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Part of the problem is that the self checkouts are super paranoid about preventing theft. If you put your bag on the output you get in trouble, your child puts
by kevincox 6y ago
Part of the problem is that the self checkouts are super paranoid about preventing theft. If you put your bag on the output you get in trouble, your child puts their hand on the scale you need cashier assistance, you don't wait long enough after the last item for it to be weighed and you need to start . It's literally impossible to go fast! I don't know if it is justified. But it seems surprising as I could easily just put something in my bag if I wanted to steal it, I don't know why I would bother putting it into the scale.
Of course the cashier will always be faster, they are familiar with the interface, know where most of the barcodes are and have the codes of most non-barcoded items memorized.
But self-checkout could be much faster by removing some anti-features (from the customer POV). I have seen a couple of stores with a better solution where you pick up a scanner at the start and scan your items as you go. This has the advantage of parallelizing most of the process instead of clogging up on big expensive machines. In fact with the ability to check out on that device you could probably get by with just a "Customer Service" desk for when something goes wrong.
- maartenh 6y agoIn the Netherlands, self-checkout doesn't use scales. I simply scan all the items in my basket, and put them in my backpack immediately. Once in a while, you are flagged, and a sample of your items are scanned to make the probability low that you are stealing something. Scanning the loyalty card helps to prevent too many checks over time. All in all, the total overhead next to scanning your items is a mere few seconds. This is a huge contrast with my experience in the UK. Those scanners are talking, are slow to move between states, require you to put everything from one to another scale. This is indeed often slower than a human worker, and amazes me to no end.
- kevincox 6y agoThat sounds way better, and quite possibly more effective at actually catching shoplifting. My experience in the UK, Ireland US and Canada has been the bad example as you have described. It seems to be a classic case of bureaucratic risk aversion without proper cost analysis.
- a_c_s 6y agoSome items like fresh fruits & vegetables are usually loose & sold by weight. How are things like this handled without scales?
- maartenh 6y agoThere is/are scale(s) in the vegatable/fruit corner, and one next to the self checkout corner.
- saltminer 6y agoI much prefer self-checkouts because of the forced conversations cashiers are forced to have and cashiers just being bad at bagging, but they really do slow down the process. The scanner locks for a couple seconds after an item is scanned (even if there is no weight check or other delay screen), presumably to prevent double scanning for slower customers, but it just becomes a giant PITA when I have small items I could scan and toss into my bag in 10 seconds if they'd just remove the delay and it ends up being closer to a minute since it'll probably pause to reweigh a couple times in addition to the normal delay.
- badwolf 6y agoPurposefully slowing down every step of the checkout process is the biggest reason I refuse to use self checkout.
- sethammons 6y agoI avoid self-checkout at most stores because of this. Just too much a pain in the butt, never mind if I have a lot of items and they can't even fit in the baggage area! Walmart has this figured out. You just scan the item. Done. No scales, no anti-theft I can tell aside from a person watching.
- gowld 6y agoWalmart just launched a terrible AI self checkout monitor that everyone hates.