Rules for using the Self Checkout!

[The Yen Man]

In all honesty, I only go to self checkouts because of how lines are formed. As I mentioned earlier, queuing theory says that the most efficient line is the one line system (like at a bank). So you form one line that splits to 4 checkouts. A lot of people are discouraged by the seemingly long line up for self checkouts when they see that one line is usually twice as long as at a checkout, but they don't realize that this line moves at 4 times the speed of a normal line up.

The best system I think I've seen in awhile is Walmart's express lines. They move along quickly, plus they have they have pretty idiot proof directions on telling people to proceed to the next till. I am actually quite impressed by that.

[chid]

I used to be a cashier at a grocerty store and I still hate those self check outs, they never work properly and they always make me show the "supervisor" person the produce I'm buying because I know the codes without having to look them up.. Self Check Outs are the most stupid idea evar!

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Dion

I refuse to use those self checkouts. As far as i'm concerned they take away jobs from people.

Exactly!

Just like what happened with computers!

[EVERLAST]

during my use of the self serve check out at the SAfeway nearest me an employee approached me quickly and asked me to excuse him for a moment .....as I was standing close to the scanner he asked that I step back for a moment while he grab something....that something being the 20.00 someone asked for cash back but forgot. Grabbing the little creeps arm and telling him that that $20.00 he was about to pocket wasnt his he tried telling me it was his...it wasnt as the person who was last at the check out returned to witness our little altercation involving the said 20.00.

I shop there every day and havent seen that little creep since.

Oh, and by the way I was going to take the 20.00 to customer service.....thank god the person returned with a reciept proving it was thier dough.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Dion

I don't eat apples

Just can't admit it when you're wrong?

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Just can't admit it when you're wrong?

[Jedi Ninja]

Funny, at the CoOp today, I spotted some little JD trying to pay for $4 worth of candy with a toonie sized washer. As I came to the lineup, he quickly put it back in his pocket and faked like he was looking through his pocket for change.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Just can't admit it when you're wrong?

I was joking. I have no problems admitting I was wrong in this case.

Guess I should used green text

[jammies]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Why isn't it? How hard is it to wave a barcode over a scanner? How hard is it to look at the sticker on the apples to see the code? Do cashiers go through some kind of special training I don't know about?

Yes, actually they do. They learn how to look up unmarked items, are supposed to memorize most of the bulk/loose items codes, and learn how to quickly type in numeric barcodes when the code can't be read by the scanner.

Originally Posted by HOOT

If people actually paid attention to what they were doing, or at least ask for help right away then we wouldn't have people staring blankly at a screen for ten minutes while a half dozen people wait on this idiot.

You are assuming that people are mostly competent. We all know this isn't true. At least with specific training, incompetent people can become almost competent.

Originally Posted by Sliver

First off, lol at "untrained user." You hardly need training to operate one of these tills, which is exactly why they work so well.

Oh yeah, that must be why there are so many people complaining in this thread because they are being held up at the self-serve tills by the strugglers. Did you notice this thread was originally complaining about people that didn't know how to use these tills? Whether you or I find them simple is irrelevant, because many people obviously don't.

Originally Posted by Sliver

Your theory that a self-serve checkout is slower is based on what you wish were the case, but runs contrary to the experience of everybody else posting here so far, myself included. It's faster every time.

If it was "faster every time" no one would be complaining that some people are terribly slow at it. You might say "*I* am faster than the average checkout" but you can't say "the average self-serve person is faster than the average checkout cashier." Well, I guess you can, but there is no proof that this is so, and logically it doesn't make sense - someone that spends all day, every day, doing that job, and who is trained at it, is on average slower than random people doing that same job as instructed by brief text prompts on a machine?

Originally Posted by Sliver

I also suspect Rona, Wal-Mart, Co-op, Safeway, Superstore, etc. have done a little more research into this to determine the systems work. All of the above strive to provide good customer service and beyond the benefits to the companies, customers clearly like the option to visit a self-serve check-out.

Customers "like" that option because the other option is being underserved by insufficient cashiers. I suspect the option of having sufficient cashiers so that lineups never form would be even more popular.

Originally Posted by Sliver

I'm saying if you buy stocks, you are likely attracted to ones that perform well. Efficient companies are more likely to perform better and be better investments. Efficient companies also tend to have lower prices in a competitive environment. Why you are pretending this doesn't have a positive impact for a customer and an investor is beyond me.

"Efficiency" means something other than what you think it does. This practice is known as "externalizing your costs", not efficiency - these corporations are cutting the cost of labour by having the customers perform it for them. Explain to me what is "efficient" about that - efficient means LESS labour goes into the same task, and not the SAME labour done for free.

Originally Posted by Sliver

Banking used to be very time consuming for people because it is not as simple as you are suggesting. I run a business and I have to do a lot of banking that I can thankfully do from my computer. There are all kinds of remittances, taxes and different accounts that I have to move things around in that would be terribly onerous to put in the hands of some 25 year-old girl that just passed her Canadian Securities Course.

Again, in banking the automated systems are doing the work now, and not the people. It has little to do with complexity and much more to do with suitability for automation - banking is essentially moving numbers around, a task which computers are by nature extremely good at.

Further, you are missing the central point of my argument, which is that this particular case is NOT automation but simply shifting the burden of labour. Automation would be putting RFIDs in all items so that you could walk your cart past a station, have it all total up without removing any of it from the cart, and then running your payment through by waving an RFID paycard linked to your biometrics so you can leave almost instantly. THAT would be an improvement on what we have now; the thinking that you do someone else's job for free, and don't even get a discount (like pumping your own gas does) for it therefore makes it somehow "better" only works for very strange values of "better".

Do you get the part where you're not actually saving any money by doing the work yourself? It's the corporation that's saving money - which is great for them, but unless you're actually the hivemind "Wal-Mart" posting here under a pseudonym, arguing it's better for you is misunderstanding your place in the system.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Wow you guys really don't want this to work, do you?

On the self-serve checkouts there is a picture of a bunch of carrots for carrots. Likewise for celery, onions, etc. It is designed so a child could use it with ease and it is fast.

You like the old-fashioned way and that's fine, but it is more than a little annoying reading your uneducated posts on this very simple matter.

If it works for people I have no problems with that. My issue is the job losses at the store level. These self checkouts were brought in to bring down labour costs as opposed to being a conveniece to customers as some here would like to believe. I'm sure one day they'll have self checkouts for full carts eliminating the need for cashiers altogether.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Dion

If it works for people I have no problems with that. My issue is the job losses at the store level. These self checkouts were brought in to bring down labour costs as opposed to being a conveniece to customers as some here would like to believe. I'm sure one day they'll have self checkouts for full carts eliminating the need for cashiers altogether.

Hopefully! Then maybe they can put some people in the isles to actually answer questions and help you find stuff. The Safeway I go to had the same amount of cashiers before and after getting them. All they do is help speed things up.

If they started doing it for other reasons than convenience than so be it, but as a bonus it doe speed things up if you don't get some moron looking at the pictures of fruit and can't figure out which one of the orange is.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Hopefully! Then maybe they can put some people in the isles to actually answer questions and help you find stuff. The Safeway I go to had the same amount of cashiers before and after getting them. All they do is help speed things up.

If they started doing it for other reasons than convenience than so be it, but as a bonus it doe speed things up if you don't get some moron looking at the pictures of fruit and can't figure out which one of the orange is.

I can remember my manager talking about a system where you push your cart through some archway system and it scans your whole cart (didn't say how) and have your total bill in a few seconds.

The people you want to answer questions are mostly working the graveyard shift. Safeway does almost all it's stocking at night (dairy, grocery and produce) leaving very few staff to have around during the day. It's an efficent way of doing the stocking but leaves little for customer service during the day.

[Sliver]

Jammies I realize the company saves money but since when is that a bad thing? And if you want to benefit from their savings, buy stock in the company, enjoy their lower prices, and in Co-op's case become a member.

You're acting like it's onerous to scan you're on groceries but it's not. Plus, it's not like standing there watching somebody else do it is giving me this great break or something. Heck I'd rather do it myself if for no other reason than it's more interesting than standing there waiting for them.

If a cashier was actually going to help my life, I'd pull up with my full cart and walk away to grab my car while they scan, bag, and charge my groceries, then meet me at car to load me up. As it stands now they're as useful as teets on a boar.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Jammies I realize the company saves money but since when is that a bad thing?

When it takes up more of my time as a result.

And if you want to benefit from their savings, buy stock in the company, enjoy their lower prices, and in Co-op's case become a member.

That is such a piddling amount to benefit compared to the amount of time that is wasted by these things. And these things will not result in lower prices.

You're acting like it's onerous to scan you're on groceries but it's not. Plus, it's not like standing there watching somebody else do it is giving me this great break or something. Heck I'd rather do it myself if for no other reason than it's more interesting than standing there waiting for them.

I'd rather be in and out as fast as possible when it comes to paying and these things slow everything down. Even in optimal conditions they're slower than a cashier. But when you've got a large order and are using your own recyclable bags along with coupons it becomes a gong show.

[Suzles]

The self serve part in England is a bit different. You take the scanner and your bags round on your shopping trip - so you scan and bag as you go. The you place the scanner in a reader at the end - pay and go. As this is open to certain level of abuse you can be called for a random checking when your shopping is re scanned by a cashier but mostly it seemed to be pretty efficient.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Dion

These self checkouts were brought in to bring down labour costs as opposed to being a conveniece to customers as some here would like to believe.

That is not true for some people. If there was an empty line up at a cashier till and an empty self checkout, I would go to the self checkout every time.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Suzles

The self serve part in England is a bit different. You take the scanner and your bags round on your shopping trip - so you scan and bag as you go. The you place the scanner in a reader at the end - pay and go. As this is open to certain level of abuse you can be called for a random checking when your shopping is re scanned by a cashier but mostly it seemed to be pretty efficient.

I know a similar system was used at Co-op a few years ago but it never caught on.

[Acey]

Self-checkouts at Supercentre Wal-Mart in south Lethbridge = god send. Nobody uses them, they're quick, and I'm out of there in a flash. Usually the attendant is off doing something else... I'm free to pay whatever I desire for the items I have purchased.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Okay. Here's the big question. If you could only have regular checkouts or self checkouts at the grocery store, which would you pick? And by that I mean the other option is no longer in the store at all.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by jammies

Do you get the part where you're not actually saving any money by doing the work yourself? It's the corporation that's saving money - which is great for them, but unless you're actually the hivemind "Wal-Mart" posting here under a pseudonym, arguing it's better for you is misunderstanding your place in the system.

One of the reasons I prefer to self scan is I can easily see the price come up, and if is different than the shelf price, I can call them on it with the scanning code of practice.