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I'm not convinced. The self-service registers at the Walmart near me took up nearly 1/3rd of the space at the front of the store. Well people suck at checking
by yardie 14y ago
I'm not convinced. The self-service registers at the Walmart near me took up nearly 1/3rd of the space at the front of the store. Well people suck at checking out. Either they don't know how the machines work, move too slow, or have a problem with the scanner/price check. The lines were getting long and people were getting pissed at having to wait because the damn machine didn't think you actually put the bottle in the bag.
A few years ago that Walmart moved into an even bigger store. Before it was consumer products and some groceries. Now it's 50/50 with a bank, Macdonalds, and dentist. That self-checkout line has been reduced to 1 lane with 4 machines.
The cashier may be disappearing soon but it's not being replaced by self-service. Compared to a good cashier they are ridiculously slow. If anything they will be replaced with good computer vision or RFID.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI had the same reservations when I first saw these machines, the software was buggy and hard to use and people just weren't used to it. However a few stores near me have now removed human checkouts entirely and just have 1 member of staff floating around to deal with problems. The queues are dramatically smaller, the software has gotten better and people are now more used to using it. They are still slower than a human checkout for very large quantities of shopping, but if I want to make a very large order it's easier just to do it online anyway.
- yardie 14y agoHowever a few stores near me have now removed human checkouts entirely and just have 1 member of staff floating around to deal with problems. Like the Apple Store? Who has done away with the idea of checking out completely. I can see self checkout working at a boutique where you may buy half a dozen things and I've done it at the Boots, CVS, Apple store. But that bi-monthly food shopping trip, complete with coupons, is completely unworkable with those machines. I've found my online shopping has actually decreased because I'm eating healthier. I'm eating more fresh veg and meats which you need to physically inspect. Plus, the online shops have a 60-100€ minimum and I can't plan that far in advanced.
- jiggy2011 14y agoThis was at Tesco, if the queuing is short enough perhaps you don't need to buy so much stuff in one go and if delivery gets cheaper then online purchasing gets more attractive.
- larrys 14y ago"Like the Apple Store? Who has done away with the idea of checking out completely. I can see self checkout working at a boutique " Apple and boutique same thing high price and margins on the products (generally). Important to factor in that at the Apple store the margins are extremely high. So this is not the local drugstore making pennies when selling razor blades. You can't really lift the computers and desirable products and the other things come with enough margin to cover any theft. If you've ever priced some of either the add ons (like hard drives) laptop bags vs. what you can buy them on Amazon for you can see how much they are making and that well covers the cost of some shoplifting. And on the Apple products even larger. An Apple lightning to 30 pin connector sells for $39. I wouldn't even want to guess how cheap this is to manufacture (I'm talking about marginal cost of course) in other words what their loss is if one is lifted.
- r00fus 14y agoDon't blame just the users. The machines suck. They take what should be a simple scan and swipe, and add latencies to everything to make it slow and painful. Then they don't trust you (which perhaps makes sense), so if you do something off-script, it halts the entire process. Self-checkout
- frogpelt 14y agoProblem: Wal-Mart has an awful time getting cashiers to show up for work (apparently they aren't paying enough or aren't selective enough when hiring). But the shoppers keep showing up. Solution: Let the shoppers run the check out.