I would be sad to lose my beloved self checkout :( I still want real people and full service lanes for bigger / more complicated purchases, but daily small purchases are much more relaxing self-serve.

Many likely believe self-checkout saves time compared to a cashier lane, but the opposite may be true.

Oh actual cashiers are faster no doubt, but they’re almost too fast. They’ll spin 15 items through in 3 seconds and I can’t check prices or bag fast enough. Once I’ve paid I still have a minute of bagging with next in line pushing me down and 2 minutes of reading the receipt prices left… in self check out I like being able to catch prices errors as they ring up and have less pressure bagging.

In North Italy almost all groceries stores offer

Self checkout: where you do your groceries and at the end you scan the item one by one

Advanced self checkout (you are registered to the store): you get a PDA and you scan and bag all the groceries while you roam the store. Then you scan a qr, you get the total, pay and go. No Id checks for alcol or anything (sometimes you get a random partial re-reading where you get an sales person coming and scanning 3 items at random from your bag to check if you scanned them, or a total re-read)

Normal slow cashier point

Advanced self checkout is something I would never give back. Even if I buy a lot of things, the quick payment process is so quick that nothing compares.

I can enter and leave a store in under 10 minutes buying a lot of stuff (note that I go there walking multiple time per week)

I’m pretty sure delivery made it obsolete?

Curbside delivery is awesome, in many situations.

And they can afford to leave a few checkers in there for the situations that call for in-store shopping. That’s where self checkout would fail anyway.

I use self-checkout occasionally. On the one hand I don’t absolutely hate if I have a few items. Yea, I cannot scan nearly as quickly as the pros. Which is fine if I have three things. Luckily I have mever either been accused of theft myself or seen it happen to anyone else.

That said, I will absolutely not be sad to see these machines go. Nothing of value will be lost.

Hire more cashiers and pay them a living wage so they don’t have to immedeately sign up for food stamps right after being accepted into employment. Our government should not be subsidizing the billionaires, who are all mentally unwell from having long since surpassed mere riches.

I’m pretty sure I stolen bottle of wine because of the self checkout.

I’m bought a bunch of stuff and some wine, I scan to the bottle and it beeped and I put it in the bag but then no one came to ID me when it came time to paying, presumably it somehow didn’t register.

My main issue with self checkout is simple. They constantly incorrectly flag me for shoplifting and then proceed to show my shiny bald head from top down to everyone within 20 feet on the checkout screen. It is not a flattering angle.

All self-checkouts I see around here are either completely empty, or full of workers who have to help the people using them, at least about 1 worker for every 4 self-checkout stations.

They could have saved so much time and money by just paying the cashiers a living wage.

I was astounded the other day when I visited a town that had a nice busy grocery store. It was like what I imagine the 70’s were like. They had 20 lanes OPEN with cashiers quickly and efficiently ringing up items, much faster than I could, with baggers neatly and efficiently filling the bags. There were no waiting lines because everyone found a cashier lane to walk right up to as the last person was finishing up.

It was ten times faster than a self checkout.

I rarely see that anymore. Its usually one lone cashier and a bunch of people waiting for a self checkout machine.

Good. Fuck self check out.

Pretty funny coincidence here

This feels surreal, self checkout is insanely normal here and theres no scales and or other sensors besides normal cctv. Switzerland, for context.

I definitely prefer self checkout, I’m already shopping for myself why not just checkout myself.

Think about it, were already doing the Labour the shopkeeper used to do by picking our own grocery, so is self checkout not just the logical next step.

Outside of wages and the evilness of Walmart and shit I’m just talking about pure tech and grocery stores that actually pay a living wage.

I’m mixed.

I dislike peopling in person, and I hate lines with a passion, but I also hate putting cashiers out of business, running the register myself, and waiting for one person in charge of 17 registers to come over and figure out WTF just went wrong with the checkout process, which is also peopleing and lines.

The article talks about time savings but it was always about labor costs and I have a hard time believing it didn’t deliver on that front.