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Here in Switzerland I scan my loyalty card at the entrance, grab a handheld self-scanner, scan items as I put them in my cart, scan out at the self-checkout are
by hocuspocus 3y ago
Here in Switzerland I scan my loyalty card at the entrance, grab a handheld self-scanner, scan items as I put them in my cart, scan out at the self-checkout area, finalize and pay at a self-checkout till.
Very convenient. There are random checks by the staff, one out of 20 times maybe.
- ceejayoz 3y agoMy local grocery store (Wegmans) tried something like that; a self-scan app on your cell phone, to check out you'd scan a QR on the self-checkout and it'd pass over all your items. Theft (things like putting unscanned $200 beef tenderloin roasts unscanned at the bottom of a bag) was so bad they canceled it within months. I miss it, it was super convenient. They're now trialing camera-based machine vision cart attachments that are slow and annoying.
- acheron 3y agoWegmans around here kept it around for 2 years. But yes, I miss it too.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoAt ICA in Sweden they solved this by doing random checks of the cart at checkout to verify
- ceejayoz 3y agoMight work with clear bags, but otherwise you put it way at the bottom underneath a bunch of small items. No checker wants to make you dump out a shopping bag full of yogurts.
- dagw 3y agoIn Sweden when you get stopped for random checks they do indeed make you empty out everything in your bags and rescan everything to make sure it matches.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoI’ll point out that typically in Sweden the carts are much smaller, the biggest ones you typically see at ICA and the like are pull behind rollers that are usually only about 25-40% of the size of a USA full size cart. So it’s not as big of an ask to empty them out as the massive trawlers provided in the USA.
- dagw 3y agoMy local ICA Maxi has three sizes of carts. The largest ones are basically the same size as the ones I've seen in the US. It differs greatly from store to store as well. The central down town ICA that doesn't have a parking lot only has the smallest carts. The massive ICA in the outskirts of town that can basically only be reached by car tends to have the big carts
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoUS shopping carts vary widely. Costco's can fit a good 2 m^3 and 250 kg of products. The flat platform types can haul even more. These are in contrast to some pharmacy store carts are smaller than a hand basket.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoI will say that Costco’s baskets are definitely an outlier. When I go to Walmart, Target, Kroger, Safeway/Albertsons/Wegmans flavor of the day, all of those baskets are the same size. The vast majority of people in the USA shop with the roughly same full size wheeled cart or the handbasket in my experience. Perhaps a few cubic decimeters of variation but not much. I haven’t been everywhere in the States, but I have been to all of the contiguous ones and aside from the Costco cart, which is in fact larger, I have not seen much size variation beyond that. And the flat platform types, are you referencing the kind that are normally seen in Home Depot? The ones typically that go 6 inches from the floor and look like a pallet jack? With those again you can find them in Sam’s club and Costco but you won’t see them in a “typical” grocery setting
- ceejayoz 3y ago
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoIn the US, workers wouldn't be able to actually do this because the US public is miserable.
- ryandrake 3y agoThere are lots of reasons why retail workers are not motivated to (and in many cases are specifically motivated against) policing people's shopping carts. But primarily: 1. If someone is willing to steal from a store, who knows what else they are willing to do? Retail workers do not make enough money to potentially put themselves in harm's way over a $200 beef tenderloin roast. 2. It's doubtful whether a retail worker even has the legal authority to physically detain a shopper. I surely wouldn't put up with it as a shopper, and would make a stink. And at that point you're back to #1: Will the next shopper you detain make a stink, or will they get violent? 3. For liability reasons, companies don't want their employees getting harmed, so most stores' guidance is to not interfere.
- phil21 3y agoThings that work in a high trust society do not work in a medium or low trust one. The US is rapidly backsliding from a high to low trust society so things like this are simply not possible in many areas. A few trials like this ran near me and shut down months later.
- lannisterstark 3y agoThis...is a weird exaggeration. Walmart plus allows you to do just that. Sam's club, I do exactly the same. Scan it via my mobile app, show app QR to person at checkout, done. The US isn't rapidly sliding anywhere.
- 0xJRS 3y agoit's not an exaggeration, there were also stores near where I live in <major city> that tried to do something similar with scanning apps and then abandoned it due to theft and added the standard self-checkout stations you see everywhere now.
- me_me_me 3y agoI have seen video of black dude going to white neighborhood and geeking out that stuff if out in-front of petrol station unsupervised. He was scolding his community that it would be impossible in his hood. America is in super state of being both, high and low trust. And by judging the current world trends it will collapse to one state pretty soon - the dead cat scenario i am afraid.
- thatguy0900 3y agoI had a version of this myself, moving out of a poor area into a nice one. When we were doing a tour, we saw children's bikes just left laying down by the street everywhere. It was shocking, as a child I couldn't even store my bike in our shed out back.
- btbuildem 3y agoI think it really depends on the region where you live. The US is a very large and diverse place.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThat's how I do it here in the US. But without the spot checks. Definitely handy.
- tiahura 3y ago10 years or so of self check he in US Midwest, and I’ve never even seen someone being checked on.
- kuratkull 3y agoSame here in Estonia. Virtually all chains support one of two solutions. First one is scanning items at the checkout area - this does not have any random checks by staff. The second one is with the handheld scanner, where you might get occasional checks when trying to pay, but these checks happen rarely if you pass several checks without any issues. Best thing since sliced bread IMHO, very quick and easy. Most stores have reduced cashier stands from eg. 10 to ~2.
- workfromspace 3y agoThere is also a 3rd option: using your own phone as scanner. In Partner Card [1] stores such as Viru Keskus supermarket (Kaubamaja Toidumaailm), one can download Partnerkaart app [2] to use their phones to scan for products. I personally am a big fan of this one, since for some reason my phone's barcode scanner is greatly faster and more accurate than the market's own scanners. [1]: https://www.partnerkaart.ee/et/ https://www.partnerkaart.ee/et/ [2]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/partnerkaart/id1615988287 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/partnerkaart/id1615988287
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoWhy bother with that when AI/ML/CV can track what comes off and on the shelves? Amazon Go
- Shawnj2 3y agoIn the US I’ve usually seen grocery stores have a self checkout where there are a bunch of self checkout machines and 1 staff member at that area to hand out bags, probably make sure you actually pay and don’t walk straight through the self check out, and fix things when people need to return items, the machine breaks, etc.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoI'd prefer scanning-while-shopping, otherwise I have to remember to leave things barcode up and have enough room, especially for bug box stores. Apart from produce, I'd prefer home delivery that eliminates the scanning and transportation effort entirely. I suspect a better approach than gig economy grocery delivery would be dedicated refrigerated vans and trucks with drivers who work directly for the seller. Gig economy drivers don't keep things at a proper temperature and can't seem to deliver consistently. In general, where I am in the US, gig economy workers are rude, short tempered, don't read direction notes, and sloppy.
- danmaz74 3y agoWe do the same in Italy in lots of supermarkets.
- iagooar 3y agoI never understood the appeal of having to do that "work" and still pay the same price. To me it feels like going to a restaurant where you have to be the waiter yourself. Is that really that convenient?
- mikecoles 3y agoIt's faster.
- hocuspocus 3y agoYes it's pretty convenient, no need to take items out onto the checkout counter just to put them back into my shopping cart.
- yencabulator 3y agoThe Sam's Club version, scanning barcodes while putting things into your cart, means you get to skip the checkout line completely. That's an easy 10+ minutes saved if the store is busy.
- _nalply 3y agoFrom Switzerland too. In France and Ireland I also saw these self-checkouts. In Ireland I even could use one, and to my surprise it worked out fine.
- senectus1 3y agoits weird, here in Australia we have self checkout at the two major supermarkets. I find them mostly convenient. the only times I've every had a staff come over is when I've done the wrong thing and the machine needed staff assistance to progress or when the machine did the wrong thing and I needed the staff to progress. It amuses me to read (and I see it a lot) people outraged that staff may come over and check what they're doing and not cheating the system somehow, outraged at the lack of trust being perceived. Do they not remember the old checkout system was a complete lack of trust scenario. Every single item you want to buy was checked by staff. The self checkout is a HUGE level of trust being given to the customer.