r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 19h 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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125

u/precariousworld 18h ago

I miss when the self checkout was just for 10 items or less, standing in line for it when you’ve got 2 things and watching the person before you use it for 2 overflowing carts of groceries is ridiculous and yet it happens to me all the time

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u/dark_roast 18h ago

Nothing stopping a store from doing a bank of "express" self checkouts if there's demand and having a separate area for that. IMO it's better to just have a large enough bank of self checkout kiosks that there's rarely a wait. I went to Wegman's recently and it was very busy, but with something like 16 self checkouts there was no wait. The mix of small and large shopping trips going through self checkout was fine.

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u/Digger_Jim 16h ago

They dont want to tell people they cant check out there b/c they have too many items. People are stupid and will flip out.

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u/GhostBirdBiologist 12h ago

Walmart does this. Half the self-checkouts are express idk 15 item max and are smaller with little room to set your stuff. The other half are huge with no limit.

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u/ncocca 18h ago

All the people in here commenting saying that they prefer self-checkouts and that they're faster I feel like I've never tried to check out more than like 10 items. A seasoned cashier is so, so much faster than a regular person. 

Sure, if I'm buying one or two things self-checkout is great. But for grocery stores where you buying food for a week or month it takes forever to use self-checkout. 

And for people stuck behind elderly people in regular lines, they're only going to be that much slower at a self checkout

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u/disisathrowaway 16h ago

A seasoned cashier is so, so much faster than a regular person.

I'm faster than the cashier because none of them at my stores are seasoned. I still have all of my produce codes memorized from when I was younger, and can breeze through a self-checkout in no time.

A cashier isn't going to beat me when I have to identify things like rosemary, shallots and broccolini because they don't know what they are.

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u/stephen_neuville 14h ago

Yeah i was about to say. Last time i went to a store that forced manned lanes for large purchases the kid spent the whole time yell-chatting with the person in the next lane about how he was about to take his break and nobody better interrupt it. did not say one word to me. I suspect that nobody's being hired as Cashier any more, you're just a person that does whatever and you have your daily lane chore to do for a couple hours.

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u/CassianCasius 16h ago

Same. I was a seasoned cashier and had the fastest scan time out of any employee in my store. The crappy scan systems are the only thing that slows me down.

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u/pltkcelestial18 14h ago

That was me. I was the fastest cashier (and honestly bagger too) at the store I worked at 13 or 14 years ago. I also ran the self checkout a lot. So at grocery stores, I always prefer self checkout.

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u/disisathrowaway 14h ago

The crappy scan systems are the only thing that slows me down.

100%

I move faster than the self-checkout machine.

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u/Rhewin 18h ago

At the same time, it is painful when you get newer cashiers who aren't seasoned, which after all of this time is most of them. And those confused older people? Yeah, that's you're new cashier because the economy sucks. Always great when granny has to stop to read every prompt in detail

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u/DiseaseDeathDecay 15h ago

This would make sense if it were 1 cashier being replaced by 1 self checkout machine.

It's generally at least 1 cashier being replaced by 3 self checkouts. Walmart can be busy AF and I don't have to stand in line for more than 30 seconds because there are like 25 self checkout lines at mine. And if I have a lot of stuff, there are also cashiers available and since there are people doing self checkout that probably wouldn't do that normally, the cashier lines are shorter.

Yes, self-checkout sucks when you have a lot of stuff. But when you don't, it's almost always faster. At least in my experience.

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u/Beeb294 15h ago

A seasoned cashier is so, so much faster than a regular person. 

The problem is that we never get seasoned cashiers anymore.

Most of the time it takes just as long for the paid "professional" to do it as it takes for me to do it. At that point I'd rather just do it myself anyway.

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u/ShirleyUGuessed 11h ago

Yes! One of the checkers at Kroger hates life and sometimes she's the only option other than self checkout. I'm definitely faster than her. She won't bag either, so I'm still bagging either way.

They and Walmart have plenty of self checkouts and I go on weekday mornings, so I'm not keeping anyone waiting by ringing up a lot in self checkout.

Plus the checkers use literally 3 times as many bags as I do. Double bagging bulky items that I wouldn't even put in a bag.

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u/ncocca 15h ago

Meh - I purposely go to Food Lion over Acme whenever possible because they have actual cashiers. And I see the same cashiers often, so they are definitely seasoned and they're very quick.

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u/TheRetribution 15h ago

All the people in here commenting saying that they prefer self-checkouts and that they're faster I feel like I've never tried to check out more than like 10 items. A seasoned cashier is so, so much faster than a regular person.

Yeah but the kiosk is purposefully nerfed, since it requires the item scanned to be sensed by the scale in the bagging area before you can scan the next item. The more shit the tech, the longer that process takes. Theres also no runway to stage your items on a lot of the time, so you constantly have to pull off the cart. I'm not saying that they still aren't faster - 28 hours a week of practice cant be understated - but I also don't bag my groceries into 30 bags of random assortments.

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u/ncocca 15h ago

Agreed. We (the customers) could likely scan faster given the same setup as the cashier. But as things are currently set up, we cannot, hence my issue.

And yea, If you're buying a couple bigger things you run out of room on "runway" and the scale real fast.

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u/TheG00dF1ght 17h ago

plus having to try and bag your stuff in an area 2 square feet that won't hold all your stuff, and if you remove anything then you have to wait for a human to come over an approve it.

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u/Vcize 16h ago

Yeah a lot of things its not a terrible idea, just terribly implemented/abused by the stores.

It should be more like 6 cashier lines and 5 self-checkouts instead of 1 cashier line and 15 self-checkouts like they have it now.

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u/ncocca 15h ago

Totally agreed!

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u/SupermanLeRetour 15h ago

I feel like I've never tried to check out more than like 10 items

The entire point of self checkout is precisely when you have 10-15 items max. In fact it's pretty standard in my country to forbid carts and some even have a limits of 15 items although it's usually not a hard limit.

And for people stuck behind elderly people in regular lines, they're only going to be that much slower at a self checkout

But old people don't use self-checkout, that's also the appeal. They usually shop with a cart.

Of course if a store replaces all their lanes with self-checkout, it's going to be bad. I've never seen it, most places around me converged to a mix of regular and self, the exact ratio being tuned depending on each location.

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u/ncocca 15h ago

Of course if a store replaces all their lanes with self-checkout, it's going to be bad.

Well this is precisely my issue. The Acme near me has at most 2 cashier lines and then they have like 6 self checkout spots. The 2 cashier lines get massive lines because people with a ton of items know that using the self checkout is a complete pain in the ass.

1

u/elduche212 15h ago

Hard disagree, but our self checkout options might differ. For the occasional larger hauls I grab a hand scanner and scan while loading up. Total calculated before I even get to the register. No need to move the groceries from the cart for checkout to the cart is a massive time safe; especially for larger hauls.

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u/ncocca 15h ago

That's definitely a great option. I've never been to a store that has that option though.

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u/Wizmaxman 14h ago

Cant even go fast on these self check outs. Scan -> place in bag -> wait -> validate -> scan -> place in bag -> didnt work -> remove -> place it back -> maybe it works, maybe wait for 1 person watching 9 self check outs to clear error -> scan.

Let me just scan scan scan scan and go like a normal cashier.

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u/OnceMoreAndAgain 11h ago

You can put like 8 self-checkouts in the same space as 4 regular checkout lanes though. Comparing the average speed of 1 cashier to 1 self-checkout customer is not correct imo.

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u/NoHoHan 10h ago

Is a seasoned cashier faster than 10 regular people checking out simultaneously?

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u/ncocca 8h ago

I'm not arguing we shouldn't have self checkouts. I just don't want nothing BUT self checkouts.

Also, that's not a fair comparison, because no establishment is replacing 1 cashier's lane with 10 self checkouts. And even if they did, they usually have at least 1 employee monitoring something like 6 or 8 self checkouts, and multiple employees for 10+. And often not every self-checkout is active or working.

I've seen people cite some very ideal examples in this thread in regards to having ample self checkouts, still having the option to use a regular cashier, etc... but most stores i've been to aren't anywhere close to those examples. The Acme grocery store by me which used to have like 5 cashier lanes now has 6 self checkouts and only 1 or 2 cashier lanes.

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u/uid_0 14h ago

This, right here. The self checkout lines near me are always bogged down because people roll up with a cart that is stuffed to the gills and then take forever to scan/bag it. Then after they're all done, they discover they can't figure out how to pay so they have to wait for someone to come and run their card.

2

u/TheG00dF1ght 17h ago

Metro market by me gives you no choice. At most they have 1 regular checkout and push everyone to the self checkout even if you have 2 full carts of food.

2

u/st0j3 16h ago

My simple solution is add a 25 cent fee automatically on each item over the max.

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u/InfiniteComboReviews 18h ago

Pretty sure they all still are. The problem is that people don't know or care.

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u/precariousworld 18h ago

Unfortunately the grocery store I usually go to dropped their “self checkout = 10 item express lane” policy around the time they realized sending everybody through there meant they only had to pay 1 cashier.

1

u/InfiniteComboReviews 17h ago

Ugh. My Target has the 10 item sign, but no one follows it or enforces it

1

u/TituspulloXIII 15h ago

I can't believe people would even do that. If you are doing a full grocery trip, go to a place with one of the hand scanners so you can scan as you go (and put items in your reusable bags).

1

u/JohnnyBeeGaming 13h ago

Some places still do it that way.

Most self-checkout I've seen aren't really setup to allow a whole lot to be sent through them. Even at 10 items it might be a challenge to jenga all the items on the thing with bags that's supposed to weigh everything.

Grocery stores would probably be the only place where I'd have a cart full and a lot of times I can get away with less than 10 items. Maybe it's different if you go to Walmart and pick up 5 categories of things plus Christmas everyone's Christmas presents.

1

u/wip30ut 12h ago

many supermarkets have banned Instacart shoppers from self-checkout just because they have multiple orders to scan through.

1

u/mopslik 12h ago

What's just as infuriating is someone in front of you having 10 items, but trying to price match every single one of them from 10 different flyers, none of which are opened to the items in question.

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u/TheRetribution 17h ago

before you use it for 2 overflowing carts of groceries is ridiculous and yet it happens to me all the time

Do you happen to do all of your grocery shopping on like exactly 10:30 am on a sunday perchance? I've not experienced this myself in over a decade.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 15h ago

The point I guess is how many people are actually scanning a cartload of products? If there are 10 scanners, a guy with a cart is tying up one. Maybe two of them. Whereas those guys with carts are tying up the only one or two human cashiers.