Why several big-box stores have ditched their self-checkouts | CBC News::undefined
I love self checkouts especially if I’m just grabbing a few things because I’ve gotten the rhythm of them down really well and get in and out much more quickly. And in reality they should only be used to offload the customers that meet that exact profile, “just grabbing a few things, not intimidated by tech”
That said the problem is two fold, people do not understand the optimal use case of self checkouts, and two companies see them as a way to cut as much labor as they can which in many cases forces those who don’t meet the ideal criteria into using them.
I find it to be a lot better since it allows multiple employees to cover many registers, but at the same time I’m very skeptical of technology that leads to less social interaction. Eventually we’re going to get to a point where people will literally skip meals if it means they have to interact with someone.
The last several times I’ve been to Lowes they only have self checkouts open. Can you imagine trying to run a 4x8’ sheet of plywood or 15’ long pipe over the scanner? It’s ridiculous.
This is the exact reason we stopped going to Lowe’s; literally 5 employees standing around talking while customers (self included) struggled to scan boards, pay for nails and screws and a million other little and large things. I hope they rot, taking my business to Home Hardware and other places that actually employ people.
There’s no way to send feedback, or to log a fault with the machine, so the store operators have to deal with every single exception manually, over and over, instead of getting the thing fixed.
- “Place your bags in bagging area” (ok, done)
- “Unexpected item in bagging area” (How can it be unexpected, you just told me to put my bags there. Operator logs in and clears fault)
- (remove bags) “item removed from bagging area” (so you want me to put my bags there, but you don’t, but you do. Operator logs in and clears fault)
- “We couldn’t scan the last item” (yes you could, it’s on the screen there. But if I take it back and scan it again, I get “item removed” and then it won’t scan it again. Operator logs in and clears fault)
- “unexpected item in bagging area (again)”. (So I successfully scanned the thing, but you didn’t expect me to put it in the bagging area? Where should it put it instead? Operator logged in and clears fault)
- “have you forgotten to scan something?” (No, that’s my walking stick and the extra bags I brought that I didn’t actually need after all. Operator logs in and clears fault)
Does anyone actually test these things before installing them at the stores? Does anyone review the faults to see how to improve the scanning and item recognition? Are you really creating a better customer experience by having half a dozen customers holding up the line while waiting for the operator to come and clear a fault?
The truth is they largely dont care. It’s easier for them to have an overactivity cautious robot that’s dog gone triple checks that you aren’t robbing them as long as they can close all normal lanes but one. They dont care that it’s a 10x worse job than cashiering the normal register, or that you’re annoyed to shop there. In most cases, your choice of stores is either limited, or the other ones are doing the same damn thing.
All that said, i have seen self checkout done well and sanely. Instead of jamming tiny stations next to each other to fit 10 in what used to be 2 normal lanes, it was more like 10 in 4 old lanes. Each station was huge, with plenty of room to set things. It had actually calibrated sensors that let you put bags down first, and get this, the clerk was able to remotely clear errors from a nearby station that wasent crowding anyone.
The above was in an overpriced, boutique store so i dont expect it to ever become the norm, but ill be damned if it wasent actually nice to use.
I stopped shopping at Cub specifically because the self-checkout registers were just like the ones described above. The cashier lanes weren’t any better because I still had to do all the work except scanning anyway.
Cub is the most convenient location for me by about 5 miles, but I refuse to go there because the service is so very bad.
The self check at my local Cub is awful, the paranoid self check is so frustrating, especially because I bring my own bags and it never works right. And it’s so expensive compared to every other grocery store in the area.
I want to like Cub because they’re the only union grocery store that’s convenient, but allegedly they allow lower management in the union and that’s caused problems, and the rumor I’ve heard is that the company that owns Cub is intentionally running it into the ground in order to kill the union. But given how shitty all retail has become, I’m not sure how true that rumor is.
I’d add one more- I set my purse down on the scan area (the only flat surface) to get my credit card out and get the “unable to scan item, please try again”. I try to set it with the bags and get the “unexpected item in bagging area, please remove from bagging area”. If I dont want to hold it while scanning and bagging I end up having to keep switching purse between shoulders or set it on the floor (which feels insecure).
They had to know that women carry purses and don’t always have a cart to set them down in, but they gave us nowhere to set them while scanning or bagging things and it just creates a mess.
I personally prefer self checkout at the grocery store because I get to bag my groceries the way I want to (grouped by frozen food, cans/bottles, non-food, etc.). It’s annoying to carefully group my items at the regular checkout conveyor only to have the cashier randomly bag them at the end. And even if I offer to bag them myself, I have to do it awkwardly while the cashier and next customer wait and stare, which isn’t the case for multiple self-checkout counters.
I think self checkouts have their place in the world, but too many suits with low brain cell counts have tried to treat them as the panacea for everything, and got dollar signs in their eyes and started salivating when they saw the prospect of firing all their cashiers. But they really don’t lend themselves well to a lot of types of retail establishments.
The Walmarts near me are exclusively self checkout at most hours of the day. They still have a dozen or more normal checkout lanes, but they’re almost always unmanned. Instead, they corral everyone into their “open concept” self checkout area which is a nightmare of shopping carts bumping into each other and customers with zero situational or spatial awareness stepping on each other’s toes. The best part is, the machines get their knickers in a twist so often that they now have pretty much exactly as many employees standing around the self checkouts to babysit customers and unjam the machines (and watch for theft, I’m sure) as they had normal checkout cashiers in the first place.
Both of our local Home Depots have self checkout “desks,” each of which is a big table with the scanner and monitor facing the customer. I suppose their self checkout theft rates have gotten so high that they’ve converted all of their checkouts back to cashier operated ones, but they kept the same self checkout machines… Just, the employee operates it instead of you. So we’ve come full circle and just reinvented the normal checkout but worse, because both you and the employee are on the same side of the same counter breathing in each other’s faces.
I do like the single self checkout kiosk at the Autozone across the street, though, simply because their entire staff seems to be perpetually doing something that doesn’t involve helping customers or addressing the ever-lengthening line in any capacity whatsoever. And also practically no one else has twigged to the self checkout machine at all. So when I just need a can of Brakleen or a quart of oil or whatever the fuck, I can just scan it and bounce while everyone else is standing around in line growing old.
The best part is, the machines get their knickers in a twist so often that they now have pretty much exactly as many employees standing around the self checkouts to babysit customers and unjam the machines (and watch for theft, I’m sure) as they had normal checkout cashiers in the first place.
There’s a grocery store near where I live that is like this. They have a scale built in to the bagging area, and it’s own idea of how much your stuff should weigh, and if you don’t add items precisely when it expects you to it shouts “UNSCANNED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA” and halts until an employee assesses the situation and releases you to scan more stuff. But this happens so often that the employees don’t have time to check why it’s complaining, and just scan their card to shut the thing up.
I’ve come across the same things in most of my travels. The worst incarnation I’ve seen of self check outs are the camera based self checkouts I’ve seen at some Circle K gas stations in the South West of the US.
I think they are too far of a jump for most normal consumers to understand. They use cameras so one can place all the items on the scan surface and it tries to calculate everything at once. Most people including myself try to scan things one at a time and it doesn’t work like that as it tries to do it all at once. Eventually store staff then need to come over to help every customer or they just ring up customers in a traditional way over at the main till. In these situations I don’t have enough cashier training to use these machines so I avoid them.
I love tech most of the time but I don’t enjoy when tech tries to leap frog over a couple of generations than the public can handle. In these situations have staff to take customers money. Websites dedicate resources to remove barriers to buying on a website. Why are brick and mortars adding barriers with each passing year?
Nothing grinds my gears more than having to line up and wait a long time to spend my money. I think there are some focusing too closely on the numbers and not the larger picture.
I ran into one of those circle k things in Louisiana this summer. Fortunately, it wasn’t self checkout. It’s just how they had the cashiers checking you out, which was nice because I’d never seen such a thing and she had to explain it to me.
Kinda blew my mind when I saw it work though.
Sounds like they have worked out the bugs since I first saw them earlier this year. They weren’t scanning very quickly and us customers had no idea how to even use them as they don’t look like the normal self check out systems, well at least the ones I saw.
I think the tech could be really good like the Amazon stores without cashiers but I’m not sure if most at first even understand how they work and are hesitant. I knew I was the first time at a Amazon store. It took hours for the receipt to be emailed to me and I had already left the state as I went to my next stop. However it was correct. Should prove to be interesting times ahead…
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