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I'm surprised more places aren't doing this. These self checkout devices are incredibly popular and usually understaffed. Walmart in my experience is the only p

I'm surprised more places aren't doing this. These self checkout devices are incredibly popular and usually understaffed. Walmart in my experience is the only place doing this right. Every time I end up there I go through self checkout and invariable have to get all my bags checked against my receipt. Otherwise it's on the honor system. That never works. But I'm sure there's some actuarial equation to this.

Overtonwindow 4y ago
I have never had my receipt inspected leaving a Walmart. I’ve heard about this, and perhaps I’m a pessimist, but I wonder if they only do this at stores with high shrinkage. In other words, only the bad neighborhood Walmarts.
- vel0city 4y ago
  I knew someone who would routinely shoplift clothes from Walmart. They'd essentially change all the clothes with new ones while at the store most times they'd go. They were never challenged leaving even though they'd walk past the greeter wearing a completely different outfit than when they came in. Not that I endorse such a thing, I did not approve of that person's actions. I mentioned it once when leaving, the greeter shrugged. Some places just price in the shrink and honestly don't care.
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  I won’t allow it. If they try, I say no thanks and keep walking.
detaro 4y ago
If they check all the time, are they really saving over having cashiers?
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  I worked in grocery for a decade until going into accounting. The labor saved by self checkout is ridiculous. The hours for front end staff were reduced by an order of magnitude in my time there. They were always pushing us to pull people to self checkout to reach the required utilization rates and other ridiculous measure-targets. It started at 20% self checkout utilization rate, then creeped up over the years to 60%. Of course that means less staff.
- refurb 4y ago
  Because doing a quick check takes less time than actually scanning and bagging all the items themselves?
- Test0129 4y ago
  It's a distributed system. You can almost always scan faster than a cashier and you know exactly what quantity and item you intended to buy. Moreover, a cursory (rather than colonoscopy level) scan of "big ticket" items that are commonly stolen is probably more than sufficient to deter most thieves.
ipaddr 4y ago
The walmart bill check fails when you purchase many items. Having bags checked creates distrust and wouldn't be necessary if they hired employees to scan.
jsnell 4y ago
It's kind of sad that some kind of tedious bag check is "doing it right". If you have to go through that, why bother with the self-checkout at all instead of going through a human cashier? Where I live, the self checkouts in all stores are basically unmonitored, don't have any item weight consistency checks, and basically the only thing that causes staff to be summoned is buying something that requires agree verification. In the last three years, I've exclusively used these and not once have they checked my bag. Seems to work, at least in that nobody has tried tightening their systems. (Of course what works in a high trust society won't work in low trust ones, and vice versa.)
- Test0129 4y ago
  The UX is right but the business logic is strange. It's obvious it's entirely possible to casually walk out with goods you didn't pay for. I've done it a few times by accident and returned to pay. How many people don't return to pay? If you have say, 70,000 unique customers in a year the loss could add up quickly. The only way I could imagine this working is having some flex in the budget for theft that is being used up by these systems. In that case, it might be that "encouraging" people to steal smaller, cheaper items may save you on theft of big ticket items. So much so it's worth it.
abawany 4y ago
I've noticed Walmart does automated monitoring of self checkout. Once I got flagged at checkout when I placed the scanned item directly in my shopping bag instead of the designated shelf; the person who came to inspect my lit up station showed me the video excerpt from a camera overhead that detected the movement discrepancy.
cassianoleal 4y ago
In the UK self-checkouts are very common even in the smaller supermarket chain shops. I use them in Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, you name it. In fact, in Waitrose you can scan and bag as you go, without even having to weigh anything. At the end, you go to a checkout machine, scan its barcode, pay for the items you've scanned and go. Once I was chosen for a random bag check (it happens at the checkout - the machine tells you and an employee comes over). They sampled about 50% of my bag and the system unlocked so I could finish paying and go. It seems to work fine. More shops are beginning to adopt this system.
- Test0129 4y ago
  That system is superior to the system I've experienced in America which is either a mandatory door check of your bags, or no check at all. There doesn't seem to be an in-between at all in any place I've been to.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  I used to use a similar system for a local shop, the day they picked me out for a bag check, I took each item out, left it on the floor, had the guy okay it and walked away. There needs to be punishments for false accusations, unfortunately the best I could do was waste a little bit of the stores time.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    I was not accused of anything. The system randomly selected my transaction for a check. The employee performing the check didn’t make me feel accused at all at any time either, she was very nice and clearly would have rather been doing something else in fact. I’ve been using this system frequently for years and had to go through this check exactly once.
    - tomjen3 4y ago
      >I was not accused of anything. The system randomly selected my transaction for a check Yes, thats the accusation.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I have never had my receipt inspected leaving a Walmart. I’ve heard about this, and perhaps I’m a pessimist, but I wonder if they only do this at stores with high shrinkage. In other words, only the bad neighborhood Walmarts.

vel0city 4y ago
I knew someone who would routinely shoplift clothes from Walmart. They'd essentially change all the clothes with new ones while at the store most times they'd go. They were never challenged leaving even though they'd walk past the greeter wearing a completely different outfit than when they came in. Not that I endorse such a thing, I did not approve of that person's actions. I mentioned it once when leaving, the greeter shrugged. Some places just price in the shrink and honestly don't care.
nickthegreek 4y ago
I won’t allow it. If they try, I say no thanks and keep walking.

detaro 4y ago

If they check all the time, are they really saving over having cashiers?

formerkrogemp 4y ago
I worked in grocery for a decade until going into accounting. The labor saved by self checkout is ridiculous. The hours for front end staff were reduced by an order of magnitude in my time there. They were always pushing us to pull people to self checkout to reach the required utilization rates and other ridiculous measure-targets. It started at 20% self checkout utilization rate, then creeped up over the years to 60%. Of course that means less staff.
refurb 4y ago
Because doing a quick check takes less time than actually scanning and bagging all the items themselves?
Test0129 4y ago
It's a distributed system. You can almost always scan faster than a cashier and you know exactly what quantity and item you intended to buy. Moreover, a cursory (rather than colonoscopy level) scan of "big ticket" items that are commonly stolen is probably more than sufficient to deter most thieves.

ipaddr 4y ago

The walmart bill check fails when you purchase many items. Having bags checked creates distrust and wouldn't be necessary if they hired employees to scan.

jsnell 4y ago

It's kind of sad that some kind of tedious bag check is "doing it right". If you have to go through that, why bother with the self-checkout at all instead of going through a human cashier? Where I live, the self checkouts in all stores are basically unmonitored, don't have any item weight consistency checks, and basically the only thing that causes staff to be summoned is buying something that requires agree verification. In the last three years, I've exclusively used these and not once have they checked my bag. Seems to work, at least in that nobody has tried tightening their systems. (Of course what works in a high trust society won't work in low trust ones, and vice versa.)

Test0129 4y ago
The UX is right but the business logic is strange. It's obvious it's entirely possible to casually walk out with goods you didn't pay for. I've done it a few times by accident and returned to pay. How many people don't return to pay? If you have say, 70,000 unique customers in a year the loss could add up quickly. The only way I could imagine this working is having some flex in the budget for theft that is being used up by these systems. In that case, it might be that "encouraging" people to steal smaller, cheaper items may save you on theft of big ticket items. So much so it's worth it.

abawany 4y ago

I've noticed Walmart does automated monitoring of self checkout. Once I got flagged at checkout when I placed the scanned item directly in my shopping bag instead of the designated shelf; the person who came to inspect my lit up station showed me the video excerpt from a camera overhead that detected the movement discrepancy.

cassianoleal 4y ago

In the UK self-checkouts are very common even in the smaller supermarket chain shops. I use them in Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, you name it. In fact, in Waitrose you can scan and bag as you go, without even having to weigh anything. At the end, you go to a checkout machine, scan its barcode, pay for the items you've scanned and go. Once I was chosen for a random bag check (it happens at the checkout - the machine tells you and an employee comes over). They sampled about 50% of my bag and the system unlocked so I could finish paying and go. It seems to work fine. More shops are beginning to adopt this system.

Test0129 4y ago
That system is superior to the system I've experienced in America which is either a mandatory door check of your bags, or no check at all. There doesn't seem to be an in-between at all in any place I've been to.
tomjen3 4y ago
I used to use a similar system for a local shop, the day they picked me out for a bag check, I took each item out, left it on the floor, had the guy okay it and walked away. There needs to be punishments for false accusations, unfortunately the best I could do was waste a little bit of the stores time.
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  I was not accused of anything. The system randomly selected my transaction for a check. The employee performing the check didn’t make me feel accused at all at any time either, she was very nice and clearly would have rather been doing something else in fact. I’ve been using this system frequently for years and had to go through this check exactly once.
  - tomjen3 4y ago
    >I was not accused of anything. The system randomly selected my transaction for a check Yes, thats the accusation.