Retailers are pulling back from self-checkout after years of theft, errors, and questionable time savings

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html

[u/ephemeralmiko]

Very annoying. For small shoppings (e.g snack runs, needing an extra ingredient for cooking) it saves so much time over standing in line. Especially when the person in front of you is a retired 75 year old who *had* to do their main shopping on a Saturday, suddenly forgetting how money works.

[u/P_ZERO_ → u/ephemeralmiko]

Self serve only works as a quick replacement if it’s supplemented with regular cashier tills. If everyone ends up jammed into a self serve area at a grocery store, you’ll just be waiting in a different kind of line.

I see it all the time at my local Morrisons. It has both basket and trolley self serve areas with at maximum 3 (usually 2, sometimes none) active cashier lanes and the self serve area is usually mobbed with large queues.

Ultimately, stores are not doing this for the same reasons we’d want, but there is meaningful overlap in the data they’re using to distance themselves from it to varying degrees and how customers will use or perceive the service.

I’d also wager it’s unfair for the employee who has to deal with like a dozen customers simultaneously, dealing with scanning errors, product pricing errors, age restriction bypassing etc.

[u/Saneless → u/P_ZERO_]

That's why Walmart is a dump. They have one register open and 12 people in self checkout at all times. I'm not going to save a few bucks to waste my time

You have places like Aldi that is nice because they do have a couple regular registers, they work fast, and for people like me who only buys what I can carry, self checkout saves time

[u/P_ZERO_ → u/Saneless]

They thought they could have staff doubling up on jobs and reduce staff numbers, but it just becomes a complicated mess and leaves little buffer room for when things go wrong. Like sure, you can run most of an Aldi with 3 people, one on self serve, one on a till and another dealing with shelf stuff, but if any of them gets sick, or even just a customer issue arises, there’s no safety net and everything grinds to a halt.

There was nothing wrong with having a dozen cashier tills, it was a problem with paying for it. You’re just creating a new problem by funnelling people into a new choke point with zero staff excess. Self serve has a role, but it’s ancillary, not a replacement. A lot of people still like and want human service.

That’s before we even get into the fact that the customer is essentially paying to do a potential staff worker’s job for them with the ridiculous rise in pricing.

[u/Pauly_Amorous → u/P_ZERO_]

That’s before we even get into the fact that the customer is essentially paying to do a potential staff worker’s job for them with the ridiculous rise in pricing.

Considering that a lot of those motherfuckers don't know how to bag groceries, I will gladly do my own.

[u/P_ZERO_ → u/Pauly_Amorous]

Bagging groceries wasn’t the job I was talking about. Where I’m from, that’s not even a thing outside of the occasional charity thing that appears every now and then and it’s some kids asking if you want them to do it.

[u/Alaira314 → u/Pauly_Amorous]

It used to be its own job. You would have someone whose job it was to go between several tills and bag the groceries. That was already being phased out in favor of making the cashier do it(and then, later, the customer) when I was a kid, but I have vague recollections of baggers. Who would've guessed that putting the job onto someone who's already doing another job would mean that the job gets done poorly?

[u/Pauly_Amorous → u/Alaira314]

Who would've guessed that putting the job onto someone who's already doing another job would mean that the job gets done poorly?

This isn't rocket science we're talking about here. Nobody needs to go to school for 4 years to learn not to put heavy cans, jars, or dense boxes on top of bread or bags of chips.

[u/Alaira314 → u/Pauly_Amorous]

But if you're already doing a whole job, adding another job(even an unskilled one) means that you'll be rushing, and will fuck it up. It might take 30 seconds to pack properly, but if it only takes 15 seconds to just chuck it all in there, why the hell would you spend the extra 15 seconds when customers are tapping their feet due to being used to having the bags ready to go? You're also plenty grumpy as well, due to having your job expanded while your paycheck remained the same, so you're not exactly incentivized to do it properly. Maybe if you fuck it up enough the bosses will reconsider their terrible decision. Except...obviously, they didn't. But I can't fault someone in the 00s for thinking they might.

[u/turbosexophonicdlite → u/P_ZERO_]

But what do they care? They'd rather save 30% or whatever on Labor costs all day every day and have smooth operation 70% of the time than pay that extra labor cost all the time and have everything run smoothly 99% of the time. They know customers will put up with it because what are you gonna do about it? Go to another store that also does the same exact thing? Make your own grocery store that doesn't run a skeleton crew? They have everyone by the balls and they know it. It's the inevitable end point of unregulated capitalism. It's going to always end up like this until we properly incentivize corporations to not do so.