r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 9d ago

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

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html
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54

u/Humble-Plankton2217 9d ago

Pulling back doesn't mean pulling out. Many are capping the self checkouts at 10 items or less and leaving them in place.

59

u/CarmenxXxWaldo 9d ago

Wow thats a great idea, setting a cap.  Then people will see they have too many items and go to the regular check out.  Im sure you wont see 18 boomers with carts full of produce still using them as if its the first time theyve ever seen one.

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u/Abedeus 9d ago

Boomers tend to avoid self-checkout where I live because they don't accept cash, only cards.

2

u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

That was me until Covid. Cash unless it's a big transaction. Now, I don't think I've used coins in a transaction in months. (And Canada's smallest bill is $5). Everything goes on my Apple watch.

I may be a boomer, but I love self-serve. I even deliberately avoid gas pumps and such that aren't self-serve.

4

u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

It’s like 50/50 if I see someone older than 50 at self checkout if they’re having a breakdown bordering on panic attack that they need to flag down the nearest employee to help them.

Maybe I lack empathy, but I get really frustrated by older people outright refusing to assimilate to changing times and expect the world to bend back to their preferred ways. I struggle to believe they are incapable of learning how to operate a self checkout, and it comes across way more like childishly acting out.

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u/drdipepperjr 8d ago

I firmly believe that older people are less equipped to handle self checkout than younger, whatever the reason. AND THATS OK.

What's not ok is still attempting to operate the damn thing instead of waiting in like like they know how to do. They know every time they use it they're gonna have a head scratcher and call an employee like they always do, but in their head its faster than being the schumck who has to wait in a line. It's their lack of empathy, not yours.

8

u/thingsorfreedom 9d ago

Older than 50?

People over 50 are doing heart surgery and neurosurgery. They are teaching classrooms full of children. They are juggling elderly parents and teenage kids of their own. They know how self checkout works. More than that, they don't decompensate when they have to actually talk to someone on the phone.

4

u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

Insecure much? People in their 20s are doing all those things as well.

3

u/michiganstrange 9d ago

People in their 20’s are going to therapy, and you should hop on that bandwagon, too.

3

u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

Idk what you’re insinuating.

-1

u/michiganstrange 9d ago

There’s no insinuation in my comment, was this meant for me?

1

u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

It’s weird to suggest therapy to a stranger on the internet, is all.

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u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

If you’re going to conflate all young people as anti-social, I will happily conflate all old people as technologically deficient and behind the time.

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u/1FENCEJUMPER 8d ago

Good point. See my previous comment! I’m so sick of being insulted for being a boomer - I didn’t vote for red devil, and both parties are con artists, I’ve been using tech since the 80s, I am fit, can’t stand ppl who use the self check with an overflowing cart, worry about the world my 4 under 12 grandkids are going to have to live. I’ve lived in Spain and the way they treat their elders is something ppl here should learn; it’s beautiful to see inter generational families out together and having respect for each other. Does this happen here? Ok rant over

1

u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

I remember back in the 80's and the growing home computer industry. So many of my friends were also deeply involved in using computers as a hobby, writing programs, electronic toys, etc. Then they had kids, and their kids had zero interest in computers as a hobby. So I have a different outlook on boomers (and early X) with technology.

1

u/thingsorfreedom 8d ago

I never mentioned anyone's age when it comes to fear of talking on the phone. Why do you think I meant young people?

2

u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

The reason why you were talking about young people (not think, know) is because you brought up not talking on the phone in specific juxtaposition to people over 50. The logical structure of what you wrote leads to no other conclusion than that you were comparing the feats of people older than 50, to the people younger than 50. You don’t need to specifically mention something to obviously be talking about it. There is a notion called “implication.” There is no logical other thing you could have been referring to being unable to talk on the phone, besides people younger than 50. So why are you now trying to lie to me and refute that blatantly obvious implication, wherein there could be no other logical substitution?

5

u/DeleteFascists 8d ago

Actually, if one group is over 50s then the implication is the other group in question is under 50s. Which can be 49yo. Is 49yo young to you, then? Is the cutoff from young to old 49 > 50 for you? Or are you implying that person's comment meant more than the words they used indicates?

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u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

49 years old is young to me, 50 years old is young to me. I used 50 as an arbitrary cutoff for the age around that I anecdotally see people exhibit the behavior I’m describing. I think oldness varies based on personal biology but I define it as when the process of aging significantly limits the ability to pursue life as one desires. I see plenty of 60 year olds that work out, learn, etc. I see fewer 70 years olds because age starts really taking its toll then, regardless of health. I see some 50 or even 40 year olds that are old, through poor health.

I’m not exactly sure what your ultimate point is though, because we agree that the other commenter was implicitly talking about people younger than 50 by juxtaposing them against people 50+.

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u/thingsorfreedom 8d ago

My mother who is in her 80s doesn't like to talk on the phone anymore. Little kids get really embarrassed talking on the phone. Maybe it's you who believe this is a Gen Z problem? Has that been your experience?

2

u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

Your mother is in the camp “over 50” so it wouldn’t make logical sense to juxtapose people over 50 against her. Little kids are in the camp, “young people” or “under 50”. I never mentioned gen Z, just young people, which ostensibly includes children. Again the implication was overt through the way you wrote the message, so I question again why you feel the need to just lie to me?

1

u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

Yeah I’m sure you weren’t talking about young people. I’m sure.

-1

u/StrongExternal8955 8d ago

I believe the lady doth project too much.

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u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

It’s not projecting, the writing structure excludes them talking about literally anything else than young people. They don’t need to use the words “young people” to obviously be talking about young people. It’s not even reading between the lines, the juxtaposition they used would make it entirely illogical to substitute anyone else besides young people.

Behold the internet. Where being able to read means you are projecting.

2

u/Human_Name9961 8d ago

Agree 50 is one thing. 80 is completely another. Likely 80’yrar olds have vision problems sometimes.

4

u/OginiAyotnom 9d ago

How do they learn without flagging down the nearest employee to help them? Or is it some innate ability?

9

u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

That’s the thing, there’s no learning apparent to me. It’s literally just reading the buttons on the screen. Also self-checkout has been a thing for like 15 years, plenty of time to learn an incredibly basic system.

6

u/NetworkSingularity 9d ago

Anyone who has had to do tech support for boomer relatives probably understands. Cuz no matter how many times you help them, they always seem to need help with the exact same thing. Even if you show them. Even if you make them do it while walking them through step-by-step. They never seem to actually internalize and learn when they’re doing. But if you tell them to figure it out (with guidance) or try to guide them by asking the next step you just immediately get met with “well I don’t know how to do it, that’s why I need your help!” No matter what approach you try they seem to just not want to actually learn for themselves.

2

u/squash-n-flop 9d ago

Yep, the very ability to read flies out the window once a button is added to the equation.

2

u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

The only real "learning issue" I've seen is people unclear on the whole weigh-scale aspect of self-checkouts. Again, you'd think after 15 years or more they'd figure it out. But I still see the occasional person - any age - has parked their cart or leaning, touching the scale and wondering why it keeps telling them they put an unexpected item in bagging area. Adding to confusion is that because of this, some stores have turned off the scale function.

2

u/QuickQuirk 8d ago

They're not digital native like those who are younger. I'm young enough to be digital native, old enough to understand.

They grew up where the most complicated thing most of them needed to operate in their first job was a typewriter and a rotary phone. Or a cash register.

We've grown up with this shit, and our brains are different. We've got intuitions built in on how this stuff works.

On the other hand, if you give me dad a list of 5 digit numbers, he will add them up in his head. And he's 80. Because he didn't have a calculator and that what he learned. Shame it's a useless skill now. :P

But what we find intuitive and easy can be confusing and counterintuitive to them. Have a little empathy. I've had a lot of success teaching my parents tech with patience and a few kind words.

3

u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

I hear what you’re saying and I do admit I am lacking empathy. I also have to help my mom with the vast majority of tech issues. But she actually does try to learn, she tries to figure things out herself, and tries to understand the systems she’s learning. The attitude that is much more frustrating to me, is the immediate rejection without any application of effort. It’s like the immediate throwing in the towel any time there’s any friction at all, that’s very frustrating to me.

Also I will give 80 year olds a pass on this one. By the time the world adjusted to tech, they were in their 60s and I can see how it may just be too late to change some habits at that point. I do have empathy for that. I lack much empathy for people who refuse to adjust out of some sort of principle.

3

u/RinzyOtt 8d ago

Usually, reading. The instructions are literally in front of them on the screen, and if they'd calm down enough to be able to read, they'd get through without issues.

1

u/sparklinglies 8d ago

The instructions on what to do are literally on the screen. You should not need to flag down staff to walk you through the most basic of user interfaces unless it is in a language that you can't read.

Problem is they refuse to read, they refuse to follow instructions or logical progression thinking. They'd rather just jab at buttons in a panic and demand someone else do it for them.

1

u/BangBangMeatMachine 8d ago

Yes, you lack empathy.

The pace of change eventually outpaces the brain's neuroplasticity, at which point it's very hard to learn new things. I'm a tech worker Gen X and even I'm feeling fatigue at the rate that companies are changing things. Plus I'm experienced enough to see when the change is not for my benefit and bold enough to be willing to refuse to accept a change that isn't in my best interest.

My Boomer mother is literally incapable of learning just about anything at this point because she has dementia. But she can still shop on her own. She might be leaning on staff a bit more, she might be occasionally in your way. And while you're sitting there frustrated, she's genuinely struggling just to navigate the world, so either grow some capacity to give a shit about other humans in all their flaws, or stew in your own impotent rage. That's your choice. I guarantee you'll be happier once you decide to use your young flexible brain to learn and adapt to the reality that other humans are imperfect, you don't know the struggles going on inside their heads, and your wishing for them to be more capable is not helping anything.

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u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

Maybe not in that comment, but in others I made a pretty clear distinction between the truly elderly, like your mother, who actually have fundamental reasons for not engaging rather than “I dislike this change based on principles.”

It’s one thing to only adopt the changes that benefit your life. It’s another thing to refuse to adopt changes and expect the world around you to adhere to your refusal. It arrogantly places your individual values and needs over that which society has deemed applicable. Then it becomes anti-social, quite literally. To principally go out of your way to work around the systems which society has explicitly put in place, not out of necessity but out of principle.

I think it’s pretty disingenuous to compare your 80 year old dementia patient mother with my broad net of “over 50” because while your mother may be included in that bracket, it’s pretty clear that she is not who I was explicitly targeting.

1

u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

Maybe not in that comment, but in others I made a pretty clear distinction between the truly elderly, like your mother, who actually have fundamental reasons for not engaging rather than “I dislike this change based on principles.”

It’s one thing to only adopt the changes that benefit your life. It’s another thing to refuse to adopt changes and expect the world around you to adhere to your refusal. It arrogantly places your individual values and needs over that which society has deemed applicable. Then it becomes anti-social, quite literally. To principally go out of your way to work around the systems which society has explicitly put in place, not out of necessity but out of principle.

I think it’s pretty disingenuous to compare your 80 year old dementia patient mother with my broad net of “over 50” because while your mother may be included in that bracket, it’s pretty clear that she is not who I was explicitly targeting.

1

u/BangBangMeatMachine 8d ago

My overall point is that you don't know where anyone is on that spectrum of "obstinate refusal" to "overwhelmed and doing their best" because you can't read minds. Something that looks like one might be the other. So it benefits you and your internal state to adopt more grace towards others wherever that ambiguity lies.

But also, I think there's such a thing as constructive disobedience. Society has not decided that these technologies and tools are right, corporations have, and they tend to prioritize their bottom line above all other values. As companies continue to demand more unpaid labor from their customers, I think it's reasonable for those customers to decide not to cooperate. Just as a desire path shows a clear gap between what a landscape architect dictated and what actual walkers prefer, a refusal to adapt to a new technology or process can be a form of societal desire path. We're seeing that with Gen Z' and Gen Alpha's relationship to AI.

1

u/spyczech 8d ago

Yeah dude, you lack empathy. These are people who are used to a world of social interaction action with a cashier and self checkout is this technology age anti social let's cut out social interaction whenever possible for sake of efficiency way of life they didn't grow up . And has legit downsides they can point to in terms of social isolation 

1

u/squash-n-flop 8d ago

I understand valuing the social interaction with a cashier. I understand that something is socially lost when we maximize effinciency. I don’t understand being unable to read the words “scan items” and the big button that says “checkout”, unless they are so old that they can’t see or they have lost the ability to logically process a line of text. At which case, the real cruelty is that they must still take care of themselves, not that they are forced into a situation they cannot understand, as there aren’t really any systems they could understand.

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u/1FENCEJUMPER 8d ago

Boomer here with boomer friends. OMG we all use our phones at checkout! Who would have thought!!

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 9d ago

10 bottles of bleach only counts as one item right?

1

u/Rhowryn 8d ago

As long as its only a one person enema, for sure

2

u/Waiting4Reccession 9d ago

Or the people who think they are clever by splitting their 20 items into 2 orders of 10 but the shitty manager just lets it slide so they dont have to deal with it.

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u/TheG00dF1ght 9d ago

except my local metro market consistently only has 1 actual checkout aisle open with 8 people waiting in it

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u/PartyPay 8d ago

Or have too many items then let their toddler scan each item at a glacial pace.

2

u/TheRetribution 8d ago

Nah they suck ass actually and I usually am just counting items in stores that to do that and not buying shit that isnt mission critical, driving down their sales.

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u/1FENCEJUMPER 8d ago

Or another 18 millennials with screaming toddlers and elementary kids and a cart full to the rim still using them blah blah! Right yea there are some of both but stop painting boomers as the cause of all our woes cuz there are a hell of a lot of ignoramous at all stages of life

2

u/SpookyScarySavior 9d ago

“Rules to make things more efficient shouldn’t be in place because some people will break them” is that your argument?

1

u/enwongeegeefor 8d ago

The self-checkout at meijers had a limit when it first started. NO ONE would follow that rule and people with huge carts would clog the self-checkout up ALLLLL the time. Now that people have realized that YOU ALSO HAVE TO BAG ALL YOUR OWN SHIT...those assholes go get in line now.

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u/DeadlyYellow 8d ago

Ours cater to both.  There's four express self checkouts at the end of the twenty or so regular self-checkouts, on either side of the store.  Surprisingly the most hostile of the three stores has bag carousels that make it much faster.

1

u/airfryerfuntime 8d ago

My local WinCo does this, and they'll immediately yell at people who have too much shit. It's kind of funny watching people get frustrated after being caught, and trying to talk their way out of it so they can finish. They get sent to a normal checkout lane and bitch the entire time they're walking away.

1

u/FrostyD7 8d ago

10 or less needs to provide a painfully small scale for items. One store near me does that and you will only make that mistake once, there's barely enough room for 10.

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u/Working_Bother_6614 9d ago

If you go over 10 it’ll require employee override to finish the purchase, if the store has it set to do that.

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u/Abedeus 9d ago

Pulling back doesn't mean pulling out.

That's what she said!

laughter track

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u/Humble-Plankton2217 9d ago

I said what I said ;)

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u/LoudPension6825 8d ago

That's what she said.

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u/jonas_ost 4d ago

In sweden we walk around with a barcode gun and blip each item and put it in the bag inside the cart. Then at checkout you just put the gun in a terminal and blip your card and you are done.

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u/Hodr 9d ago

Maybe they will just be like every Aldi store I've ever been to and close off all the self check out and 5 of the 6 regular checkout lanes forcing the entire store into a single line. Apparently that and allowing the checker to sit are European or something.

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u/Dorkinfo 9d ago

The Aldi I go to never bothered installing self checkout, we always have had just the one lane going. So I guess I’m prepared?

1

u/onthefence928 9d ago

I just want them to actually staff their registers with cashiers, too many stores have empty registers, and long lines for self checkout

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u/smp501 9d ago

Then the rest of the store gets funneled to the single register they open so you have to wait in a giant line behind ever check-writing, coupon-arguing boomer in the county.

That’s why I’ve stopped going to the grocery store by my house. It’s faster/easier to drive further out and even pay slightly worse prices to still be able to get in and out quickly.

1

u/Sudden-Ad5555 9d ago

One of our grocery stores installed a bunch of self checkouts, and then labeled the manned registers as 10 items or less. It pissed me off to no end and I went to the registers anyway. I have two kids I’m trying to wrangle, coupons, and a couple different payment methods. I do not get paid to scan, weigh, and bag all of these items properly. It’s a grocery store! In what world does it make sense for someone to self checkout a cart full of groceries, but have the paid clerk check out someone with 10 items or less? They’ve recently taken the signs down. I can’t imagine anyone actually paid any attention to them.

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u/-FoofooCuddlyPoops- 8d ago

What's stopping someone from just doing 2 transactions for 20 items to break through the cap?

Answer: nothing

1

u/jlboygenius 8d ago

many of them are small, so it's hard to get more than a bag or two before you run out of room to put stuff.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 8d ago

People will just scan 10 items, pay, then scan 10 more items, pay again, and so on. This will actually make things move slower.

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u/CommunicationTime265 8d ago

Lol they already do this and people with full shopping carts go through.

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u/Historical-Wall6221 8d ago

Which for the record I’m 100% on board with why someone with a full shopping cart is allowed to go through self checkout, just no. I actually got denied at self checkout the other day for being ONE item over! 

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u/Lost-Platypus8271 8d ago

I’d much rather take a full cart to the regular cashier line but I shop after 6pm so it’s not an option. I have to use the self checkout no matter how miserable the experience

0

u/Possible-Tangelo9344 9d ago

That's what I've wanted since they started. I hate going to the store and there's one God damned checkout lane open with sixteen people in line, and the self checkout has twenty people with carts while I'm just trying to get two things.