person method". Much as I like self-checkout, I don't like doing it with a full cart of groceries. Both recent times, I was told rather bluntly that a full cart was my problem.

With service like that, I'd rather just go to the Amazon spyware grocery store. At least I can put everything in a bag myself and they're open until 11pm.

[Dylan16807]

> But they simply aren't designed for a full shopping cart which includes a ton of non-barcoded items.

Huh. Everything at my grocery store either has a barcode or is produce that needs to be weighed, so there's no speed advantage for a cashier.

And they've gone through different sizes of self-checkout, some of which actually had more room than the cashier checkouts.

[gorlilla]

Maybe it's just because self-checkout has always played into my intorvertedness. But i have become very effecient at self checkout no matter how much i buy.

I shop for myself, spouse and 4 adolescent/teenage children. I can typically ring myself out faster and more orderly than the cashier.

Most cashiers are super wasteful with bags and just pack things illogically. These aren't the trained baggers of yester-year afterall.

Either way, my favorite way to shop at my local wholesale warehouse has been the app which lets you ring up as you load up the cart, pay and simply walk out the door.

Cashiers are not in fact still necessary, the self-checkout lanes are merely a stop-gap yo better automation.

[saurik]

This "balance" still cuts out a lot of employees and still removes the social interaction for most use cases. My local Home Depot, FWIW, still has a person to do checkout... but I think it is only one person, not even two: the rest of the checkout opportunities are self-checkout.

Also, btw: it isn't so bad to do self-checkout of large items as they have a wireless handheld barcode scanner at each self-checkout stand; it isn't like you are having to lift each item and place it on the platform. There is something similar now at Target, and I routinely self-checkout large/heavy furnishings.

[gnufied]

I would say it is getting harder. Walmart for example I think has switched to largely self-checkout with some helpers thrown in.

Other stores where had more than 3 or 4 human manned lanes, now have just 1 most of the time.

[morkalork]

I watched someone try taking a freaking step ladder through the self check out and the machine scanned it okay but then wouldn't proceed to the next item or cash out because "item must be placed on scale". Really?

[hooverd]

Self checkout shoppers should be timed just like cashiers. I swear everyone else using the self chicken are moving in slow motion.

[rcme]

Order groceries online. It's much more convenient for large orders.

[neilv]

Most self-checkouts here are surprisingly bad, but Whole Food Markets ones work well enough. However, WFM recently managed to ruin that in a different way...

The WFM self-checkouts here recently started displaying dead-on video camera closeup views of the customer's face, on-screen, during checkout.

They're doing this in neighborhoods with upscale customers, so I'm thinking maybe it's not a rough part of town "you are being watched" security thing. (That would seem incongruous with the premium WFM brand, and how historically they've seemed to want customers to feel about shopping there.)

Maybe the live view of the camera in the customer's face is actually trying to lay foundation for a legal defense that that they weren't secretly recording people, for the inevitable scandal over a data breach/mishandling/misuse.

(Lawmakers and state AGs should be all over this, because history is clear that very few companies take data capture and handling responsibility seriously, unless it's heavily regulated, with teeth that hurt, and maybe not even then.)

[smt88]

So far, I've never seen a Publix with even a single self-checkout. I'm not saying they don't exist, but they're rolling them out much more slowly than the other stores.

This is likely because Publix is 80% employee-owned[1].

1. https://fourweekmba.com/who-owns-publix/#:~:text=Key%20takea....

[TheCleric]

I've seen one, in Wesley Chapel, FL. The vast majority do not.

[silisili]

The newer ones seem to have them. Which to me is like a breach of the unspoken contract.

Publix has always been more expensive, but gave you great people experience, a cashier, and usually a bag boy asking if you wanted help out to the car.

Now that they're moving to self checkout, what the hell are we paying more for?

[coev]

Palm Beach, Florida. The stores in the nearby less affluent neighborhoods don't have it.

[jacquesm]

I boycott the self checkout, and always go through the cashier, even if that means waiting a bit longer. The way I look at it that's at least a token towards keeping people employed that make substantially less money than I do and even if my time is valuable it isn't nearly as valuable to me as their employment is to them.

I hoped more people would join me this but it looks like it is a losing battle.

[bombcar]

You're fighting the wrong battle. The real galaxy brain move is to use a self-checkout and fuck up horribly so they have to send the staffer over anyway, and take ten times as long.

Then it appears on the balance sheet as a negative.

[dheera]

> Freaking "unintended item in baggage area".

When that happens I usually just pick up my stuff and start over at another machine. It's usually faster than waiting for them to come over and enter their password. Sometimes by the time I'm done there are 3 machines "waiting for assistance". (I just hope their UX researchers are watching from a corner, but that's their problem.)

Self checkout is supposed to be faster than non-self checkout, if it doesn't meet that bar it is useless.

[radicalbyte]

Here in The Netherlands we don't have that thing where they weigh your bag to make sure you haven't stolen something. They instead have two people for 8-10 checkouts and do random inspections where they scan your bags.

Works great and also gave me a huge shock when I went back to the UK and Sainsbury's treated me like a criminal.

[ghshephard]

Nice thing about whole foods - there is person there to help you with the self-checkout (in case something doesn't scan, price isn't right - rare) - but there isn't any scan or check of bags/receipts. It's close, fast, and convenient enough that I just do my shopping every day for most stuff, with a few exceptions like Milk that I might buy a weeks worth of stuff. The Palm Scan Instapay thing is awesome too.

[phpisthebest]

I resisted using online ordering at Kroger for a long time, then in 2021 I started using the mobile app, and just picking up my groceries... now I have not be inside a Kroger in almost 2 years and have no plans on going back in.

The Kroger App is great, and having them bring the stuff out, load me up, and I drive away... even if they actually go back to charging $5 for the service I am paying.

>>I don't know what humanity plans is

I dont know about humanity, but consumers demand low prices on food, one of the biggest complaints people have today is high cost of food, even if over history we still have some of the lowest costs of food as a percentage of expanded ever...

Grocery is also one of, if not the lowest profit retail businesses to be in, it is not surprising they will look to lower their #1 cost... people.

[jonwest]

I feel like the lowest earning employees on the totem pole is a bit of an easy scapegoat for high costs when executives make an exponential amount in comparison. I understand that if they weren’t in grocery they could be making similar amounts in another industry—my argument is more that the disparity between employee and executive is too great, regardless of industry.

[alluro2]

I'm yet to see prices going down, or at least not going up at the same pace as everywhere else, because a supermarket chain implemented self-checkout.

I don't think anyone buys (pun intended) the argument of self-checkout being there to enable lower prices for consumers.

[canucker2016]

Plus there are some customers who misscan stuff to pay less (they buy a lot of "bananas").

also the discretionary purchases that occurred while waiting in line disappear - no gum/chocolate bar or celebrity/gossip magazine sales

[raverbashing]

The discretionary purchases still exist as the line to the self-checkouts go thought shelves with check-out merchandise

[Modified3019]

I’ve found it heavily depends on the system the store uses and if improvements are actively made.

Walmart’s self-checkouts are great, and I’ve noticed distinct improvements over the years, reducing or removing common sources of issues.

WinCo’s on the other hand have been and continue to be prone to becoming a pain in the ass requiring multiple employee interventions.

I personally hate interaction at grocery stores, I want to get in and gtfo and not hold up the people behind me.

[grepfru_it]

>Walmart's self-checkout

Look up next time you use your credit card :|

[fy20]

I feel the opposite. I much prefer the self-service experience. Staff are miserable, they usually scan stuff faster than you can pack, and I have to wait in a large line for that. I'd much rather do it myself.

Even with a large cart (family of 3 weekly shop) I have no issues, you just need to be good at stacking items so they don't fall off.

Where I live stores are slowly adopting scan-as-you-shop which is even better.

[el_benhameen]

I just bought some snacks at an airport store that was “fully” self-directed—swipe your card, walk through the gate, grab your stuff, and walk out. Except it required _more_ human assistants than a typical airport convenience store in order to handle the volume of confused and suspicious shoppers. “Wait, how does this work?”, “How do I get a receipt?”, “How do I know it won’t over charge me?”, etc.

[barbazoo]

I don't like self checkout because sometimes I'm clumsy and forget to scan an item or two, oopsie.

[bombcar]

My wife scanned an item, used Apple Pay, the phone dinged, but the stupid self checkout was still bitching about something, so the payment never actually cleared.

And she didn't notice and walked out.

I came back a few days later and it took me nearly half an hour to explain that I wanted to pay for something without buying it. Finally a manager figured it out heh.

[IshKebab]

I think the automation trend can be annoying when it fails, but self checkout is a weird thing to pick on. In the UK at least they always have a staff member on hand to override the scales. They're soooo much better than waiting in a queue for a human.

[gwbrooks]

So the plan is screwing over the company you're buying goods from?

Where can I like and subscribe for more of these amazing life hacks? (/s)

[mtmail]

IMHO that's called stealing

[finnh]

so, you are a thief. congratulations

[cityofdelusion]

You might as well skip the extra steps and just walk out the store with your cart without paying.

[ChumpGPT]

Some folks who do this feel like if the store is making them work, they might as well get paid for it. I guess there is the argument that using self check out saves the store money so you should enjoy some savings too. I'm curious whether retailers have already built that into the price everyone pays.

[idiliv]

That's theft.

[wussboy]

What the fuck?