6 ms·

Tesco trials giant trolley scales in Gateshead

• asimpleusecase 2y ago
  In the UK there has been a big push for self checkout. Tesco is a leading food market and has hand scanners you can carry around with you to scan as you shop. I have used them for a couple of years now. I almost stopped going to Tesco as it seemed every time I would check out my basket/trolley of goods was selected for a random “ check scan” where a worker came and scanned items until the check out gave a green checkmark and indicator. I always passed the test. So it became really annoying to have this “random check” happen ten times in a row. However it appears they have now built my profile and I have not had a “random check” in almost a year. I think this giant scale is silly. If you are trying to play the system you could scan a lower priced good and take the name brand of the same weight. If I were pulled over to have my whole basket/trolley load rescanned I would quickly get fed up with that. There are just too many ways to get a false positive. I thought that RFID was supposed to solve this 20 years ago. All stores have anti theft scanner that are the last line of defense but I never see anyone approached if that alarm goes off any more. So what is a technically sane way to solved the self scan problem, and avoid replicating the security theatre at airports?
  • genewitch 2y ago
    In the U.S. they have one or two employees, monitor, you know, four to six or eight self-scan stations. Apparently they're losing less in shrink than they would paying cashiers, so it works out for them. I have to say I'm guessing about that last statement because I have no idea, but if it wasn't saving them money, I don't see why they would do it. I do notice that nearly every self checkout lane has no cash accepted though for some reason, at least by me.
    • jrmg 2y ago
      There was a flurry of news reports last year about self checkouts being removed by some chains. For example: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna160234 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna160234 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7188556 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7188556
    • amluto 2y ago
      The US strategy seems to vary widely by store. Some observations: Target and Whole Foods have minimal oversight and the machines are efficient and permissive. Delightful! Costco has machines that are not permissive and complain a lot. I find this odd, considering that Costco is members-only and double-checks everyone when they leave. IKEA has one employee per 1-2 machines. The machines are terrible. The scanners are unreliable, and the machines are slow beyond belief. I suspect they’re accidentally quadratic (with a bad constant factor), and I’ve had to pay part way through and start a new transaction to make forward progress at a reasonable rate. The employees might be there more to babysit the machines than to deter theft.
      • kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        > The scanners are unreliable, and the machines are slow beyond belief. That's on purpose so they can monitor for theft from the customers and colluding cashiers. I worked in a grocery store with 1980's era IBM terminals and they were lightning fast compared to modern machines. You could throw cans rapid fire with just a twist across the scanner and have nearly 100% success.
        • otterley 2y ago
          Can you explain in a bit more detail? I don't follow the connection you made.
          • duk3luk3 2y ago
            I think the implication is that the faster a customer is scanning items, the harder it is to keep an eye on them to see if they're doing it correctly.
      • WeylandYutani 2y ago
        Even babysitting 2 checkouts is still better than employing 2 cashiers. And that is assuming you can even find cashiers. Way back when I was a child the supermarket cashiers were women in their 40s who got divorced and needed a low skilled job. But thanks to equal education opportunities for men and women that group is gone. We are going to have to come to terms with the reality that for the first time since the plague employable humans are scarce. Now do you want them to work at Ikea or work in a hospital or school?
  • ptmcc 2y ago
    I use the dash carts at the Amazon Fresh near me and they are pretty slick and problem-free. The overall Amazon Fresh experience with selection and stock has had some teething pains but they've been getting a lot better recently, probably learning from Whole Foods. Sign in with the app then you scan the barcodes as you put items in the cart and I think it does some combo of weight and camera stuff to verify. You can also see/edit the list of everything it thinks is in the cart on the cart's display. If it does mess up (rare) you can fix it on the spot easily and without assistance. Then you just go walk through the designated dash cart checkout lane, it blinks green and you're done and you walk out with the bags and the receipt is in your account history. Unless you need an ID check for something then an employee has to assist but they're generally pretty quick, but most of my trips don't require it. Compared to "traditional" self checkout it's WAY better.
    • CoffeeOnWrite 2y ago
      > probably learning from Whole Foods. Oddly our local Whole Foods, is just a couple years old, and has very poor self check-outs. They error out on random bar codes and stop until a human staff member unlocks them. The Prime barcode scanner is “broken” half the time, and can’t be overridden by the human staff. It’s bad. I go on the human side now exclusively, where they also have hilarious problems. It's like grocery store management peaked, was utterly and perfectly solved, but Whole Foods can’t stop trying new things that only make the shopping experience worse.
      • ptmcc 2y ago
        I meant more in the general operations of running and stocking a grocery store, which Amazon Fresh struggled with for a while but has also improved significantly. Now it's on par or better than most of my local Safeway/Kroger type stores I'd say. Fresh seems to also be their technology test bed, and I hope the good parts can spread to Whole Foods as it gets perfected.
  • nextos 2y ago
    I think this depends a lot on the store. For example, Waitrose Oxford has self-checkout but they have disabled those tricky weighting sensors, which is great because they always slow you down. In contrast, Waitrose Abingdon not only has them enabled, but you are "randomly" checked every single time. I imagine Abingdon has a higher rate of shoplifting.
  • somenameforme 2y ago
    Can you describe why there's a big push for self checkout? I suspect there's a bigggg difference between countries, so this all sounds very alien. In my experience at Tescos (outside the UK) checkout has been great. They tend to have a zillion aisles operating, with the cashier picking up and scanning every single item directly from your cart. At the exit there's always a 'check' but it's pretty farcical. Somebody glances at your cart, glances at the receipt, and then stamps it in about 0.5 seconds total. The only downside is the requirement for self bagging (she simply puts the items right back in the cart - even if you bring bags), but that obviously wouldn't change with self checkout. To me people pushing for self checkout sounds like somebody preferring self service over full service gas stations - I find it difficult to understand.
    • lotsofpulp 2y ago
      > To me people pushing for self checkout sounds like somebody preferring self service over full service gas stations - I find it difficult to understand. For gas stations, it’s faster for me to not have to wait for an attendant. I don’t have to let someone else touch my credit card and/or give them my zip code. And I don’t have someone else continue filling the tank after the pump automatically stops, preventing gas to drip down the side of the car. For retail stores, self checkout is quicker, as stores are mostly not staffed well enough to compete with the self checkout lanes.
    • ForTheKidz 2y ago
      > Can you describe why there's a big push for self checkout? Fewer employees to hire and manage. Seems like a straightforward benefit. I haven't seen a fully staffed grocery store in what feels like fifteen years but is probably more like five. This feels like a continuation of the same "disruption" that predated widespread self-checkout. There are also people who claim to hate interacting with cashiers but I have a difficulty imagining this is the majority of people.
    • djaychela 2y ago
      For me it's because when I visit a store it's for a small amount of items. My main shopping is online and delivered (by Tesco) once a week. But there are always other things needed during the week. The big Tesco near me mostly has people doing their big shop at the tills so the queue will be 5 minutes plus. Scan as you shop ( as mentioned by the GP) now works well and doesn't check you each time so it's easy to do - particularly as you can use your bag as you go and don't need to repack when you check out.
  • tbrownaw 2y ago
    > hand scanners you can carry around with you to scan as you shop The local Kroger tried to push those a while back, and then at some point they disappeared again.
• ryukoposting 2y ago
  This just seems like a worse version of self-checkout.
• 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
  Is there a technical reason why the self-checkout experience is so poor? The barcode scanners seem slower and more finicky than what the staff use. Plus the extra delay while the machine wants to ensure I put an item into the receiving zone. Are the self-checkout isles busy taking pictures of me from every angle before they approve the swipe? I assumed that barcode scanners were solved technology and should be able to identify a smudged label in microseconds. If I were going to steal something, I am not sure what the slow experience does to deter that.
  • MBCook 2y ago
    I’m always confused by these comments. Maybe the quality of scanners differs wildly between chains? The places I go regularly seem to have units that work fine for me. It’s very very rare I get a warning about bagging stuff. And I can scan at a pretty good speed. Not practiced checkout clerk high speed, but plenty fast to the point the limit is often me finding the barcode.
    • 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
      Maybe I have a low tolerance for delays. I know technology can do better. The lag is an explicit choice or technical incompetence. Maybe even the POS are running Electron these days.
      • MBCook 2y ago
        I think I have a pretty low tolerance as well. I can say I find the CVS machines slow the few times I’ve used them. Possibly Home Depot too but I have little experience. But at Target, Whole Foods, and two local grocery chains it just hasn’t been an issue. The UI is slow if you need to enter a code for a vegetable or when you hit pay, but for scanning it works fine if I ignore the slow prompts and just go at a comfortable speed.
      • Washuu 2y ago
        The technology can absolutely be better. When I worked retail over two decades ago those scanners were fast and I can scan back to back with no noticeable delay.
• MBCook 2y ago
  What a terrible idea. Self checkout offers a (supposed) benefit. No waiting in a checkout line with 9 people or huge carts when you want a few things. Or maybe you don’t want to interact with a cashier. I’m not saying the benefits have worked out, especially when places replaced all cashiers either self checkout instead of supplementing. But there is nothing inherently draconian about it to me. I like the option of self checkout and often use it. Those scales in the picture just scream “prove you’re not a criminal, scumbag”. There used to be nothing pleasant or helpful or anything like that about them. And if people have to walk through them they could be weighing their customers too. Used a loyalty card? They know your weight! Hopefully they aren’t doing that. But you get my point. It actively feels hostile. The supposed benefit of finding things that got double scanned seems incredibly unlikely to me. That’s clearly an excuse. If you’re not going to pair something like this with a very big benefit, like a one in 100 chance of getting your entire cart for free, why would anyone opt into this if you can go to a different store instead?
  • starkrights 2y ago
    Fwiw, my initial thought (from the picture) was less “prove you’re not a criminal” and more “prove you’re not bringing a massive cart into the quick line. Idealistically, this would reduce the number of jerks tying up these lines for people who want the benefit you describe. Don’t necessarily disagree with you though, I feel like there’s a decent likelihood it just slows everything down in practice.
    • MBCook 2y ago
      That would make sense, I just have little faith that’s how it would end up being used even if that had been the original intention.
  • nprateem 2y ago
    > prove you’re not a criminal, scumbag This is Gateshead, so a fair question actually 8P
  • milesrout 2y ago
    >Those scales in the picture just scream “prove you’re not a criminal, scumbag”. So what? This seems like such a weird thing to be concerned about. Do you get upset when you are asked for ID when you buy alcohol? Or when a police officer asks to see your driving licence? >why would anyone opt into this if you can go to a different store instead? Because weighing your trolley only takes a second and still saves time over scanning things manually?
• danparsonson 2y ago
  > The British Retail Consortium has said shoplifting is "out of control" after its annual crime survey found incidents of customer theft reported by retailers in the UK rose by 3.7 million to 20.4 million, and cost retailers £2bn. Surely a moment's reflection on the state of the UK at the moment would offer some ideas about why this is.
  • nprateem 2y ago
    Yeah maybe Starmer should issue a decree to make everything magically cheap again.
  • ein0p 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • benjaminwootton 2y ago
      Why do people (usually Americans) have this perception that we are an authoritarian hellscape on press freedom. There have been a few silly stories where local police forces overreach to a social media post, but generally nobody could care less what we say. The police won’t respond to serious crimes so you have no chance getting them to respond to something written. There are hundreds of better things to pick on the UK for.
      • milesrout 2y ago
        Oh it is alright to destroy fundamental traditions that the English invented and fought for literally for millennia. That is fine. It only happens now and again! There are numerous examples of the police in the UK arresting and prosecuting people for making simple statements of fact or giving their honest and reasonable opinions. It is not actually that rare. It would if anything be better if it were more rigorously enforced, because it wouldn't last very long if it were. Instead, the threat of it looms over everyone.
      • ein0p 2y ago
        Or 3000+ "silly stories" per year, to be exact. And that's just arrests.
• jeffrallen 2y ago
  "Unexpected trolly in bagging area." :)
• dvh 2y ago
  Wouldn't people just carry rocks from the parking lot and leave them in stores?
• fmajid 2y ago
  Eventually they will build the scales into the shopping cart itself.