4 ms·

I don't understand this "20 or 30 seconds" comment, it takes more like 20 minutes to wait in line and scan all items, then pay. I use Uber mainly because I can

I don't understand this "20 or 30 seconds" comment, it takes more like 20 minutes to wait in line and scan all items, then pay. I use Uber mainly because I can walk out the cab without paying, and that's a real twenty seconds.

seszett 9y ago
20 minutes? In France we have these manual scanners that you can carry around the supermarket and scan items as you put them in your bag. Then when you exit the store, semi-randomly an employee will rescan part of your items, or all of them (it happens more often if you often forget to scan things - which can happen, but it can also be wilful shoplifting of course). Then you pay and the gate opens. Most of the time it does take about 30 seconds, also you don't have to get your stuff out of your bag and you know all along how much you're going to pay. I think I haven't used the regular lines for years.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  Same here in Italy. I use them all the time.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >Most of the time it does take about 30 seconds, also you don't have to get your stuff out of your bag and you know all along how much you're going to pay. And this latter has an interesting side effect. At the time these readers were introduced the "message" to the public was "your convenience, faster checkout" (while actually the reason was "let us reduce the number of cashiers"). What was soon found out was that the "poor man's average shopping" was raised by some 10-15%. Imagine you go to the supermarket and you only have in your pocket a single 50 Euro (or 50 dollars) note. You put things in your basket making a mental calculation of the total amount in order to avoid, when you checkout, if the total is more than 50, to have to leave some item (and also to avoid the "social shame"). With the new method, where you can see your progressive total, that kind of shopping has raised from 42-45 to 48-50, i.e. people use "all they have" without risking to "look bad".
  - adamio 9y ago
    who is this hypothetical poor man who's so bad at managing money that an exact total of the amount he's spending will cause him to overspend ?
    - jaclaz 9y ago
      >who is this hypothetical poor man who's so bad at managing money that an exact total of the amount he's spending will cause him to overspend ? It is not hypothetical, it is a peculiar - but not so uncommon - man/woman with a limited amount of money in his/her hands (and of course no credit card or similar), the single 50 in the example (but it could be 20 or 100) banknote. He/she is willing to spend the whole amount of money, but before didn't because he/she was afraid to be seen as having only that given limited amount of money and by making approximate mental calculation tended to undereestimate (or if you prefer preferred to be on the safe side). With the barcode reader he/she can spend the whole amount of money he/she has available with no risk of appearing (to the cashier, to the people in queue) as "poor". The poiont is not that with the new system this kind of "poor" people overspend, rather it is that before it underspent.
  - janekm 9y ago
    When I'm using the app-based version of this kind of system, I find myself much more likely to put an item back on the shelf when I see the price come up in the app (or when I notice how high my total bill is getting). Being surprised at the total spend after visiting a supermarket used to be quite common for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that experience! Of course Amazon are well aware of this psychology and only send you the bill after you leave the store...
- melkiaur 9y ago
  > it does take about 30 seconds As long as there's nobody in the queue, and the "scannette" (yes, that's how they're called) still has enough battery, and you haven't tried to buy razor-blades which require a manual action from an attendant to remove the theft-protection device, and the granny in front of you isn't trying to pay with coins.
  - seszett 9y ago
    Never had a problem with battery or a queue that lasted more than a minute or so (either at Carrefour or Auchan, some of the largest ones in Lille). The manual action doesn't take long because the attendant has little to do, and I don't use the lane where you can pay with cash, but the many others that only take a credit card.
vertex-four 9y ago
Wait what? Every time I've ever shopped in the UK, it's taken on the order of a minute or two. Are US stores really that inefficient?
- mlevental 9y ago
  it depends where you live. in NYC I have waited in line for on the order of 10 minutes before. in podunk I have never waited (supermarket wait is actually one of the only things I complained about after moving to NYC)
  - b4lancesh33t 9y ago
    TJ's in Manhattan on Friday evening can have a line that wraps all the way around the store, even with forty registers going.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kweks 9y ago
  Supermarket checkouts in France are woefully slow and ineffecient. I've lived here for 10 years, and it drives me crazy. - Cashiers do not pack for you. (Most other countries, they will bag as they go. Groceries are plonked on the other side. - ..which means that the cashier cannot / will not progress with another client until the previous person has packed their stuff. This can take.. a .. long .. time. - You can still pay via cheque in a supermarket. This requires cutting the cheque, manually sighting two pieces of ID, scanning the cheque, processing the payment. The little scanner devices take.. 30 seconds to do a scan. - Stores are horribly understaffed. They constantly have 20% less people that they should. So you move to the self-checkout machines, that constantly error if you place an item too quickly / slowly / on top of another item. There are definitely pain-points to solve in this area.
  - IanCal 9y ago
    We have to pack ourselves in the UK too, but it doesn't take long you just put things in bags as they're scanning the next one. Or in Aldi where they fire things through like a machine gun, put it in your basket / trolley and go and pack it elsewhere.
arkades 9y ago
20-30s is just flat-out unheard of where I live (east coast). It doesn’t happen - not in Costco, not in Stop&shop, and certainly not at TJs. Removing check-out times from my Saturday morning shopping routine - which, as it includes hitting three stores for the various best deals and exclusive products my household prefers, guarantees a wait of 20+ mins in at least one of the shops - would probably give me back 40-60 minutes in total. That’s a /lot/ more than 30s.

seszett 9y ago

20 minutes? In France we have these manual scanners that you can carry around the supermarket and scan items as you put them in your bag. Then when you exit the store, semi-randomly an employee will rescan part of your items, or all of them (it happens more often if you often forget to scan things - which can happen, but it can also be wilful shoplifting of course). Then you pay and the gate opens. Most of the time it does take about 30 seconds, also you don't have to get your stuff out of your bag and you know all along how much you're going to pay. I think I haven't used the regular lines for years.

danmaz74 9y ago
Same here in Italy. I use them all the time.
jaclaz 9y ago
>Most of the time it does take about 30 seconds, also you don't have to get your stuff out of your bag and you know all along how much you're going to pay. And this latter has an interesting side effect. At the time these readers were introduced the "message" to the public was "your convenience, faster checkout" (while actually the reason was "let us reduce the number of cashiers"). What was soon found out was that the "poor man's average shopping" was raised by some 10-15%. Imagine you go to the supermarket and you only have in your pocket a single 50 Euro (or 50 dollars) note. You put things in your basket making a mental calculation of the total amount in order to avoid, when you checkout, if the total is more than 50, to have to leave some item (and also to avoid the "social shame"). With the new method, where you can see your progressive total, that kind of shopping has raised from 42-45 to 48-50, i.e. people use "all they have" without risking to "look bad".
- adamio 9y ago
  who is this hypothetical poor man who's so bad at managing money that an exact total of the amount he's spending will cause him to overspend ?
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    >who is this hypothetical poor man who's so bad at managing money that an exact total of the amount he's spending will cause him to overspend ? It is not hypothetical, it is a peculiar - but not so uncommon - man/woman with a limited amount of money in his/her hands (and of course no credit card or similar), the single 50 in the example (but it could be 20 or 100) banknote. He/she is willing to spend the whole amount of money, but before didn't because he/she was afraid to be seen as having only that given limited amount of money and by making approximate mental calculation tended to undereestimate (or if you prefer preferred to be on the safe side). With the barcode reader he/she can spend the whole amount of money he/she has available with no risk of appearing (to the cashier, to the people in queue) as "poor". The poiont is not that with the new system this kind of "poor" people overspend, rather it is that before it underspent.
- janekm 9y ago
  When I'm using the app-based version of this kind of system, I find myself much more likely to put an item back on the shelf when I see the price come up in the app (or when I notice how high my total bill is getting). Being surprised at the total spend after visiting a supermarket used to be quite common for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that experience! Of course Amazon are well aware of this psychology and only send you the bill after you leave the store...
melkiaur 9y ago
> it does take about 30 seconds As long as there's nobody in the queue, and the "scannette" (yes, that's how they're called) still has enough battery, and you haven't tried to buy razor-blades which require a manual action from an attendant to remove the theft-protection device, and the granny in front of you isn't trying to pay with coins.
- seszett 9y ago
  Never had a problem with battery or a queue that lasted more than a minute or so (either at Carrefour or Auchan, some of the largest ones in Lille). The manual action doesn't take long because the attendant has little to do, and I don't use the lane where you can pay with cash, but the many others that only take a credit card.

vertex-four 9y ago

Wait what? Every time I've ever shopped in the UK, it's taken on the order of a minute or two. Are US stores really that inefficient?

mlevental 9y ago
it depends where you live. in NYC I have waited in line for on the order of 10 minutes before. in podunk I have never waited (supermarket wait is actually one of the only things I complained about after moving to NYC)
- b4lancesh33t 9y ago
  TJ's in Manhattan on Friday evening can have a line that wraps all the way around the store, even with forty registers going.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kweks 9y ago
Supermarket checkouts in France are woefully slow and ineffecient. I've lived here for 10 years, and it drives me crazy. - Cashiers do not pack for you. (Most other countries, they will bag as they go. Groceries are plonked on the other side. - ..which means that the cashier cannot / will not progress with another client until the previous person has packed their stuff. This can take.. a .. long .. time. - You can still pay via cheque in a supermarket. This requires cutting the cheque, manually sighting two pieces of ID, scanning the cheque, processing the payment. The little scanner devices take.. 30 seconds to do a scan. - Stores are horribly understaffed. They constantly have 20% less people that they should. So you move to the self-checkout machines, that constantly error if you place an item too quickly / slowly / on top of another item. There are definitely pain-points to solve in this area.
- IanCal 9y ago
  We have to pack ourselves in the UK too, but it doesn't take long you just put things in bags as they're scanning the next one. Or in Aldi where they fire things through like a machine gun, put it in your basket / trolley and go and pack it elsewhere.

arkades 9y ago

20-30s is just flat-out unheard of where I live (east coast). It doesn’t happen - not in Costco, not in Stop&shop, and certainly not at TJs. Removing check-out times from my Saturday morning shopping routine - which, as it includes hitting three stores for the various best deals and exclusive products my household prefers, guarantees a wait of 20+ mins in at least one of the shops - would probably give me back 40-60 minutes in total. That’s a /lot/ more than 30s.