re: People who won’t use self checkouts….

I always use self checkout so I can steal items.

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How is it benefitting the customer? You don't pay a cheaper price for using it and they aren't paying you to do the work.

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Because I never have to wait in line and I can ring it out and bag it quicker.

Pio refuses to use self checkouts as he loses his choice of how to place the separation barrier.

I’ll use them sometimes. Other times I wait in line to let the employee do their job. I don’t get a discount for using self-checkout.

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Then give me a discount for doing 2/3’s of the work myself.

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They already have. Less employees and underpaid ones at that allow that grocery store to reduce prices on their already razor thin margins. The grocery business is easily one of the most competitive in the entire economy. Reducing cost on the #1 overhead item of running a business allows them to be more competitive.

How people don’t see this is beyond me. Does the store pocket some of that saving they offer you? Sure they do, as is their right, because doing otherwise would be stupid for the risk they take on by running the business in the first place.

You want lower prices? There is always a trade off. If you can afford it shop elsewhere and be happy.

(no message)

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Self checkout doesn’t automate anything…

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The term is a reference to utilizing technology in a way to perform the same task that paid labor was used to perform. The software is different when turned over to the customer. Many locations attempt to minimize theft with additional measures that they automate. There’s no shortage of examples already on this thread and businesses are going through the process of discovery to find the right balance of theft protection and customer satisfaction.

Giving frustrated customers the option to handle that task themselves is a customer-friendly way to economize the process.

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I hear people refuse to use self checkouts because they claim its taking someones job.

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I’ve never heard anyone say this. (ETA: Until I read the post above mine. )

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Or they say that they don’t work there so they will not do the job the store employees are paid to do.

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It’s about convenience.

If I have a handful of items and the self-checkout is actually fast, sure. I don’t really mind it at all.

If I have a cart full of shite, I don’t really want to deal with the hassle. Most grocery stores, in their infinite wisdom, have made the self checkout kiosks like 2’x2’ with nowhere to place items before or after scanning. So you have to pull each item out of the cart, scan it, bag it, then put the bag back in the cart as soon as it’s full.

Instead of putting all of your shite on the conveyor and then putting all of the bagged items back in your cart, you’re trying to do both (and scanning the items) at the same time. It’s fricking annoying when you have a lot of groceries. The process used to involve 3 people with a ~3’x8’ area to organize shite, now it’s one person with a 2’x2’ kiosk.

Then on top of that, people are naturally slower at scanning items than the cashier who does it all day long. Where’s the barcode on this shite? Oops, it double-scanned for some reason. frick, let me fix that. OK what do I need to get out of the cart next to bag with this bread, since there’s nowhere for me to fricking put it except back in the cart?

That 1 customer trying to check out with a weekly grocery run takes way more than 3x as long as the 3 people (1 customer + 2 employees) that did it previously. It’s less efficient.

But let’s say the average person could self checkout their weekly groceries just as efficiently as a normal checkout with a bagger. Hell, let’s say that they can even do it with the same efficiency as a lane without a bagger. That would mean the average person takes ~twice as long to self checkout compared to a traditional lane.

If that were the case, the store going from cashiers to self checkout would need at least 2x as many registers. Maybe that happens in new grocery stores. Existing grocery stores (especially Walmart) like to add 4-8 self checkout kiosks then completely shut down the 10-20 existing lanes. So you’re just stuck waiting in line longer, on top of the inconvenience.

/rant

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The term is a reference to utilizing technology in a way to perform the same task that paid labor was used to perform.

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Having the customer perform the task instead of the employee is not automation, it’s a reduction in service.