I like self checkout as an option, almost everywhere.
I DON’T like REQUIRED self checkout.
I actually really dislike it. I hate how it takes away lots of jobs from people. For example, there used to be a lot of retarded people who did bagging. That was an awesome way to get them into the workforce.
I understand some people don’t like social interaction and like self check out, but they should suck it up.
I don’t mind self checkout. It turns out i can be so incompetent that the self checkout watcher has to scan everything for me.
O green peppers are 99 cents each but red and yellow are 1.29? That’s so weird all these peppers I’m buying are green.
Fuck you, I’m the cashier now.
Bill Burr: “what’re you gonna do? cut my hours?”
Also
Oh, something didnt scan and you walked out without paying for it?
Enjoy your broken spine as cops appear in full swat outfit and tackle you to the ground and beat you with clubs because you are shocked and arent immediately calm and compliant.
Clearly a joke, but they will start a record for you till they can get you for a felony…
Start a felony charge for a loaf of bread?
give me a break. These companies cut corners every where they go. You think there stocking up on hard drives and algorithms to cut up and record people?
You sweet summer child…
Yeah I’m not paid to use your stupid machine properly. I generally avoid self-checkout and never use it if I have a manually entered item. When there are no full service registers or only one, you know I’m going to be extra sloppy with the self-checkout.
I generally avoid self-checkout and never use it if I have a manually entered item.
At a certain point you’re just denying yourself the savings. Go get that informal employee discount!
I’m against what Walmart especially has done by remodelling stores and removing their checkout lanes and replacing them all with self checkout.
but I have nothing against a store having a couple self checkout lanes.
Cause they are nice to have if you only bought one or two things, and don’t want to wait behind a full cart… or if you are buying something you are personally embarrassed about and don’t want to have a cashier see.
Self Checkout should be a very minor option valuable to a select few.
not the primary means of checking out for everyone.
At Costco it’s great minus the membership checks. Thanks this was a quick process, now let me stop and take my card out so you can see I’m not stealing deals.
Walmart, fuck you hire more cashier’s why am I waiting 10 minutes to checkout at self checkout when you have 50 closed fucking lanes!
My Costco has had “self checkout” for about a year now. There’s a Costco employee that waves you over and scans all your items. I really don’t get it.
No they aren’t they are gonna lean in even harder what a dumbass story. One time fixed cost will always win over paying people in perpetuity
Kroger here just added two more lanes of self-checkout. We won’t use them. We’re a family of 3. We buy a lot of groceries. Doing it by ourselves would take so much more time.
I keep seeing stories every so often on Facebook about this. I feel like these stories just pop up to bring up engagement on the site. most stores in my area (Florida) have increased self checkout
Remember kids, if you see someone shoplifting or switching the barcodes at your big-box self-checkout: No you didn’t.
Especially when these people aren’t shoplifting big-ticket items like TVs. They’re shoplifting things they’re desperate for like food.
Oh - that I just don’t care about. Do you care about the wage theft they’re committing? It’s at a far larger scale than any shoplifting.Why are you so concerned with protecting a massive multi-billionaire-owned company plagued with ethical issues? Are those billionaire boots super-tasty or something?I am not a smart man.
Huh? How am I protecting them when I’m saying don’t stop people if they shoplift food from them?
My reading comprehension is atrocious, apparently.
Sorry.
unexpected item in the bagging area. place items in the bagging area. unexpected item in the bagging area.
Even worse, here in Canada at the Sobeys owned stores, you can opt to use your own reusable bag (plastic grocery bags are now outlawed) but if you do they prompt an employee to come check your bags. They never actually check, but if there isn’t an attendant around you just have to wait there until they notice and end the prompt. I waited for 10 minutes the other day because the employee went off for a break or something.
Edit: spelling
You know, around the 5-7 minute mark I’d be dumping my reusable bags and walking out.
I would’ve but I had just spent an hour getting a cart full of groceries and I wasn’t about to go do that again somewhere else. Plus I couldn’t imagine, at the time, they’d be gone that long.
I’d keep the bags. You get what you give.
Is this really something people struggle with? I don’t understand this complaint. I haven’t actually heard that alert in decades.
Edit: thanks to the few of you who have answered. I’m not saying I don’t have any problems with self checkout—the overhead camera always thinks I’m stealing the soft drink or prescription or whatever that I leave in my cart, for instance—but my problem isn’t ever with the scale thing, even though that’s always the joke everyone makes.
You heard that message decades ago?
Yep. My local grocery store had them in 2003, and that was probably the last time I heard that message.
Okay buddy
But you still haven’t answered the question yet. I’m not saying I don’t have any problems with self checkout, but I never have that problem anymore, and haven’t since the Bush administration, even though that’s always the joke people drive into the ground. I have way more trouble with the camera.
What question?
Whether this is an actual problem you have or just a joke that everyone tells.
The closest grocery store closest to my house is the only self-checkout store around me that still uses scales and they’re awful. There are certain items it doesn’t pick up on and it forces you to bag your groceries after checking out, making everything slower. I avoid that place at all costs, even though it’s the closest to me.
I think they all still have scales, but I think most people’s problems must be with poorly-calibrated ones or something. I haven’t had trouble with them in a very long time. What I have trouble with is the camera above assuming I’m stealing and summoning a person every single time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the ones I use have a disabled scale, but only that one grocery store I mentioned actually uses it. It could be that they have poorly calibrated scales, but if that’s the case, then all of the ones they use are. Self-checkout everywhere else is a breeze.
When I worked at a grocery store, the attendant could override the “unexpected item” alert and it would re-tare the scale, causing problems for the next person if it wasn’t actually broken. I bet that’s what’s happened at the store you avoid; just years and years of careless attendants overriding too quickly and messing up the calibration.
still alive and well at CVS in Manhattan as of last week. using your own bag just instantly locks the machine, even if you want to place it on the floor. I just abandoned it and went to the real checkout.
Interesting. Around here they all have options for if you’re using your own bag. You just hit the button and it tells you to put your bags on the machine, and then you go on with your life. Sad they haven’t rolled that out everywhere.
Jokes on them, I shoplift at the staffed checkout too.
Walmarts’s self checkout is the only one in my area that doesn’t frustrate the hell out of me. I’ve stopped going to certain other stores simply because I don’t like their self checkout systems.
I’m autistic. I always apparently seem weird to people. That means any time I use a self checkout, the minders stare at me because they think I’m about to steal something. It makes me nervous, and I start getting uncomfortable and self conscious, which I’m sure makes me seem even more suspicious. And either security or the automated system have triggered the “please wait for an associate” so many times. But they always look at the video and tell me “Sorry, this thing is just sensitive/weird/whatever excuse.”, then leave me alone.
I’m not going to call it discriminatory, because I don’t think it is? But it feels like I have to be on my best behavior or I’ll get arrested because I was so focused on trying to pass as “normal” that I missed scanning a tomato. And for the record, I’ve never stolen anything, even when I was low on food and really needed some stuff I couldn’t afford. Hell, I have forgotten to scan something once and went back in to pay for it.
Self checkout sucks, but it’s normally still better than waiting in line and interacting face to face with a cashier.
I feel like a criminal the second I enter a store, I’ve felt like this for at least the past decade, it’s like everyone is a suspect… Like damn I’m just here to buy milk and bread…
Walmart wants to do some sort of AI surveillance shit at their self-checkouts, I noped the fuck out of that and go to their clerks now.
I stopped taking my phone out at WalMart after I learned that their security cameras are so good that they can zoom in on your phone and read your text messages.
Grocery store self checkout machines can be infuriating. The weight sensors are way too tightly monitored and often have the incorrect weight programmed. Every time I go to the main grocery store near me I need help from the employee due to their terrible sensors not detecting the weight of lighter items in the bagging area.
In my experience, self-checkout started with the weight sensors, rather than adding them later. I’ve noticed some stores have a system now without the weight thing, which probably cuts down on confusing and time-consuming error situations, but it makes it seem chaotic. My parents use them in the most fucked up way - leave everything in the cart, scan stuff, bag it, then put it in the cart, and I’m just WHAT? Aren’t they going to accuse you of stealing? Some walmarts aggressively pursue claims of theft from self checkout, like in the case of this lady who was awarded 2.1 million after being accused of stealing, which she said was not true. This article details the story of a lady who said she was arrested after not scanning things by accident, and the article notes “Sixty-two other people were cited and released by police at the same Tucson Walmart between January 2021 and April 2022.”
During the civil trial, which lasted about three weeks, the judge criticized Walmart for the “intentional loss” of the security camera footage, according to court records. The judge, James T. Patterson, said that the court would advise the jury that the videotapes “were destroyed by the defendants with the intent” to deprive the plaintiff of the benefit of seeing them “and that the jury therefore is to presume that the content of the missing videos would be adverse” to the defendants.
Walmart also is starting to use ‘AI’ to detect self checkout theft, which I’m sure will be foolproof and work out great.
And if you’re wondering which item causes the most problems, it’s milk. O’Herlihy explains, “People find it hard to scan milk … Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don’t scan it.”
What?
Anyway, I’m sure they love not paying employees to do this, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
And if you’re wondering which item causes the most problems, it’s milk. O’Herlihy explains, “People find it hard to scan milk … Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don’t scan it.”
Does milk not have a bar code?
If anything, I’d figure it would be produce items that would cause the most drama, but eventually you start to remember those codes. 4011 is bananas. 4799 is for tomatoes. 4065 is green peppers…
I love self-checkout because I bag things exactly like I want and I can get the process completed without having chat with the cashier or Karen out on the bagger for putting just two items in a large paper bag.
I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped or accused of stealing things, but then I usually choose the unit closest to the cashier and I leave all my items in the bagging area until I’m done. That said, I used to be a grocery store cashier, so I understand the process a little better than most, but it’s still easy to make mistakes.
Probably because it sweats and the pure white nature might make the laser more reflective? Only thing I can think of.
As long as shrink stays below what they save by removing cashiers they will stay. It may be location specific removals at high shrink stores.
At my Walmart the employees don’t stop people from stealing food. They told me as much.
Don’t get it. Sam’s and BJs both have scanning apps on the phone. Most amazing tech ever! Costco… HURRY UP! Also, Sam’s and Bjs don’t check my card because I WOULDNT BE ABLE TO BUY ANYTHING WITHOUT THE CARD ANYWAYS… Costco!!
It’s so that you can’t share your card with friends. You specifically have to live at the same place and have proof when you add them to the account
I avoid self-checkout as often as possible. In my mind, that’s taking a job away from a physical person, it’s a cost-savings for the retailer, but customers never see any benefit from it. I choose the person checkout everytime as my little bit of solidarity with my fellow humans.
I’m the opposite. I use self-checkout as often as possible, because it means I have to interact with as few people as possible. I loathe people being forced to ask me how I’m doing, because we both know they don’t care. Or when they ask “Did you find everything?”- does it fucking matter? Either I did, which is why I’m checking out, or I didn’t, in which case it doesn’t fucking matter because thanks to their shitty implementation of JIT their stock has been converted from on-prem inventory to rolling warehouse deliveries every single day. Just let me get what I want and get out.
Either way the company is getting your money.
But using a real person cost the company more, in theory
So, you just want the poor to continue being poor…
The only reason for Costco to do this would be theft prevention or to make sure members are the only ones using their cards.
I guess there is good and bad with either style. I generally prefer the self checkout because I can bag my own stuff
We really need a code of etiquette for them, though. Trip to the store this morning, and they were down to 3 self-check stations from usual 10 with literally a dozen people in line. Including one couple with a cart full of a week’s groceries and one lady trying to win coupon roulette. Four other people cycled through the third scanner while those two piddled away the day.
Here in Denmark, it’s becoming more and more common to be able to scan your items with your own phone using the store’s app while you go through the store, and you can bag everything straight from the shelves.
You then pay by credit card, also with your phone, scan a QR at a designated exit, and you’re good to go.
They have random checks, but they’ve only been about 1/20 for me.
I used this as a pilot program in Pittsburgh when I lived there. It was a hand scanner running some sort of Android based OS but largely the same thing. You scan your store card to unlock a scanner, scan your stuff as you walk through the store putting things in bags, then you walk to a kiosk, pay, then walk out.
I used to get so many dirty looks from people who thought I was stealing a whole cart of groceries until they saw the receipt print out.
Doing it directly via an app would have been even better!
None of our stores here bag your stuff anymore so it doesn’t matter what line you pick.
