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I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, q

I used to work at a major multi-billion dollar retailer. One of the biggest complaints from customers was waiting at the check out line, especially for small, quick orders. This is the future of grocery stores, like it or not. Employees are expensive and make mistakes, whereas machines are cheap, don't take breaks, and work pretty reliably once you set them up correctly.

the-dude 6y ago
My favorite supermarket has regular and 'quick' checkouts. I enjoy the interaction with the employees.
- scatters 6y ago
  Do the employees enjoy the interaction with you, I wonder?
  - dominotw 6y ago
    I enjoyed interacting with customers when i worked as a cashier. But i was also a young person with lots of energy. they seem (or pretend) in: costco, whole foods, trader joes not so much in: walmart, target
    - da_big_ghey 6y ago
      Yes, HEB is probably the best at this too. Maybe along with Costco.
  - the-dude 6y ago
    If they are not, they are pretty good at faking it. And some are greeting me outside of the store. They have no obligation to do so.
  - twobitshifter 6y ago
    I was recently at a CVS and the cashier shouted out that she’d help us as we walked towards the self checkout. She was very friendly and wanted to talk about everything from the upcoming time change to the vaccine. Some people just crave interaction and with the current pandemic they may be too isolated.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Pretty often, they do enjoy people who act like the whole thing was pleasant. If you force them into long chat they will dislike it, but if you smile, are nice to them, thank and say one socially appropriate thing, they tend to like it.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > I enjoy the interaction with the employees. If you want to pay for someone to be social with you why not do that separately to shopping? Seems funny to try to mix the two.
  - devoutsalsa 6y ago
    Efficiency. Chat and shop. It’s a twofer. And if you like interaction but not having to get to close, it’s great.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      But it's not efficient, is it? These people could be doing something more productive with their time than staffing a checkout in order to make small talk.
      - null0ranje 6y ago
        They are. It's called building goodwill.
      - the-dude 6y ago
        Actually at my favorite supermarket these people are not only staffing checkouts, they are running the store : there are no managers to be seen. I enjoy seeing this group of young people given such a broad responsibility and I acknowledge them and their stellar job. And they acknowledge me. But who am I, I just enjoy Old Europe.
      - the-dude 6y ago
        I have heard from employees at supermarkets that shrinkage with self checkout is elevated to the point it does not really matter.
        Ygg2 6y ago
        You mean theft? Isn't shrinkage just term for employee theft?
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  I love the quick self service checkouts and will line up for them even when a regular staffed checkout is free. I’m just the opposite and instead dislike interaction I guess.
  - kqr 6y ago
    One implicit benefit of the self-service checkouts is that there's often one line for multiple machines. Any student of queuing theory will know how much this reduces waiting time compared to the one queue per cashier that's otherwise common.
    - sethammons 6y ago
      This one gets me every time. I’ve only ever seen a couple super markets or stores implement this for human-operated check out stations. Ross has this, and Best Buy used to during the holidays.
      - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
        Trader Joe’s does it also, at least in LA.
        clairity 6y ago
        that’s odd, none of the trader joes’s i usually go to in LA regularly have a single line. i’ve seen it irregularly, and seemingly temporarily (when especially busy perhaps).
        reallydontask 6y ago
        I've seen this in NYC too
      - kqr 6y ago
        Ironically, some smaller stores near me have implemented this just the past few months. The covid-19 rules that stipulate only a few people in the stores have created a single queue outside the store, for all cashiers! I would honestly be fine with making that permanent. It's so much easier to pick the things I want with fewer people between me and the shelves. All in all a much more efficient shopping experience.
aboringusername 6y ago
Machines are even better then that, they generate digital data which unlocks all sorts of possibilities. Amazon could not care less if they lost $1,000,000,0 in stock if they had the data to back that up (sensor data, images, video), which is worth that much to optimize their systems and become a 'leader' which can make money itself. It's why they want to sell data gathering devices so cheaply, cameras, smart assistants, prime, anything that gives them information they can use for AI is a money maker to them. Even if a machine is terrible and useless, you can collect that useless information/data and use it as a data point for other machines that are perhaps not so terrible, any data point is useful afterall. Machines are the future for that reason alone.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
machines implement stupid broken ux patterns which make shopping hell. on edit: evidently people would like their supermarket checkout experience to be as pleasing as the typical online shopping experience, thus a quick downvote.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  I agree. I've found self-checkout (of the variety common in US supermarkets) to be no faster than employee-run checkout for normal grocery loads. It may be faster for a handful of items, but once the shopper has many items, particularly a lot of produce, the lookup mechanism (picture matching, usually) for he produce slows the whole thing to stand-still. Add in manual ID verification for alcohol and drug purchases and it slows even more. Add in problems with coupons, payment, or other errors, it slows more. And then most of them have some sort of scale on the bagging end which never works well - bulk items, too many items to fit on the shelf, etc.
- msh 6y ago
  I think the average online shopping experience is, at least for me, far preferable to the average supermarket experience with queues and so on.
  - megous 6y ago
    Maybe to you, but until online shopping will be realizable via user chosen User Agent (like e-mail, etc.) via open API, online shopping will continue to suck horribly for anything but single items. Shopping for groceries online is complete hell, for one. There are queues online too. They are just at the delivery side, not at the checkout side.
    - msh 6y ago
      I often shop for groceries online in these corona times, for a family of 5. I usually use nemlig.com (a danish online super market) and I dont have any issues with the UX. Its easier than searching for things in the physical supermarket. On delivery its not really a queue as I dont have to spend my time doing it.
guerrilla 6y ago
> This is the future of grocery stores It was already the present in most of Sweden before this too. Almost every store has automated checkout im addition to manual checkout.
leetcrew 6y ago
machines may not make mistakes, but the people who program them do. I just bought a guitar for $50 under the going rate because the in store pricetag was lower than the company's own online price. the system had lost track of the guitar entirely, so they had no way of knowing they needed to update the local price. by policy, they had to pricematch themselves. the associate told me this happens all the time.
tzs 6y ago
I'm enjoying the speed of checkout at Walmart with Walmart+. With a little bit of care, checkout takes almost no time. The little bit of care is going at a time when it is not so crowded that there is a line to get to a self-checkout station. The way it works is that you scan the bar codes with the Walmart app on your smartphone as you add items to your shopping cart. The scan function is very fast. If you are adding more than one of an item, you can either scan them separately or scan once and then set the quantity. To checkout, you just go to an open self-checkout station, hit the "check out" button in the app, scan the QR code that is on the home screen of the terminal, tell it how many bags you are using (default is zero), hit "pay", and about two seconds later a confirmation appears in the app, and you can leave. The confirmation can be shown to the person at the exit to show that you have paid, although usually they don't ask. If you are buying anything sold be weight, it tells you when you add it to your cart that you'll have to weigh it at checkout. At checkout, it prompts you to put each such item on the scale, weighs it, and adds it in. It is literally 10-15 seconds from the time I enter the self-checkout area to the time I'm pushing my cart toward the exit. (I don't bag in-store. I have my reusable bags and some boxes in my car trunk, and do my bagging and/or boxing at my car). This has been great for pandemic shopping. It is fairly easy to avoid spending more than a few passing seconds around any given other shopper while going around gathering items, but when scanning and bagging a full cart of groceries at self-checkout, you might be around the same other shoppers for several minutes, some within 2 meters.
dehrmann 6y ago
I wonder how much of a concern shoplifting would be. The article says it's limited by knowing who's there and security cameras, but I also suspect it's kept in check by Swedish social norms.

the-dude 6y ago

My favorite supermarket has regular and 'quick' checkouts. I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

scatters 6y ago
Do the employees enjoy the interaction with you, I wonder?
- dominotw 6y ago
  I enjoyed interacting with customers when i worked as a cashier. But i was also a young person with lots of energy. they seem (or pretend) in: costco, whole foods, trader joes not so much in: walmart, target
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    Yes, HEB is probably the best at this too. Maybe along with Costco.
- the-dude 6y ago
  If they are not, they are pretty good at faking it. And some are greeting me outside of the store. They have no obligation to do so.
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  I was recently at a CVS and the cashier shouted out that she’d help us as we walked towards the self checkout. She was very friendly and wanted to talk about everything from the upcoming time change to the vaccine. Some people just crave interaction and with the current pandemic they may be too isolated.
- watwut 6y ago
  Pretty often, they do enjoy people who act like the whole thing was pleasant. If you force them into long chat they will dislike it, but if you smile, are nice to them, thank and say one socially appropriate thing, they tend to like it.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> I enjoy the interaction with the employees. If you want to pay for someone to be social with you why not do that separately to shopping? Seems funny to try to mix the two.
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  Efficiency. Chat and shop. It’s a twofer. And if you like interaction but not having to get to close, it’s great.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    But it's not efficient, is it? These people could be doing something more productive with their time than staffing a checkout in order to make small talk.
    - null0ranje 6y ago
      They are. It's called building goodwill.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      Actually at my favorite supermarket these people are not only staffing checkouts, they are running the store : there are no managers to be seen. I enjoy seeing this group of young people given such a broad responsibility and I acknowledge them and their stellar job. And they acknowledge me. But who am I, I just enjoy Old Europe.
    - the-dude 6y ago
      I have heard from employees at supermarkets that shrinkage with self checkout is elevated to the point it does not really matter.
      - Ygg2 6y ago
        You mean theft? Isn't shrinkage just term for employee theft?
seanmcdirmid 6y ago
I love the quick self service checkouts and will line up for them even when a regular staffed checkout is free. I’m just the opposite and instead dislike interaction I guess.
- kqr 6y ago
  One implicit benefit of the self-service checkouts is that there's often one line for multiple machines. Any student of queuing theory will know how much this reduces waiting time compared to the one queue per cashier that's otherwise common.
  - sethammons 6y ago
    This one gets me every time. I’ve only ever seen a couple super markets or stores implement this for human-operated check out stations. Ross has this, and Best Buy used to during the holidays.
    - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
      Trader Joe’s does it also, at least in LA.
      - clairity 6y ago
        that’s odd, none of the trader joes’s i usually go to in LA regularly have a single line. i’ve seen it irregularly, and seemingly temporarily (when especially busy perhaps).
      - reallydontask 6y ago
        I've seen this in NYC too
    - kqr 6y ago
      Ironically, some smaller stores near me have implemented this just the past few months. The covid-19 rules that stipulate only a few people in the stores have created a single queue outside the store, for all cashiers! I would honestly be fine with making that permanent. It's so much easier to pick the things I want with fewer people between me and the shelves. All in all a much more efficient shopping experience.

aboringusername 6y ago

Machines are even better then that, they generate digital data which unlocks all sorts of possibilities. Amazon could not care less if they lost $1,000,000,0 in stock if they had the data to back that up (sensor data, images, video), which is worth that much to optimize their systems and become a 'leader' which can make money itself. It's why they want to sell data gathering devices so cheaply, cameras, smart assistants, prime, anything that gives them information they can use for AI is a money maker to them. Even if a machine is terrible and useless, you can collect that useless information/data and use it as a data point for other machines that are perhaps not so terrible, any data point is useful afterall. Machines are the future for that reason alone.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

machines implement stupid broken ux patterns which make shopping hell. on edit: evidently people would like their supermarket checkout experience to be as pleasing as the typical online shopping experience, thus a quick downvote.

alistairSH 6y ago
I agree. I've found self-checkout (of the variety common in US supermarkets) to be no faster than employee-run checkout for normal grocery loads. It may be faster for a handful of items, but once the shopper has many items, particularly a lot of produce, the lookup mechanism (picture matching, usually) for he produce slows the whole thing to stand-still. Add in manual ID verification for alcohol and drug purchases and it slows even more. Add in problems with coupons, payment, or other errors, it slows more. And then most of them have some sort of scale on the bagging end which never works well - bulk items, too many items to fit on the shelf, etc.
msh 6y ago
I think the average online shopping experience is, at least for me, far preferable to the average supermarket experience with queues and so on.
- megous 6y ago
  Maybe to you, but until online shopping will be realizable via user chosen User Agent (like e-mail, etc.) via open API, online shopping will continue to suck horribly for anything but single items. Shopping for groceries online is complete hell, for one. There are queues online too. They are just at the delivery side, not at the checkout side.
  - msh 6y ago
    I often shop for groceries online in these corona times, for a family of 5. I usually use nemlig.com (a danish online super market) and I dont have any issues with the UX. Its easier than searching for things in the physical supermarket. On delivery its not really a queue as I dont have to spend my time doing it.

guerrilla 6y ago

> This is the future of grocery stores It was already the present in most of Sweden before this too. Almost every store has automated checkout im addition to manual checkout.

leetcrew 6y ago

machines may not make mistakes, but the people who program them do. I just bought a guitar for $50 under the going rate because the in store pricetag was lower than the company's own online price. the system had lost track of the guitar entirely, so they had no way of knowing they needed to update the local price. by policy, they had to pricematch themselves. the associate told me this happens all the time.

tzs 6y ago

I'm enjoying the speed of checkout at Walmart with Walmart+. With a little bit of care, checkout takes almost no time. The little bit of care is going at a time when it is not so crowded that there is a line to get to a self-checkout station. The way it works is that you scan the bar codes with the Walmart app on your smartphone as you add items to your shopping cart. The scan function is very fast. If you are adding more than one of an item, you can either scan them separately or scan once and then set the quantity. To checkout, you just go to an open self-checkout station, hit the "check out" button in the app, scan the QR code that is on the home screen of the terminal, tell it how many bags you are using (default is zero), hit "pay", and about two seconds later a confirmation appears in the app, and you can leave. The confirmation can be shown to the person at the exit to show that you have paid, although usually they don't ask. If you are buying anything sold be weight, it tells you when you add it to your cart that you'll have to weigh it at checkout. At checkout, it prompts you to put each such item on the scale, weighs it, and adds it in. It is literally 10-15 seconds from the time I enter the self-checkout area to the time I'm pushing my cart toward the exit. (I don't bag in-store. I have my reusable bags and some boxes in my car trunk, and do my bagging and/or boxing at my car). This has been great for pandemic shopping. It is fairly easy to avoid spending more than a few passing seconds around any given other shopper while going around gathering items, but when scanning and bagging a full cart of groceries at self-checkout, you might be around the same other shoppers for several minutes, some within 2 meters.

dehrmann 6y ago

I wonder how much of a concern shoplifting would be. The article says it's limited by knowing who's there and security cameras, but I also suspect it's kept in check by Swedish social norms.