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Yea, where’s the theft of my time and labor for now performing part of your business transaction process you should be performing by hiring staff to check me ou

Yea, where’s the theft of my time and labor for now performing part of your business transaction process you should be performing by hiring staff to check me out. You don’t want to pay people to do that and put yourself in a higher theft situation, then you haggle the customer even more by treating them like a criminal. I had one of these happen at a self checkout the other day where the system did object tracking and it turns out I had many duplicate items to scan so I used the same item scan code to save time even though its weight system forces me to do one at a time I can at least have a prealigned code handy. I ended up doing some tricky hand switching between items (crossing over) while doing it quickly and that tripped up the object tracking system, so an employee came over and reviewed the video of my checkout right in front of me… at a grocery store for a $2 item. The anti consumer sentiment is high for an economy based so highly off consumerism.

jolmg 1y ago
> Yea, where’s the theft of my time and labor for now performing part of your business transaction process you should be performing by hiring staff to check me out. I've seen this sentiment in recent years, but with respect to time, self-checkout was always faster than human cashiers. You didn't need to wait while the cashiers did procedures like counting the money in the drawer and waiting for a supervisor to sign-off on it. The lines were unified so that your line was served by 4-8 checkouts rather than 1 cashier (or 2 as is the case with walmart). That meant that any issue with a particular customer e.g. arguing over pricing presented on the shelf vs on the system, needing to send someone out to verify the shelf, didn't affect the time you needed to wait as much. They were a very positive thing for customers when they were introduced. Basically, instead of having to get in a line of 3-6 people and having to wait for each of those to be served before you by one cashier, you just instantly check-out with usually no line. With respect to labor, it's basically the same. That's unless, in your part of the world, they let you use the self-checkout with huge quantities of groceries that need bagging. In my experience, there's (always?) a limit on the number of items for self-checkout.
- joha4270 1y ago
  FWIW I have never encountered or even heard about a limit for self checkout here in Denmark.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- Izkata 1y ago
  Also, self-checkout itself is faster here anyway. We don't have baggers, so in the cashier lanes you have to unload onto the conveyor and put your items into the bags yourself, with some awkward maneuvering since the register is between the conveyor and the bagging area. In self-checkout unloading and bagging is combined into one action: Lift item from cart, pass over scanner on the way to the bags, place in bag, and pay at the end without even having to move. No real additional work on the customer's part. Also like the other response, I hadn't heard of explicit limits either, as long as everything fits on the bagging scale.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    I think self check-out is only faster if you compare it to really, really slow checkout clerks with no dedicated bagger. I've been in grocery stores with fantastic checkout staff where 100 items were checked out and bagged in a minute and a half. Ain't no way I'm going to achieve that rate standing by myself there over a tiny kiosk where I need to find a bag, put every item into bags before scanning the next one.
    - jolmg 1y ago
      They don't make a race of it, but I think they go at a reasonable "marathon" pace. There are also dedicated baggers. I should note that cashiers also accommodate other services like paying utility bills, or making withdrawals from one's checking account. It's not just about speed, though, it's particularly about the unified lane and the fact that 2 self-checkout stations easily fit in the space of a single human cashier station (that may be unoccupied because of a store's hiring budget). It's also about peoples' patience. If a store hires less cashiers and enough people are still willing to wait in line such that there's profit, well...
pixl97 1y ago
>Yea, where’s the theft of my time and labor for now performing part of your business transaction process you should be performing by hiring staff to check me out. Yikes, the entitlement. Should they also have someone push your cart around the store and load it for you? If you don't like it, you have the freedom of association to use a different store.

jolmg 1y ago

> Yea, where’s the theft of my time and labor for now performing part of your business transaction process you should be performing by hiring staff to check me out. I've seen this sentiment in recent years, but with respect to time, self-checkout was always faster than human cashiers. You didn't need to wait while the cashiers did procedures like counting the money in the drawer and waiting for a supervisor to sign-off on it. The lines were unified so that your line was served by 4-8 checkouts rather than 1 cashier (or 2 as is the case with walmart). That meant that any issue with a particular customer e.g. arguing over pricing presented on the shelf vs on the system, needing to send someone out to verify the shelf, didn't affect the time you needed to wait as much. They were a very positive thing for customers when they were introduced. Basically, instead of having to get in a line of 3-6 people and having to wait for each of those to be served before you by one cashier, you just instantly check-out with usually no line. With respect to labor, it's basically the same. That's unless, in your part of the world, they let you use the self-checkout with huge quantities of groceries that need bagging. In my experience, there's (always?) a limit on the number of items for self-checkout.

joha4270 1y ago
FWIW I have never encountered or even heard about a limit for self checkout here in Denmark.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
Izkata 1y ago
Also, self-checkout itself is faster here anyway. We don't have baggers, so in the cashier lanes you have to unload onto the conveyor and put your items into the bags yourself, with some awkward maneuvering since the register is between the conveyor and the bagging area. In self-checkout unloading and bagging is combined into one action: Lift item from cart, pass over scanner on the way to the bags, place in bag, and pay at the end without even having to move. No real additional work on the customer's part. Also like the other response, I hadn't heard of explicit limits either, as long as everything fits on the bagging scale.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  I think self check-out is only faster if you compare it to really, really slow checkout clerks with no dedicated bagger. I've been in grocery stores with fantastic checkout staff where 100 items were checked out and bagged in a minute and a half. Ain't no way I'm going to achieve that rate standing by myself there over a tiny kiosk where I need to find a bag, put every item into bags before scanning the next one.
  - jolmg 1y ago
    They don't make a race of it, but I think they go at a reasonable "marathon" pace. There are also dedicated baggers. I should note that cashiers also accommodate other services like paying utility bills, or making withdrawals from one's checking account. It's not just about speed, though, it's particularly about the unified lane and the fact that 2 self-checkout stations easily fit in the space of a single human cashier station (that may be unoccupied because of a store's hiring budget). It's also about peoples' patience. If a store hires less cashiers and enough people are still willing to wait in line such that there's profit, well...

pixl97 1y ago

>Yea, where’s the theft of my time and labor for now performing part of your business transaction process you should be performing by hiring staff to check me out. Yikes, the entitlement. Should they also have someone push your cart around the store and load it for you? If you don't like it, you have the freedom of association to use a different store.