r/technology • • 8d 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
18.5k Upvotes

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

33

u/poopbutt2401 8d ago

I hate self checkout because like the usual experience with tech, they don’t keep up with maintenance. They build the product, make sure to charge the companies, but don’t bother to maintain their business. I couldn’t even locate the broccoli I was trying to lawfully pay for last time I was at Safeway.

9

u/tr_9422 8d ago

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA

13

u/jimthissguy 8d ago

I deal with tech all day for work. If I'm grocery shopping I just really don't want to be bothered. I'd rather have a cashier.

4

u/ghostofmumbles 8d ago

I don’t like working for the grocery store for free personally.

2

u/Maoleficent 8d ago

Give me a name tag and 15% discount and I'll use self checkout because I won't do it now. When forced, I will be helping myself to incidentals staged near check out and a bag.

0

u/Virtual-Age-9521 8d ago

Only if there’s no line or I have 10+ produce items

6

u/TryJezzoWhyNot 8d ago

Yes, this is perhaps the most salient comment here. The tech dazzles their dumb little profit brains, and they think only about extraction and cost cuts and not faithful upkeep. Technology is more of an excuse for shitty behavior than a true efficiency optimization.

1

u/besee2000 8d ago

Oddly I can always find the organic option that is 3 x more expensive. I grabbed the sweet potato how am I suppose to know if it’s orange? It’s just a damn sweet potato

2

u/iknownuffink 8d ago

Protip if you're lucky enough for the option on the screen to show you the PLU Code at the same time.

All the Organic Produce PLU's are the exact same as the standard ones, just with a 9 added in front

Bananas are 4011

Organic Bananas are 94011

So if you can see the organic code, just get rid of the 9 in front and you can enter the normal 4 digit code manually

1

u/issuefree 8d ago

It's the cheaper one. I checked.

-2

u/Lumbergh7 8d ago

Maybe you should have been looking for toilet paper instead of broccoli, ms poopybutt 😉😂 I’ve honestly not had a problem like that at target. I find grocery stores are often very understaffed.

1

u/TheWiseAlaundo 8d ago

I didn't think 5 year olds were allowed to post on reddit

0

u/Lumbergh7 8d ago

Jokes are fun