4 ms·

My supermarket has the handheld scanners and they are a game changer. They fit handily into the trolley if you want and you just scan stuff as you go. If you wa

My supermarket has the handheld scanners and they are a game changer. They fit handily into the trolley if you want and you just scan stuff as you go. If you want 8 of something, you can just tap the item and increase the quantity, none of the having to scan each one and add it carefully to the bagging area, etc... And best of all, at the end you just scan a self checkout screen (and they have special ones as well with no bagging area and no queue, but you can use the normal ones if the queue is shorter), so you scan the screen, click pay, click pay by card and hold your card on the machine. Done. Takes about 15 seconds all in, and the queues on those machines are basically non-existant as a result. Best of all is that you put your stuff directly into your bags as you're shopping so there's no frantic packing stage. Oh, and maybe Decathlon deserve a special mention here for their self-service checkouts. Every item has an RFID price tag usually sown into the care labels of their own-brand products. They don't have a self-scan machine, handheld or otherwise, you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done.

ValentineC 3mo ago
> Oh, and maybe Decathlon deserve a special mention here for their self-service checkouts. Every item has an RFID price tag usually sown into the care labels of their own-brand products. They don't have a self-scan machine, handheld or otherwise, you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done. Uniqlo too. I guess it helps that they own their entire manufacturing and retail process.
- deleted 3mo ago
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fmajid 3mo ago
And usually they have a dedicated checkout aisle so you don’t have to wait for the Boomers in front of you to pay in pennies or whatever it is they do to snarl a queue up.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago
  Eh. This "Boomer" uses his Apple Watch, usually. I tend to blow through in about five seconds. I usually have the stuff paid for, before the cashier stops ringing them up. I deliberately use the manned checkout, because I'm human, and I believe in helping out other humans. That seems to be a "quaint anachronism," these days, but it's the way this old fogey was raised. I know that someday, I won't have a choice (Home Depot only has cashiers for contractors, nowadays, so I'm forced to use the auto-checkout), but, where one is given, I take the human. Sometimes, I chuckle, as I go through fairly quickly, and see the long line, waiting for the auto-cashiers. It's obvious that the only benefit comes to the company. If you aren't just getting a candy bar, then the auto-cashier tends to be slower (mainly because I am a lot slower at that stuff, than the cashier).
  - Eisenstein 3mo ago
    > I know that someday, I won't have a choice (Home Depot only has cashiers for contractors, nowadays, so I'm forced to use the auto-checkout), but, where one is given, I take the human. Just hit the 'I need help' button on the self-checkout and an employee will show up and you can ask them to ring up your items.
    - michaelmrose 3mo ago
      Home Depot self checkouts are large touch screens with a nice wireless gun. It doesn't even check weight. It is one of the least shitty SCO experiences unless you have a bunch of bolts and shit in which case why are you even in self checkout when they always have at least one physical register open? I don't understand why people do this.
      - ralferoo 3mo ago
        We don't have home depot, but most self-checkout tills in the UK have scales and a separate bag weighing area. You can usually do everything at the till, but they also have scales and barcode printers around the loose fruit and veg areas too (and you have to print a barcode to scan if you're using the portable scan gun thing I mentioned earlier).
dbdoug 3mo ago
> you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done. Well, not exactly. I saved a bundle of money inadvertently in a Decathlon in São Paulo. I read the instructions, but didn't understand the Portuguese completely. I dumped a ton of purchases into the bin, watched the screen scroll through the items, and paid the bill. When I got home I realized that I'd only been billed for about half the items. Next time I was there, I read the instructions more carefully and discovered that they said to put the items in the bin one by one

ValentineC 3mo ago

> Oh, and maybe Decathlon deserve a special mention here for their self-service checkouts. Every item has an RFID price tag usually sown into the care labels of their own-brand products. They don't have a self-scan machine, handheld or otherwise, you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done. Uniqlo too. I guess it helps that they own their entire manufacturing and retail process.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

fmajid 3mo ago

And usually they have a dedicated checkout aisle so you don’t have to wait for the Boomers in front of you to pay in pennies or whatever it is they do to snarl a queue up.

ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago
Eh. This "Boomer" uses his Apple Watch, usually. I tend to blow through in about five seconds. I usually have the stuff paid for, before the cashier stops ringing them up. I deliberately use the manned checkout, because I'm human, and I believe in helping out other humans. That seems to be a "quaint anachronism," these days, but it's the way this old fogey was raised. I know that someday, I won't have a choice (Home Depot only has cashiers for contractors, nowadays, so I'm forced to use the auto-checkout), but, where one is given, I take the human. Sometimes, I chuckle, as I go through fairly quickly, and see the long line, waiting for the auto-cashiers. It's obvious that the only benefit comes to the company. If you aren't just getting a candy bar, then the auto-cashier tends to be slower (mainly because I am a lot slower at that stuff, than the cashier).
- Eisenstein 3mo ago
  > I know that someday, I won't have a choice (Home Depot only has cashiers for contractors, nowadays, so I'm forced to use the auto-checkout), but, where one is given, I take the human. Just hit the 'I need help' button on the self-checkout and an employee will show up and you can ask them to ring up your items.
  - michaelmrose 3mo ago
    Home Depot self checkouts are large touch screens with a nice wireless gun. It doesn't even check weight. It is one of the least shitty SCO experiences unless you have a bunch of bolts and shit in which case why are you even in self checkout when they always have at least one physical register open? I don't understand why people do this.
    - ralferoo 3mo ago
      We don't have home depot, but most self-checkout tills in the UK have scales and a separate bag weighing area. You can usually do everything at the till, but they also have scales and barcode printers around the loose fruit and veg areas too (and you have to print a barcode to scan if you're using the portable scan gun thing I mentioned earlier).

dbdoug 3mo ago

> you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done. Well, not exactly. I saved a bundle of money inadvertently in a Decathlon in São Paulo. I read the instructions, but didn't understand the Portuguese completely. I dumped a ton of purchases into the bin, watched the screen scroll through the items, and paid the bill. When I got home I realized that I'd only been billed for about half the items. Next time I was there, I read the instructions more carefully and discovered that they said to put the items in the bin one by one