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I disagree. The majority of the problems that I run into with self-checkout are related to not being able to buy items I picked up off the shelf like Mucinex or

I disagree. The majority of the problems that I run into with self-checkout are related to not being able to buy items I picked up off the shelf like Mucinex or children's cough syrup or alcohol without getting an employee to check me out... at self checkout. What's the point of "self" checkout if somebody is required—not by failure of the system but by rules—to come help me several times during the process? Edit: at least with alcohol I know it’s coming. But it feels like every time I try to use self-checkout I’m foiled by surprise rules about particular items.

MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
> What's the point of "self" checkout if somebody is required—not by failure of the system but by rules—to come help me several times during the process? In my nearby Walmart they have a dozen or more self-checkout stations which only require a few staff in total. Most people don't need assistance.
- Izkata 3y ago
  Yeah, mine has 1 person overlooking 8 self-checkouts, and most of the time they're standing there doing nothing. I've only needed help like 5 times in several years, when the scale messed up.
PhasmaFelis 3y ago
My favorite is when the system says "help is on the way" and then very obviously does nothing whatsoever to notify the attendant. I have to catch their eye myself every single time.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  I think the light above you changes to blinking red, which they're expected to notice on their own but often don't.
- chankstein38 3y ago
  This happened to me at the store last night! I tried to weigh something and the scale was mad so it locked up the whole process (dialog on the screen saying "Scale needs reset. Help is on the way!" and no ability to scan the rest of my stuff) then just sat there. I turned to the attendant and said "Oh it didn't even tell me you needed help" Like wtf. At the very least let me continue scanning the rest of my groceries so I can be done once this person helps me instead of still just 2 scans in..
jrwoodruff 3y ago
Definitely a yes-and scenario here. I was a cashier, I'm good at finding and scanning bar codes and PLU lookups. I was a damn fast cashier. That's impossible in a self checkout. And then you get carded for a can of spray paint, and the one attendant for 8 machines has three people with blinking lights. On top of that, most of these self-checkouts are not designed to handle a full cart of groceries, but also why do I want to do the work of ringing up and bagging a full cart of groceries by myself? For the most part, in practice there's little or no advantage for me, the consumer with a cart full of groceries. One exception was 2003-era Martins in Virginia - Walk in, grab a cart that had bags attached to the front, grab a portable scan gun from it's charging dock. Scan and bag as you shop, dock the gun to the checkout register, show the attendant my id if needed, pay, and I'm done. No unloading and reloading the cart, no fiddling with plu lookups, fumbling with bags, etc. It was actually glorious, but relies on trusting your customers. Corporate stores seem to trust me even less than I trust them. I'm somewhat ok with these things as a secondary 10-items-or-less option. But for the love of god staff enough cashiers to handle the grocery-shopping-Sunday crowds.
- magnuznilzzon 3y ago
  That's what we have in Sweden. It is really nice, unless you get a check on leaving the store.
- Slamidan 3y ago
  [dead]
- radlad 3y ago
  > Walk in, grab a cart that had bags attached to the front, grab a portable scan gun from it's charging dock. Scan and bag as you shop, dock the gun to the checkout register, show the attendant my id if needed, pay, and I'm done. They were doing this in a few Michigan Krogers within the last few years. I think they ended the program though.
toyg 3y ago
This seems easily fixed: just ask the consumer to show a driver license or other accepted ID, with some software validating whether it is legit. It will still be slower than a regular cashier judging your full beard and receding earline, but it would remove most human oversight. Obviously there is a risk of illegally selling items to minors with fake documents, but I think that's fixable too. Already, in my local UK supermarket there are cameras on each checkout station, which I guess go to some bored reviewer; so you could just alert the guy "hey, customer X gave us a valid license" and assume that he'll react if he can't see a realistic amount of wrinkles.
- stronglikedan 3y ago
  Because people will then bitch and moan about how they're being recorded and their PI is being captured. The former is likely already happening, but people would still complain since it would be apparent. Both issues would be ephemeral if it's a human checking it.
  - toyg 3y ago
    As I mentioned, we're already being recorded, so that's not much of an objection. On PI, I agree that there is a qualitative difference between a cashier and a machine if you assume, as most people do, that the cashier will not remember private details. This can be fixed with industry-wide agreements to not store such data, in the same way as merchants don't store your full credit card details. You could even allow people to bypass the check if a valid identity is registered against their store-issued fidelity card. Honestly, the only hard problem is localization. At the moment you can sell more or less the same automated till to UK supermarkets, US supermarkets, or EU supermarkets; but document-checking code will have to be heavily localized. Still, EU driving licenses are already similar on the entire continent, and that's quite a critical mass one could hit. I would be surprised if manufacturers weren't already developing this feature.
  - ProllyInfamous 3y ago
    I use my US Passport for restricted-age item purchases (or ID at a bar), simply because it is not trackable and does not list my location/residence upon it. Although I'm way beyond the point of caring about demographic profiling, I still don't want my home address to be available to everybody dealing with a simple purchase (although this perspective is probably greatly atypical on account of being a survivor of CSA).
d1sxeyes 3y ago
I always gamble and scan any alcohol or age restricted items first. About half of the time, it throws an alert and flashes but lets me continue scanning, it just won’t let me complete and pay until someone has come over and approved. For some reason though, some idiot designer who never actually thought about how these would be used in reality, decided to make it so that the other half of the time it immediately stops all scanning until someone comes to fix it. In the first case, basically I waste no time. In the second, I lose however long it takes for the cashier to come.
- jon889 3y ago
  Why don't you just scan the alcohol last then?
  - kevincox 3y ago
    Because you still need to wait for the attendant to come. But you have no chance of scanning other items in parallel. (Assuming you don't know if this store will block scanning) It is always optimal to scan these first. You have two cases: Blocking: scan 1 + wait for attendant + scan rest Non-blocking: scan 1 + max(wait for attendant, scan rest) However if you scan these items last the wait is always the same: scan rest + scan 1 + wait for attendant This is never shorter than either of the previous two. It is equivalent to the blocking case and almost always longer than the non-blocking case.
    - throw1234651234 3y ago
      ^ This post is just in case you forgot you were on hacker news.
      - d1sxeyes 3y ago
        I agree it's a beautifully crafted response, and have nothing to add, it's exactly what my point was.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
bluescrn 3y ago
The first hurdle with some self checkouts is before you even scan an item: Bags! If you've brought your own bag and it weighs more than the mass of a few protons, the system assumes you're trying to steal something, and a human has to intervene before you can even get started. And then they have to come back almost immediately to deal with age-restricted items or other glitches.
- pimlottc 3y ago
  One workaround is to delay bagging (in your own bags) until after checkout, when you can just ignore its complaints. But the downside is having to awkwardly tetris your scanned items around the stupid plastic bag holders that take up half the bagging area...
- themadturk 3y ago
  Oh my gosh, this is the bane of my shopping existence. Fred Meyer (Kroger) self scan registers are absolutely henpecking, pushy nannies. Did you put a bag on the scale? Did you put another bag on the scale? Please put your item in the bagging area. Please take all your purchased items. Over and over.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  God forbid you have more than one bag, because that totally confuses the system.
  - kevincox 3y ago
    Or that not all of your bags fit on the scale.

MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago

> What's the point of "self" checkout if somebody is required—not by failure of the system but by rules—to come help me several times during the process? In my nearby Walmart they have a dozen or more self-checkout stations which only require a few staff in total. Most people don't need assistance.

Izkata 3y ago
Yeah, mine has 1 person overlooking 8 self-checkouts, and most of the time they're standing there doing nothing. I've only needed help like 5 times in several years, when the scale messed up.

PhasmaFelis 3y ago

My favorite is when the system says "help is on the way" and then very obviously does nothing whatsoever to notify the attendant. I have to catch their eye myself every single time.

BobaFloutist 3y ago
I think the light above you changes to blinking red, which they're expected to notice on their own but often don't.
chankstein38 3y ago
This happened to me at the store last night! I tried to weigh something and the scale was mad so it locked up the whole process (dialog on the screen saying "Scale needs reset. Help is on the way!" and no ability to scan the rest of my stuff) then just sat there. I turned to the attendant and said "Oh it didn't even tell me you needed help" Like wtf. At the very least let me continue scanning the rest of my groceries so I can be done once this person helps me instead of still just 2 scans in..

jrwoodruff 3y ago

Definitely a yes-and scenario here. I was a cashier, I'm good at finding and scanning bar codes and PLU lookups. I was a damn fast cashier. That's impossible in a self checkout. And then you get carded for a can of spray paint, and the one attendant for 8 machines has three people with blinking lights. On top of that, most of these self-checkouts are not designed to handle a full cart of groceries, but also why do I want to do the work of ringing up and bagging a full cart of groceries by myself? For the most part, in practice there's little or no advantage for me, the consumer with a cart full of groceries. One exception was 2003-era Martins in Virginia - Walk in, grab a cart that had bags attached to the front, grab a portable scan gun from it's charging dock. Scan and bag as you shop, dock the gun to the checkout register, show the attendant my id if needed, pay, and I'm done. No unloading and reloading the cart, no fiddling with plu lookups, fumbling with bags, etc. It was actually glorious, but relies on trusting your customers. Corporate stores seem to trust me even less than I trust them. I'm somewhat ok with these things as a secondary 10-items-or-less option. But for the love of god staff enough cashiers to handle the grocery-shopping-Sunday crowds.

magnuznilzzon 3y ago
That's what we have in Sweden. It is really nice, unless you get a check on leaving the store.
Slamidan 3y ago
[dead]
radlad 3y ago
> Walk in, grab a cart that had bags attached to the front, grab a portable scan gun from it's charging dock. Scan and bag as you shop, dock the gun to the checkout register, show the attendant my id if needed, pay, and I'm done. They were doing this in a few Michigan Krogers within the last few years. I think they ended the program though.

toyg 3y ago

This seems easily fixed: just ask the consumer to show a driver license or other accepted ID, with some software validating whether it is legit. It will still be slower than a regular cashier judging your full beard and receding earline, but it would remove most human oversight. Obviously there is a risk of illegally selling items to minors with fake documents, but I think that's fixable too. Already, in my local UK supermarket there are cameras on each checkout station, which I guess go to some bored reviewer; so you could just alert the guy "hey, customer X gave us a valid license" and assume that he'll react if he can't see a realistic amount of wrinkles.

stronglikedan 3y ago
Because people will then bitch and moan about how they're being recorded and their PI is being captured. The former is likely already happening, but people would still complain since it would be apparent. Both issues would be ephemeral if it's a human checking it.
- toyg 3y ago
  As I mentioned, we're already being recorded, so that's not much of an objection. On PI, I agree that there is a qualitative difference between a cashier and a machine if you assume, as most people do, that the cashier will not remember private details. This can be fixed with industry-wide agreements to not store such data, in the same way as merchants don't store your full credit card details. You could even allow people to bypass the check if a valid identity is registered against their store-issued fidelity card. Honestly, the only hard problem is localization. At the moment you can sell more or less the same automated till to UK supermarkets, US supermarkets, or EU supermarkets; but document-checking code will have to be heavily localized. Still, EU driving licenses are already similar on the entire continent, and that's quite a critical mass one could hit. I would be surprised if manufacturers weren't already developing this feature.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  I use my US Passport for restricted-age item purchases (or ID at a bar), simply because it is not trackable and does not list my location/residence upon it. Although I'm way beyond the point of caring about demographic profiling, I still don't want my home address to be available to everybody dealing with a simple purchase (although this perspective is probably greatly atypical on account of being a survivor of CSA).

d1sxeyes 3y ago

I always gamble and scan any alcohol or age restricted items first. About half of the time, it throws an alert and flashes but lets me continue scanning, it just won’t let me complete and pay until someone has come over and approved. For some reason though, some idiot designer who never actually thought about how these would be used in reality, decided to make it so that the other half of the time it immediately stops all scanning until someone comes to fix it. In the first case, basically I waste no time. In the second, I lose however long it takes for the cashier to come.

jon889 3y ago
Why don't you just scan the alcohol last then?
- kevincox 3y ago
  Because you still need to wait for the attendant to come. But you have no chance of scanning other items in parallel. (Assuming you don't know if this store will block scanning) It is always optimal to scan these first. You have two cases: Blocking: scan 1 + wait for attendant + scan rest Non-blocking: scan 1 + max(wait for attendant, scan rest) However if you scan these items last the wait is always the same: scan rest + scan 1 + wait for attendant This is never shorter than either of the previous two. It is equivalent to the blocking case and almost always longer than the non-blocking case.
  - throw1234651234 3y ago
    ^ This post is just in case you forgot you were on hacker news.
    - d1sxeyes 3y ago
      I agree it's a beautifully crafted response, and have nothing to add, it's exactly what my point was.
pcthrowaway 3y ago

bluescrn 3y ago

The first hurdle with some self checkouts is before you even scan an item: Bags! If you've brought your own bag and it weighs more than the mass of a few protons, the system assumes you're trying to steal something, and a human has to intervene before you can even get started. And then they have to come back almost immediately to deal with age-restricted items or other glitches.

pimlottc 3y ago
One workaround is to delay bagging (in your own bags) until after checkout, when you can just ignore its complaints. But the downside is having to awkwardly tetris your scanned items around the stupid plastic bag holders that take up half the bagging area...
themadturk 3y ago
Oh my gosh, this is the bane of my shopping existence. Fred Meyer (Kroger) self scan registers are absolutely henpecking, pushy nannies. Did you put a bag on the scale? Did you put another bag on the scale? Please put your item in the bagging area. Please take all your purchased items. Over and over.
mr_toad 3y ago
God forbid you have more than one bag, because that totally confuses the system.
- kevincox 3y ago
  Or that not all of your bags fit on the scale.