Why do so many people hate self checkouts?

[Brian Elfert]

Dude, stop with the all caps, and all ad-hominem remarks and your flawed assumptions. I've read two of your posts in this thread and your assumptions are annoying and your caps above, just downright rude... Read Matt's ane Phil's posts... pretend they're in ALL CAPS in case you're too blind to read that what they're saying has nothing to do with full serve gas stations, dialing 0 and worrying about low wage jobs.

THE REASON MOST OF US DON'T LIKE SELF SERVE IS BECAUSE INEVITABLY SOMETHING DOESN'T WORK OR YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR CLERK ASSISTANCE ANYWAY.

Did it get through to you now?

I purposely posted in all CAPS to get my point across. If you don't like it, fine. If self checkout doesn't work for you because you have too many issues that require intervention then use a regular cashier. That is certainly a valid reason not to use self checkout.

I'll never understand all the people who will never use self checkout because they want to keep human cashiers employed, but it is a free country and they can continue to use human cashiers if they like. I use whatever method gets me out of the store fastest. If I have a cartload of groceries a human cashier will be faster, but for 10 items self checkout is usually faster.

[Ole Anderson]

Passing through Oregon recently, I found out they still REQUIRE that the attendant pump your gas. It felt strange after all these years of self pumping.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

Passing through Oregon recently, I found out they still REQUIRE that the attendant pump your gas. It felt strange after all these years of self pumping.

Seemed like a good idea after the time I filed up the car in Vegas and the guy next to me smoking away pulled his still pumping hose out of his tank spraying surrounding cars as he made his way to the pump. I had visions of the whole flaming station in coast to coast newspapers

[Frederick Ieppert]

Sorry, but I do believe that they do displace some workers. Also, when I leave work I don't intend to work part time at the checkout! I don't want someone doing my job and I don't intend to do theirs. Additionally in my area some of those so called low paying cashier jobs don't pay just too bad and they also have benefits! They also don't discount the items that go thru self checkout lanes. So yea I hate them, I've got time to wait a couple of minutes to not help displace an American worker just to add to the bottom line of whatever chain store.

[Biff Johnson]

I hate them because I don't work for the store. If they want me to check the groceries then they should deeply discount the price. Why not have me stock the shelves, too? Heck, why don't I just go to the truck and find what I need? I live in Oregon and we don't even pump our own gas and I love it!

[Stan Calow]

It's a slippery slope. I am certain they will start making customers unload the trucks soon.

[Jamie Cowan]

I agree! I don't mind the self-checkout, but I've always thought I should get a little off, since I'm doing all the work.

[Pat Barry]

Why is it that everyone resists change?

Do you get a little off the price if you bag your own at the grocery store?
Do they charge you extra for bags if they supply them to you for your groceries?
Do they haul the bags to your car and load them for you? - I remember this was the way it was.
Who pumps your gas?
Do you insist on going into the station to pay the cashier or do you pay at the pump?
Do you pay in advance? Is that better for you?

Look - get used to it, the change is happening. Either lead it, follow it, or get out of the way.

[Ole Anderson]

Went to HD yesterday. Had 4 small items to check. Went through the self serve checkout in less time than it would have taken me to walk to the end where there were attended checkouts. I do it for my convenience, not to save the big box money. And I agree with Pat.

[David Weaver]

Look - get used to it, the change is happening. Either lead it, follow it, or get out of the way.

Betamax and laserdisc, here we come! Graphite and compacted paper guitars, grasp the future!

A more sensible option (to me) would seem to be, stand by and observe, and adopt what works and discard what doesn't. Let someone else be the beta tester unless there's an incentive for you to be the beta tester.

[Mark Bolton]

So this is not to revive the thread in any way I just had a really ironic instance this morning that brought this entire conversation to mind.

I have an order in for abrasives that will land next week but am running really tight on sanding belts and wouldnt make it through the weekend. So this morning I reluctantly pulled into Lowes to pick up a few to tide me over. Grabbed a 5 pack of three different grits and headed for the contractor/trade checkout as its nearly always my fastest exit. It was early, perhaps 7:30. Just as Im closing in on the register (one open, sometimes two down there) a guy wheels out of the lumber isles with a cart of mixed paneling, trim, and other bleh,.. and gets to the register. I turn around and start walking back to the regular cashier lanes. At about the half way mark, an older woman and her husband/compatriot come out of an isle and are walking just behind me. I overhear her say to her compatriot "want to use the self scan" or some lingo other than self checkout. Never heard the response. I noticed they had a cart with a few items in it but no idea of a piece count, just a few items. I would guess a few more than my three items to be scanned.

I get to the registers and there are two cashiers ringing. One with her light on, and the other with her light off. Turns out the light off was dealing with some guy trying to buy something on an account or some hullaballo which was likely why her light was off. Im now standing in the isle with a woman in front of me who has in her cart a pedestal fan and a few holiday gee gaws, decoration type stuff. As Im standing there I glance over and the couple is in the self check lane. While this is going on, the woman who is running the register Im at, has a "head cashier" name tag on and her work ipone is constantly ringing. She is stopping to answer it, telling the other woman (also with a head cashier badge) that the lumber register needs change, 1's, 5's, and so on. Then another call comes in and she has to page someone. And so on. Needless to say, I am standing in that line getting quite p*ssed off because at the very least you could be ringing AND talking or let the manager (who was intervening in the account sale) answer the phone calls. I get a bit more perturbed but the sale completes and the woman in front of me walks away. I walk up, three quick scans, swipe my business card, tell her a PO number, and Im off.

Low and behold, at the identical time I walked off the end of the register, to my right, is the couple walking out with their items from the self checkout. We walked through the exit and to the parking lot 5' away from each other.

I realize fully that this scientifically means nothing. They could have been lollygagging, they could have been gabbing with the self check attendant for all I know. They could have had trouble with an item, or more small items, no idea. And of course had I gone to the self check with my three little items I may have beat them out anyway with less items and being faster at scanning, wouldnt have gotten p.o'd and flustered, and so on...

Needless to say I found it one of those funny moments.

[Julie Moriarty]

The two major grocery stores around here have eliminated, or are in the process of eliminating, the self-checkout lanes. An article in the paper said theft was the reason. Some people have worked very hard to find out what cheap items can be scanned and replaced with more expensive items when placing them in the bag. Human ingenuity!

I know one person who worked as a cashier years ago, back when they started installing self-checkout lanes, and she was told by her store manager the company projected a __% profit from the elimination of cashiers. (Don't remember the % at the time.) Changing over to self-checkout lanes wasn't cheap. There's no way these companies would have paid for the new self-checkout lanes if they didn't see a profit on the near horizon. The long term plan was to go to 100% self-checkout lanes but that didn't work, for a number of reasons.

My friend said what the self-checkout lanes did accomplish was lowering the pay for cashiers. Cashiers in her store were some of the highest paid employees, second only to management and department heads. But with the self-checkout lanes and scanners, the pay scale stagnated until everyone caught up.

As to the lines, I've seen self-checkout lines go all the way down the store aisle. So much for fast. It seems many people automatically go to self-checkout, because there's been times when there have been lines there while cashier lanes are open. And good luck if your item doesn't scan! The stores that have eliminated them now seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping things moving quickly. So if the self-checkout one day goes the way of the dinosaur, I think we'll all survive.

[David Weaver]

Some people have worked very hard to find out what cheap items can be scanned and replaced with more expensive items when placing them in the bag. Human ingenuity!

I guess if the sale deal wasn't good enough, they made their own sale deal!

In almost anything in life, it's better to say "we'll see how it works out" than "we'll make this much more profit when we switch".

Since this topic came up, I've managed to use self checkout zero times.

[Cary Falk]

I use what ever is the fastest way to get out of the store. The majority of the time that is self checkout. I hardly seeing scanning and bagging as work. I have to take the itmes out of my arms and set them on the conveyor anyway. It is one motion to move it across the scanner and into a bag. I also use the auto mailing kiosk at the post office. I don't see the need to stand in line for 30 minutes when I can be done in 5.