Supermarket Self-Checkout
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I write a lot of user-interface stuff at work. I'm not very good at it, but a long time ago someone had to do the user interface and it ended up being me, and since I've done it, I get to keep doing it. But if I had done something as bad as the supermarket self-checkout lane, I'd quit my job in disgrace.
I tried out the self-checkout lane last night. There's a big screen and a few little screens and buttons and slots here and there with no particular rhyme or reason. There's a mouse cursor on the big screen but no mouse. There is no indication of what you do to begin. I looked for an appropriate button to press on the screen. I pressed "credit" because I was going to use a credit card. (Actually I think you can just start scanning.)
"Please scan your first item," said a voice. So I scanned the first item and the voice said the price. "Two. Ninety-nine." I put it on the conveyor.
Next I had a bunch of bananas with no sticker so I pressed the "produce" button. A lot of pictures of fruit came up and I pressed the bananas. (So far so good.) I put the bananas on the scanner (it has a scale underneath) and the voice said "One. Thirty Four. Please place your bananas on the conveyor belt."
Actually it talked more like the computers in the Firesign Theatre album "I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus."
"Please."
"Place your."
"Bananas."
"On the conveyor belt."
I did. Then I scanned the eggs and it said "One. Ninety-Nine.". I didn't want them to get broken so instead of putting them on the belt I put them on the shelf.
I tried to scan the next thing and it said "Please. Place your. Last item. On the conveyor belt." Now you have to understand that when a machine talks to me I talk back so I said, "No. They're eggs. They'll break." No response. "OK, have it your way" I said and put the eggs on the moving belt.
The belt reversed direction (!) and the voice said "One. Ninety-Nine. Credit. If you wish to purchase. This item. Please scan it again." So I did, and this time like a good boy I put it on the belt. (And immediately took it off so the eggs wouldn't break.)
I scanned another two items and the voice said "The bagging area. Is full. Please bag your groceries." It wasn't particularly full but the machine refused to scan another item so I went to the other end and started to put my items into bags. Then the machine said "Come back here and scan your next item." I said "Give me a break! I haven't finished bagging these." and it said "If you have finished, please select your payment type."
So I went back and scanned more items, and fortunately one of the register clerks took pity on me and came over to do the bagging. There's no place to put the bags after you fill them; you just have to put them on the floor until your cart's empty so you can use it.
When I was done I selected my payment type -- credit -- again (that was what I did first, remember?). "Please pass your. Credit. Card through the reader." So I did. "Is that a. Credit. Card or a. Debit. Card." "I just told you, it's a credit card. Oh, you can't hear. Where's the button?" I pressed the credit button again. Bitch.
"Please. Take your. Receipt. Have a nice day. Please scan your first item."
I don't think the register clerks have to worry about losing their jobs.
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Sounds like your grocery store messed this one up big-time. I use the self-checkout at HEB and it is very easy to use (though you have to punch in the codes for produce, instead of picking from a series of pictures; that would be easier). Doesn't have a conveyor, just have to either put the stuff in a bag or on a scale next to the bags.
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I use self checkout at albertson's frequently, but only when I have a handful of items. If I've got more than a half dozen or so, I use the normal checkout.
It doesn't have a conveyor belt, and there's a "Skip bagging" button you can hit after scanning an item.
I really don't think I'd want to use it for a full cart.
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I am constantly frustrated by the POS interfaces on POS systems. (Are the matching acronyms coincidence? I think not.)
I go to any Safeway in Washington state, and I have to: scan a card, press a screen with a pen, scan a different card, press a screen with a pen, wait, and press the screen with the pen again. This is true whether I have two cards or not; if I don't have a Safeway card, I need to scan my payment card and THEN (when the system realises it's not a Safeway Club card) select the type of payment card I'm using, before having to scan it again. The big WTF on this one is that if I try to pause long enough to put either of the cards away, the POS system beeps at me. If I ignore it, the system will cancel the process. So if I want to put my Safeway Club card away before I get out my payment card, I can't. I have to have both cards out and ready the entire time, even when I'm using the stylus that I have to use to press the screen buttons.
The self-checkout at Fred Meyer really takes the cake when you have alcohol in your basket. See, if you have alcohol, they need to check your ID. So you scan the alcohol, and nothing happens. It's only at the end, when you have already paid, that they request you show your ID to a human being that is manning a little booth near the self checkout. Which leads to a pair of interesting questions: what exactly will they do if I'm not old enough to buy what I've already bought, and why exactly doesn't the person at this booth just run the register? (As I write this, a colleague informs me that they don't do this anymore. I wouldn't know, since I've stopped going to Fred Meyer altogether.)
I was particularly amused by Albertson's, which had a horrible self-checkout system. I bought three cans of soup. I put them in the bag. The checkout said "please remove last item from bag". I removed a can of soup. "Please place the item in the bag." I put it back. Guess what? "Please remove last item from bag." Apparently, the can of soup I was buying weighed just slightly more than the average can of the same brand and variety of soup, so the checkout thought I was trying to sneak something else into the bag along with the soup. So I got the manager who eventually came over to go get me a different can of soup. Twice - because he didn't believe me when I explained the problem, so he just walked out of view and came back with the same can of soup. (There's some real stupidity there, not because he did this, but because he told me he had done it. "Yeah, ha ha, I don't trust customers because they're all stupid. I guess I can't fool you.") Later, I had a similar problem with bananas, oddly enough. This was even more retarded, because the checkout system weighs the bananas to determine the price. Then it weighs what you put in the bag to make sure it matches. Which means the scale on the scanner didn't match the scale on the bag area. The self-checkouts there lasted a few weeks, then disappeared, leaving six large holes in the floor near the exits. A month or so later, three cashier-manned registers had replaced them. Seems I wasn't the only one with a problem.
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In a major UK supermarket (I don't know which one), they have handheld barcode scanners that you take round with you when you shop. Not sure how produce is handled.
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Yeah, I've felt the same way about some of the self checkouts. Definitely a WTF in many cases. The ones at my regular grocery store are quite buggy. Almost every time I go there something gets screwed -- either with me or someone in front of me -- and an attendant has to come over to fix it. Items scan correctly then get hung up on the conveyor belt, or they scan incorrectly, or the machine just decides it needs some coaxing by an attendant with a login card.
I imagine the things are a bitch to test; I have a suspicion they're fairly well tested in the dev environment but go through much less testing out in the stores. Hence the issues.My favorite experience was when I accidentally hit the 'Food Stamps' button instead of credit, and the machine screamed out for everyone to hear, "PLEASE BRING YOUR FOOD STAMPS UP TO THE CASHEIR!!!!"
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I goto Home Depot a lot, networking gear, home improvement, wire, tools, etc. Usually the lines are too long at the manned registers to make it worth the wait. They have these so called "automated checkouts" as well. I get a LOT of issues with the weight of a particular item differing from the bag scale to the scanning scale. I mean I hardly ever get anything there small enough to fit in a bag, meaning it can't really be weighed properly. I think that's the weakest link in the chain of automated checkouts. Is theft by adding items into the bag without scanning them a large enough threat to warrant such and unforgiving system?
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These things have been recently foisted on us at Tescos (in the UK) and I was suprised to find myself feeling somewhat technophobic in regards to them. But I decided to bite the bullet and try one recently and found it a completely terrible experience.
1) Theres othing like standing there like a prat waiting for assistance because the item you have bought isnt actually IN THE SYSTEM. I had this problem with 2 fresh produce items and thus had to TWICE stand around and wait for the firl to come and key in the code.
2) I decided to pay by cash. The notes in slot is on the top right of the machine. The coin change slot is right next to it. I put £10 in, got my cash change but....was £5 short. Called the girl over...who pointed down to my KNEES where a £5 note was sitting in a tray. SERIOUSLY I am standing at the machine, right over this slot, the screen in front of me, money slots and bags to my right and Im expected to suddenly realise "ohhh I need to check my knees for change".....!!!
3) After my first bag of shopping I natually took it off the bag area to fill another bag. THE MACHINE COMPLAINED AND TOLD ME TO PUT IT BACK ON!!
If Ive anything more than a few items from now on Ill wait for a clerk even if those machines are empty.
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[quote user="m0ffx"]
In a major UK supermarket (I don't know which one), they have handheld barcode scanners that you take round with you when you shop. Not sure how produce is handled.[/quote]
This happens in Sainsbury's and possibly others. Produce is handled by weighing machines in the produce section that print out barcode stickers. Items that the handheld scanner don't read are OK; as you pay at the same checkout as everyone else, they will be scanned in there instead. Of course this is a system based on trust, occasionally they ask to rescan all of your shopping to make sure you're honest - a real PITA if you have a trolley full of frozen food...
(It saves time as they can bag the shopping as they put it in the trolley, otherwise the threat of rescan wouldn't make it worthwhile.)
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[quote user="CDarklock"]I was particularly amused by Albertson's, which had a horrible self-checkout system. I bought three cans of soup. I put them in the bag. The checkout said "please remove last item from bag". I removed a can of soup. "Please place the item in the bag." I put it back. Guess what? "Please remove last item from bag."[/quote]
I've had that happen to me all the time. Whenever it happens, though, I can motion to the person at the little podium that supervises all of the self-check machines and they'll override it since apparently it happens so much that they don't even bat an eyelash about it.
It doesn't seem that it's specific to one store, though -- I've been to probably four or five different chains that all use the same checkout system (same lady's voice, everything, the only difference being the store logos displayed and the color scheme), and it happens at all of them that use this system. Albertson's, Fry's, Home Depot, Wal-Mart...there are probably a couple I'm forgetting too.
Oh, and before I forget -- at an Albertson's once I wanted to buy garlic. Now, you'd think that would be a common enough produce item that it would be no problem, but when I went through the little picture-menu there 1) wasn't an appropriate category; 2) after going through every remotely possible category, garlic wasn't in any of them. I called to the attendant and they said that apparently garlic isn't in that menu so I guess that whenever anybody wants to buy some garlic via the self-checkout, someone has to come over and enter it for them. WTF?
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[quote user="kaamoss"]I goto Home Depot a lot, networking gear, home improvement, wire, tools, etc. Usually the lines are too long at the manned registers to make it worth the wait. They have these so called "automated checkouts" as well. I get a LOT of issues with the weight of a particular item differing from the bag scale to the scanning scale. I mean I hardly ever get anything there small enough to fit in a bag, meaning it can't really be weighed properly. I think that's the weakest link in the chain of automated checkouts. Is theft by adding items into the bag without scanning them a large enough threat to warrant such and unforgiving system?
[/quote]At Home Depot, if you want to buy a gift card you have to use the self-checkout. The registers can't handle them. I took one to the register and the clerk brought me over to the self-checkout machine to purchase it.
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[quote user="mrbandersnatch"]
< various gripes about Tescos />
[/quote]
I totally agree. They seem to have been designed by morons for cretins.
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Picking the pictures of produce isn't neccesarily easier-- I use the self checkouts at Walmart and a lot of times my particular produce isn't listed. (They also have some weird catagory system; sometimes it is listed but impossible to find. [Tomatoes-- vegetable? fruit? misc.?] ) This happens to me so much that now I just pick some random item of similar price, and weigh my navel oranges as eggplant.
Not only are those systems that complain about weight mismatches irritating, I don't understand the point at all. The only people they actually impede are honest customers, since the guy stealing some item is hardly going to be stupid enough to stick it right on the conveyor belt-- that's what pockets are for!
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Where is the magical supermarket checkout system that AT&T promised us 10 years ago?
A supermarket cart that records each item as it's placed in your cart, presumably letting you bag it at the same time, and to pay, you just wave your debit card at the cashier system while you exit the store.
Of course, embedding rfd tags in each head of lettuce and each banana will add complications, but they promised we'd have these things and AT&T would bring it to us.
True, if I happen to have 3 different forms of credit cards and/or debit cards, I'd be worried about which card (and function, if one card can be used for either debit or credit) was picked up by the readers as I'm walking out.
I'm also sort of wondering how they'll get that receipt to me. Maybe it can be printed out, shoved into a canister, and a trebuchet can fling it to parachute gently down to me as I exit the store.
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Fry's Foods (owned by Kroger, who also own Fred Meyer) does the self-checkout pretty well.
There is no conveyor belt. There is a bagging area with a carousel of bag racks, as well as an additional area to set things.
Barcoded items are simply scanned and then bagged, unless they require age verification, in which case you have to go (right then) and show ID to the clerk who watches over all four self-checkout stations.
Produce without a barcode requires you to hit a "Produce - no barcode" button, then enter the code that's on a sticker on the produce, and place it on the scanner/scale. Once it has been weighed, you get to bag it.
Bakery items without a barcode require you to hit a "Bakery Items" button, enter the code (for which the legend is on the bakery bag) and the quantity, and then place it on the scanner/scale. Once it has been determined to weigh within acceptable tolerances, you get to bag it.
Ready to pay? Hit the "Pay Now" button, then go through the "Do you have any coupons?" menu. "Yes" means you get to give your coupons to the clerk before proceeding.
Now tell it whether you're using cash, check, card, or food stamps. Check and food stamps require more clerk interaction. Cash just slurps it up, and card means you get to deal with a standard POS card reader/pinpad.
Getting change? A loud voice will tell you where the paper money is, if you get any back.
Oh, and there are no sentences constructed of disjointed phrases. All sentences were recorded whole, spoken by a real human.
Some of the stores (in the more-likely-to-be-shoplifted-from areas) have an additional step for every single item. You have to touch it to a yellow panel next to the scanner/scale, so the inventory-control system can note that it's leaving with permission.
All-in-all, it's a good system, unless you have a lot of items. Because you can't be trusted to scan and bag each item quickly without slipping bonus goodies into the bag, you have to go one item at a time. Regular checkout clerks can run huge numbers of items by the scanner much faster, so I go to them if I have a lot to buy.
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Time for our periodic article on self checkout:
‘Unexpected item’: how self-checkouts failed to live up to their promise
The kiosks promised to make life easier for shoppers and stores. Instead, they’ve done the opposite
I can see how they could be a problem WRT shoplifting, but I love the things.
That’s not something we should get excited about, says Christopher Andrews, a sociologist who examined the kiosks in his 2018 book, The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy. Despite what grocery stores and kiosk manufacturers claim, research shows self-checkouts aren’t actually any faster than a regular checkout line, Andrews says. “It only feels like it because your time is occupied doing tasks, rather than paying attention to each second ticking away.”
Eh, no, because I'm also not typically waiting in line, or if I do, it's very briefly. So even if I'm a little bit less efficient than a full service cashier it really does save time when there's a line.
Andrews says his research has found that the majority of people don’t actually want self-checkouts.
Maybe, but over the last few years they've gotten a lot better. And I suspect people have forgotten standing in line and looking at all the empty lanes that can't be used because there's no cashier there.
Kiosks also don't try to make small talk with me.
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@boomzilla that last line especially.
And here in small town, you're less likely to get stuck behind some old person whose only social interaction is with the cashier, so they insist on talking endlessly. While writing a physical check oh so slowly.
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@Benjamin-Hall at the grocery store I still mostly go to cashiers, especially if I have a big order. But there's usually not a big line at my store, either, in part because plenty of people use the self checkout.
But at Walmart it's made a huge difference. It used to always be a pain because so few lanes were open. Now it's very rare that I wait at all because they have so many kiosks. It can be a bit of a PITA when you buy alcohol, because they have to come over and OK it, and there are definitely occasional issues with stuff that won't scan or whatever but the people watching are pretty good at this point and usually get there pretty quickly.
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@boomzilla The supermarket I frequent has self-checkout with handheld scanners. So you can scan and bag your groceries as you take them off the shelves, and that really does save a lot of time.
There's a cashier per 6-8 self checkout stations. They are responsible for age checks flagged by the system, random checks of people's groceries (usually 4-6 items) to guard against shoplifting, and any questions from customers. They're kept pretty busy, but I'm sure they'd need more cashiers for traditional checkout.
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@Benjamin-Hall at the grocery store I still mostly go to cashiers, especially if I have a big order. But there's usually not a big line at my store, either, in part because plenty of people use the self checkout.
But at Walmart it's made a huge difference. It used to always be a pain because so few lanes were open. Now it's very rare that I wait at all because they have so many kiosks. It can be a bit of a PITA when you buy alcohol, because they have to come over and OK it, and there are definitely occasional issues with stuff that won't scan or whatever but the people watching are pretty good at this point and usually get there pretty quickly.
I'm shopping for myself, so I rarely have enough for a cashier to be worth it. Only when I go to one particular store, because their self-checkouts are both micro-sized AND set to ultra-suspicious mode. The Walmart ones don't even get really picky about bagging items/checking weight. And at the Walmart I go to there are self-checkouts with conveyor belts and normal-sized bagging areas. And there, I'm faster than most cashiers and can bag things the way I want. Especially since in Oregon we all have to use reusable bags...
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
It can be a bit of a PITA when you buy alcohol, because they have to come over and OK it
I don't buy alcohol, so that's not a problem for me, but the occasional items that do need an age check (like spray paint, or a DVD of a 1930s MGM musical (because it never got a MPAA rating)) aren't a big problem. One glance at me and they know I'm over 18 or 21 or whatever the required age is.
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@PleegWat said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@boomzilla The supermarket I frequent has self-checkout with handheld scanners. So you can scan and bag your groceries as you take them off the shelves, and that really does save a lot of time.
Mine allows you to use your phone (I think...haven't tried it, but I believe you still have to go to a kiosk).
I use the Sam's Club app to do this and yeah, it's great. When Sam's gets crowded there are never enough checkouts open. You don't have to go to a kiosk, though they always have a person at the door who scans your receipt (or your phone if you're doing "Scan and go") and then scans 3 random items from your cart.
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@HardwareGeek said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
It can be a bit of a PITA when you buy alcohol, because they have to come over and OK it
I don't buy alcohol, so that's not a problem for me, but the occasional items that do need an age check (like spray paint, or a DVD of a 1930s MGM musical (because it never got a MPAA rating)) aren't a big problem. One glance at me and they know I'm over 18 or 21 or whatever the required age is.
Heh...I have gotten carded a few times in the past year. Usually from new cashiers. Went to the store the other day and my cashier was under 21 so he had to have a manager come over. The manager asked the kid if he'd carded me and the kid got a scared look when he said no. The manager was just giving him shit though and laughed and told him that no, he didn't have to.
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@PleegWat said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@boomzilla The supermarket I frequent has self-checkout with handheld scanners. So you can scan and bag your groceries as you take them off the shelves, and that really does save a lot of time.
Mine allows you to use your phone (I think...haven't tried it, but I believe you still have to go to a kiosk).
I use the Sam's Club app to do this and yeah, it's great. When Sam's gets crowded there are never enough checkouts open. You don't have to go to a kiosk, though they always have a person at the door who scans your receipt (or your phone if you're doing "Scan and go") and then scans 3 random items from your cart.
Some of the bigger supermarkets here have the handheld scanners, one of them has an app as an alternative to the scanners, but both still require going to specific checkouts.
I've never tried them though - if I'm going for a bigger shop I just get it delivered, and only go in for smaller shops or just to pick up lunch or whatever and the scanner/app seems like more effort than just using the self-service checkout for those.For sure though the various self-service options are generally better even with the holdups like items that need approving or stuff that doesn't register the 'correct' weight in the bagging area.
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
Heh...I have gotten carded a few times in the past year. Usually from new cashiers.
I haven't for years
The small supermarket near me has a couple of options on the staff-only screen for when they've not checked - "Customer is clearly 25-34" and "Customer is clearly over 34".
Even though the latter is true, it still feels better when they press the former.
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@loopback0 it's not like my beard hasn't been almost fully white / grey for years. I usually laugh and ask, "Seriously?" I believe the official guidance is to card anyone who looks under 40.
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@PleegWat said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@boomzilla The supermarket I frequent has self-checkout with handheld scanners. So you can scan and bag your groceries as you take them off the shelves, and that really does save a lot of time.
Mine allows you to use your phone (I think...haven't tried it, but I believe you still have to go to a kiosk).
I use the Sam's Club app to do this and yeah, it's great. When Sam's gets crowded there are never enough checkouts open. You don't have to go to a kiosk, though they always have a person at the door who scans your receipt (or your phone if you're doing "Scan and go") and then scans 3 random items from your cart.
I'm pretty sure mine allows a phone too, but I prefer the hand scanner since there's a holder for it on the shopping trolley. Since I never looked into the phone app I don't know if it allows you to bypass the kiosk. Normally the kiosk also prints out a receipt, the receipt has a barcode which opens the exit gate automatically. And there's always kiosks open anyway – if there aren't then I'm not using my work-from-home take-breaks-when-you-want privilege effectively.
Years ago a different supermarket had an experimental self-checkout system which involved scanning and weighing all items. That didn't last long, since it took the customer about as much time as standing in line for a normal checkout so nobody used them.
Self-bagging is the norm around here, I've never encountered a supermarket where you didn't have to do your own bagging. Generally I'm about as fast at bagging my item as the cashier is at scanning them, so having to do both of those tasks at the checkout really adds a lot of time.
The exception to that is of course when the customer in front of you is a very slow baggers and/or thinks they need to pay attention to check if the cashier is scanning their items correctly, so they still have to begin bagging after they've paid.
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@PleegWat said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
and any questions from customers
I had a fun one the other day - the seam of the bag of onions was actually across the UPC code so I couldn't scan it. She actually managed to peal back the bag enough (fingernails vs no fingernails) enough so it could be scanned. And I learned then that our selfcheckouts have hand scanners too (buried off to the side)
@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
It can be a bit of a PITA when you buy alcohol
California solved that for us.
:forbidden:! It used to be the same as you (they come over and approve). Now we have to wait in line.
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@dcon said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
California solved that for us.
Because alcohol can cause cancer in california?
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@loopback0 said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
"Customer is clearly 25-34" and "Customer is clearly over 34".
Even though the latter is true, it still feels better when they press the former.I haven't been to Walmart since they started pushing [
content redacted] on their employees, but they used to have (and probably still do, I suppose) a policy of checking ID of anyone who looks under 40. They've never asked for my ID. 
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@BernieTheBernie said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@dcon said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
California solved that for us.
Because alcohol can cause cancer in california?
Nah, can't be that - we can still buy other cancer causing things in self checkout!
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@HardwareGeek said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
a policy of checking ID of anyone who looks under 40.
Some places have simplified that. Everyone, now matter how old they look, gets checked.
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@dcon said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@BernieTheBernie said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@dcon said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
California solved that for us.
Because alcohol can cause cancer in california?
Nah, can't be that - we can still buy other cancer causing things in self checkout!
Oh, because california ... you must be right: virtually everything may cause cancer in california. Like using the self-checkout.
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@HardwareGeek said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
the occasional items that do need an age check (like spray paint
They're gonna have noticed by now that you only buy gold and silver, but, if it makes you feel better...
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@boomzilla I thought this was a new thread and was wondering where the fuck you could find a carton of eggs for less than $2 these days.
I used to love them because nobody used them, so there was always no line. Since then they've become more popular but they've also added more and more. I still tend to prefer them.
My only big problem with them is they only work for smaller purchases. A large basket full of groceries become a bit cumbersome, especially if it's a belt with no bagger at the end. If it's one of those smaller kiosk types then it's more just a matter of making sure your bagged groceries go into the basket while you're still emptying the items to be scanned, and doing it methodically so that you know what items should be grouped together for a bag.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
If it's one of those smaller kiosk types then it's more just a matter of making sure your bagged groceries go into the basket while you're still emptying the items to be scanned
Some (used to?) complain if you removed anything from the bagging area before you finished scanning, so that isn't/wasn't possible. I don't know if any still do that. I haven't used one for a while. The supermarket I shop at now considers the self-checkout a 10-item-or-less express lane, and I always have a full cart. But mostly I order online and pick up the order curb-side.
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@HardwareGeek I know ours would sometimes complain about an extra item when I placed my bag on the table to begin loading it.
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@HardwareGeek I did a lot of trial and error with this. From my experience it seems like it accepts it if I move an entire bag off but only after I had deposited my freshly scanned item into the bag I am working on. The timing and sequencing is crucial. Otherwise, yeah, it will either go with "move your item to the bagging area" or it may also say "unexpected item in bagging area" depending on what you're doing.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@boomzilla that last line especially.
And here in small town, you're less likely to get stuck behind some old person whose only social interaction is with the cashier, so they insist on talking endlessly. While writing a physical check oh so slowly.
Or worse, as I saw multiple times in the supermarket I used in a town in southern England. It has a justified reputation among its younger residents as, well, if not actually in second place behind Eastbourne, then certainly high up the list of the towns with the highest percentage of retirees.
So picture the scene. Young(er than today) Mr Cynic is doing his weekly food shopping, and finishes behind one of these post-retirement shoppers. What does she(1) do?
Well, she pays for her shopping with cash, and the sequence goes something like this (slightly exaggerated - most of them only had one handbag...):
- Opens 2-wheel shopping trolley thing.
- Removes large handbag from shopping trolley.
- Closes shopping trolley.
- Opens large handbag.
- Removes small handbag from large handbag.
- Closes large handbag.
- Opens shopping trolley.
- Puts large handbag in shopping trolley.
- Closes shopping trolley.
- Opens small handbag.
- Removes small wallet/purse thing from small handbag.
- Closes small handbag.
- Opens purse.
- Painfully slowly and carefully counts out the exact change to pay for what she bought. At this point, she's paid for the stuff, and then reverses the above steps before packing her bought items in the shopping trolley.
It's a wonder that more of them weren't murdered in those checkout lines.
(1) Population dynamics being what they are, they were almost exclusively female.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
(1) Population dynamics being what they are, they were almost exclusively female.
Also, because men don't have the patience to do that.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
Opens 2-wheel shopping trolley thing.
Removes large handbag from shopping trolley.
Closes shopping trolley.
Opens large handbag.
Removes small handbag from large handbag.
Closes large handbag.
Opens shopping trolley.
Puts large handbag in shopping trolley.
Closes shopping trolley.
Opens small handbag.
Removes small wallet/purse thing from small handbag.
Closes small handbag.
Opens purse.
Painfully slowly and carefully counts out the exact change to pay for what she bought. At this point, she's paid for the stuff, and then reverses the above steps before packing her bought items in the shopping trolley.Tower of Hanoi, but with purses
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
Time for our periodic article on self checkout:
I can see how they could be a problem WRT shoplifting, but I love the things.
Two things I don't like about them:
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Often the staging area is so small that there's no room for more than a couple of items.
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They don't work right enough that they still need a person to supervise. And that's the part I hate - in some places they tell you what to do like you're too dumb and illiterate to figure it out yourself. I don't mind if something's not working right - I just don't like when they assume you can't read or figure it out. Might just be the region where I am - native-born people are a minority, so it hasn't occurred to them that some people actually can read.
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@dcon True, although I was thinking more of the retirees being generally mostly women. For sure, the men among them wouldn't have the patience for all that nonsense.
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@jinpa I'm not native-born where I live now, and yet I can read the local language well, even though it's not my native language.
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
Eh, no, because I'm also not typically waiting in line, or if I do, it's very briefly. So even if I'm a little bit less efficient than a full service cashier it really does save time when there's a line.
Andrews says his research has found that the majority of people don’t actually want self-checkouts.
Maybe, but over the last few years they've gotten a lot better. And I suspect people have forgotten standing in line and looking at all the empty lanes that can't be used because there's no cashier there.
The interesting thing here is that actually the queuing part is in theory independent of the self-checkout/cashier thing.
Supermarkets are mostly laid out with one queue per cashier, but one single queue for a batch of self-checkout machines (in a couple of very large supermarkets I've seen two batches of machines, one at each end of the store, but that's not very common, but anyway that's not the point here). But there is nothing in theory that would prevent making one queue per self-checkout machine, or a single queue that dispatches to several cashiers -- and actually quite a few (generally smaller) supermarkets or similar shops do exactly that!
Just yesterday I went to a large bookshop and it was crammed full of people (less than a week before Christmas and just after office hours... no surprise here!), so when I got to the tills there were maybe 20 people in front of me. But since it was a single queue for all cashiers, I barely waited a couple of minutes (ok, maybe a bit more).
I find it interesting that when setting up self-checkout machines, the supermarkets did realise that making one queue per machine was inefficient, but they still kept that layout for all the other regular queues! And machines have been around for quite a few years now so most shops have been through at least one refurbishing cycle where they could have changed that if they had wanted to.
I can only think of one reason: a single queue has to be made somewhat winding to not become huge, and with large shopping trolleys this is impractical to navigate. Self-checkouts here are usually restricted to baskets only, which avoids this problem (and the bookshop doesn't use trolleys at all).
I thought it might also have been to maximise the time spent in front of impulse-buy-at-the-till stuff, but the queue at the bookshop was very good at winding through that stuff, so that's probably not the main issue here.
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@remi that's a good point. At my grocery store there's one queue for self checkout for 8 kiosks (though 1 or 2 are commonly out of order at any given time).
At Walmart it's much more complicated. There are some areas with similar configurations, but there's many more, and especially the bigger ones with the conveyor belts end up with their own lines (in the actually fairly rare circumstances where you need to wait).
I was there the yesterday and it was kind of crazy because there were openings at self checkouts but super long lines for the cashiers.
I can only think of one reason: a single queue has to be made somewhat winding to not become huge, and with large shopping trolleys this is impractical to navigate. Self-checkouts here are usually restricted to baskets only, which avoids this problem (and the bookshop doesn't use trolleys at all).
Not here. I almost always have a cart and always take it in there. It can get a little crowded but it's not actually that bad. Many other people have their carts in there too.
A lot of these layout determinations are simply based on available vs required space, I think. And the fact that a cashier lane (or the self checkouts with the conveyors) require a lot more space than a kiosk with a bagging area (and the size of those vary widely).
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@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
Not here. I almost always have a cart and always take it in there. It can get a little crowded but it's not actually that bad. Many other people have their carts in there too.
I guess those queues need to be pretty wide, but I guess why not?
A lot of these layout determinations are simply based on available vs required space, I think.
Yes, but this is why I mentioned the (regular) refurbishing that shops go through. If you're trying to retrofit a single queue in the space of a multi-queue, it's going to be difficult. But if you're ripping out the whole thing, it's no more difficult than any other remodelling.
And the fact that a cashier lane (or the self checkouts with the conveyors) require a lot more space than a kiosk with a bagging area (and the size of those vary widely).
That might be the flip side of the queuing-with-trolleys problem, yes. Conveyor belts pretty much force to have them parallel to each other and that means if you've got more than half a dozen of them people in the (hypothetical) single queue would not easily see when a till becomes free (you can add lamps or a voice or someone directing people but it's additional work). So you probably can't very efficiently group more than a few of them.
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@remi said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@boomzilla said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
Not here. I almost always have a cart and always take it in there. It can get a little crowded but it's not actually that bad. Many other people have their carts in there too.
I guess those queues need to be pretty wide, but I guess why not?
Really, there's not any defined queue. There's an area with the kiosks, and rarely more than two or three people waiting by the entrance.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Supermarket Self-Checkout:
@jinpa I'm not native-born where I live now, and yet I can read the local language well, even though it's not my native language.
You don't count. You're a WTFer.
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My local supermarket just replaced their self-checkout kiosks. The new new version has two similar voice prompts:
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Please wait for attendant. This means that you need to wait for the person at the little station overlooking all of the kiosks. Typically this is for something like an ID check for alcoholic beverages.
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Please wait for cashier. This is you. It's a self-checkout kiosk, so you're the cashier. It does this when there is a problem with the card and it wants you to do it again. The card reader says "please try again", but it has already sent a reject signal to the kiosk. At this point, the card reader is ready, but the kiosk has gone back to "select payment method". Nothing you do on the card reader gets you beyond "please try again". It is literally telling you to wait for yourself to choose the payment method.
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