Why do so many people hate self checkouts?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

None of our grocery stores, including the big chains have a self-checkout station of which I am aware.

One grocery store which is employee owned, the cashiers seldom have to refer to the produce cost list and they are seldom wrong about pricing. It's their business to know. They have a bagger at each station to bag your groceries and for every customer the bagger will offer to carry them to your car and load them into your vehicle.

The same employee owned grocery chain has 2, "10 items or less" cashier attended checkout stands for those with less than a full cart.

Our Home Depot has 2 rows of self-checkout stations with 2 self-checkout stations per row. One employee is stationed between these four self-checkout machines and is there immediately if you need help.

While their self-checkout stands could be there to minimize expenses and increase profits, they could also be there as a customer service to those customers who are capable of using them correctly. Often, the self-checkout stations can be faster than waiting in line to be served by a cashier. I use them regularly.

[Matt Meiser]

Our Home Depot has 2 rows of self-checkout stations with 2 self-checkout stations per row. One employee is stationed between these four self-checkout machines and is there immediately if you need help.

Oh, we've got a person there...they just don't apparently know what their purpose is. Except the one. Even worse if she "helps." The moved her over there because she couldn't handle the service desk. I had an online order with store pickup go bad. The person at HQ actually hung up on her.

[Bill Cunningham]

Within the next 10 years, everything you buy will have a RF chip in it, and you will just push your whole cart through a scanner, and pay the bill at the other side.. Cashiers and other checkout help will be minimal as the computers take over. Next step....Skynet.... I'll be back..(in my best Austrian accent!!)

[Stephen Cherry]

I like them because it goes along with my effort of trying to be a hermit, and I can get rid of all the change in my pockets without needing to worry about taking too much time.

[Rick Potter]

I like the cashiers because that is the only time a pretty girl smiles at me .

RP

[Rick Christopherson]

I'm a little surprised (yet somewhat unsurprised) about how many people are commenting on taking a full cart of groceries through a self-checkout lane. This may vary with some stores, but I have never seen a self-checkout lane that was set up for a full cart. Taking a full cart into one is extremely rude and inconsiderate of the people behind you. It is no different than trying to take 20 items through an express lane. It is not what they are intended for.

The key for self-checkout being successful is knowing how to use them. Where they fail is when you have inconsiderate people using them that should otherwise be using a normal checkout line.

• If you have never used one before, don't make your 20-item purchase be the first time you need to learn how.
• If you are buying a lot of produce that requires lookup in the computer, that is a good time to use a normal checkout line.
• Scan an item and put it in the bag. Don't rearrange the items in the bag and don't pick them back up after they are there.
• Don't have your children help you, and don't lean against the edge of the scale.
• If you are buying a bunch of plumbing fixtures at Home Depot, make sure they all have bar codes.

The complaints about self-checkout don't come from the people that know how to use them, but from the people that either don't know how to use them or shouldn't be using them. They are not there to replace normal checkout lanes. They are there as an added convenience to reduce wait times.

[Mike Cutler]

Rick, and others.

I don't know how it is in other parts of the country, but here in Ct. those self checkouts at the grocery store are indeed intended for "full baskets". Some stores even have "express self checkout" lanes. Definitely the wholesale club type stores are meant for full baskets/carts. The Stop and Shop's here have a "Fob" that you carry with you as you shop and you scan as you go. The Fob goes in a dock and uploads your items to the register and you're off.
With regards to produce though,the stores need to make sure that their entire produce section has been uploaded. I've run into issues where the produce items I've had weren't in the data base yet for that day.
I still want to see a percentage off my bill for using them though. Until that happens, I'll only use them when I'm in a hurry, and only have a few things.

Home Depot is Home Depot, and I think they're all a disaster when it comes to checking out. At some level of their organization I think they lost sight of the fact that they are "selling parts for houses". I've seen gas station convenience stores with more counter space and less impulse items at the register than a typical Home Depot.

[Matt Meiser]

The key for self-checkout being successful is knowing how to use them. Where they fail is when you have inconsiderate people using them that should otherwise be using a normal checkout line.

• If you have never used one before, don't make your 20-item purchase be the first time you need to learn how.
• If you are buying a lot of produce that requires lookup in the computer, that is a good time to use a normal checkout line.
• Scan an item and put it in the bag. Don't rearrange the items in the bag and don't pick them back up after they are there.
• Don't have your children help you, and don't lean against the edge of the scale.
• If you are buying a bunch of plumbing fixtures at Home Depot, make sure they all have bar codes.

All well and good except you are wrong about the full-cart checkout and you must buy perfectly shaped items that will neatly fit in a bag and stay where you put it. We try to avoid hamburger helper and TV dinners.

Within the next 10 years, everything you buy will have a RF chip in it, and you will just push your whole cart through a scanner, and pay the bill at the other side.. Cashiers and other checkout help will be minimal as the computers take over. Next step....Skynet.... I'll be back..(in my best Austrian accent!!)

Everyone was saying that 10 years ago. Walmart supposedly had mandated them because someone (one rumor I heard was Siemens) sold them RFID tags for a penny a piece. Unfortunately that was several times less than the market rate at the time. Haven't seen a lot about it since. There's also some practical issues to be worked out--like that a powerful enough scanner to catch them all as some RF safety issues and to my understanding it can be hard to read an RFID read on a solid metal object (say a can). I don't really see a whole lot more RFID in manufacturing than I did 10 years ago. Barcode scanners are still pretty much the standard. Scanners are cheap, everyone knows how to use them and the tags are dirt cheap.

Our public library did implement RFID. You can set a stack of books on a reader and press a button to check out...but first you have to tell it how many books it should look for.

[Chris Damm]

The human checkers I use are much faster than those automated pieces of junk!

[Brian Ashton]

I see it come up in threads here all the time. Posters keep stating they hate self checkouts and refuse to use them. I don't understand the hatred.

I'd say you're wrong on the shift in employment. Once these machines are ironed out and rolling smoothly they will do away with thousands of jobs across the country and you'll only need a couple hundred of low paid techs to maintain them. I.e 1 tech could easily service 15 stores (I suspect it would be more like 50 stores) that used to employ 300 cashiers, or more if there are shifts involved...

Longterm they're taking away from the common person being able to gain and keep steady work, which usually means the young and semi or fully retired...

[Rich Engelhardt]

I hate them because they remind me of automated phone messages (press 1 for English, 2 for whatever)
and a phone & extension numbers in a business instead of a receptionist.

[Paul McGaha]

One of the grocery stores in our area (Shopper's Food Warehouse) has only self check registers open. Or at least that's how it is on Sunday mornings, which is when I go to their store.

It seems to me the store is using the customers as the cashiers, so they can employ fewer cashiers.

Personally, I don't care to learn how to be a grocery store cashier.

This store actually has a couple of products that are kind of hard to find or we wouldn't use the store.

Just my $.02. To each their own way.

PHM

[Jeremy Hamaker]

I'm indifferent on self-checkout lanes. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. It is kind of annoying that they're so literal-minded about placing each item, and not lifting bags off the platform til you're done. I don't worry too much about whether that "Evil Corporation" is making more (hiss) 'profit.' If it took self-checkouts for you to finally realize that business is in business to do business, well....
Everyone is always working the numbers and coming up with ideas to maximize profit on what they do. If it wasn't self-checkouts, it would be shrinking the size of the frosting coating on a pop-tart while charging the same price. Or making 'half gallon' cartons of ice cream only carry 1.5 quarts. (anybody else on this thread notice that yet...??).
And as far as 'protecting jobs' well, there's a reason nobody makes buggy-whips anymore. Because you don't need them!! When we don't need checkers anymore, checking will go away too. My job type didn't even exist when I was born. It might actually go away -during- my lifetime. Who would I be to ask that you all patronize me just so I can keep this job? There will always be new job types cropping up. It may not be fun to try to find another one, but I can think of a TON of not fun things that we all have to do, everyday in our lives, to keep on living.

[ray hampton]

I'm indifferent on self-checkout lanes. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. It is kind of annoying that they're so literal-minded about placing each item, and not lifting bags off the platform til you're done. I don't worry too much about whether that "Evil Corporation" is making more (hiss) 'profit.' If it took self-checkouts for you to finally realize that business is in business to do business, well....
Everyone is always working the numbers and coming up with ideas to maximize profit on what they do. If it wasn't self-checkouts, it would be shrinking the size of the frosting coating on a pop-tart while charging the same price. Or making 'half gallon' cartons of ice cream only carry 1.5 quarts. (anybody else on this thread notice that yet...??).
And as far as 'protecting jobs' well, there's a reason nobody makes buggy-whips anymore. Because you don't need them!! When we don't need checkers anymore, checking will go away too. My job type didn't even exist when I was born. It might actually go away -during- my lifetime. Who would I be to ask that you all patronize me just so I can keep this job? There will always be new job types cropping up. It may not be fun to try to find another one, but I can think of a TON of not fun things that we all have to do, everyday in our lives, to keep on living.

the size of ice cream containers get smaller BUT the cost keep GOING up

[Mark Bolton]

worry too much about whether that "Evil Corporation" is making more (hiss) 'profit.' If it took self-checkouts for you to finally realize that business is in business to do business, well.....

You miss the point. I am self employed for most of my adult life. Profit is my sole focus. The issue becomes scamming your customers for proffit as opposed to providing goods and services for profit. Marketing wizardry.

To your other points , I'm sure the vast majority have seen the depressed bottoms on jars, less in the spaghetti box, cereal box, a pound of coffee, on and on.

It's my opinion, and mine alone, that this kind of "laying down" is why our condition perpetually worsens. No one stands up to the cow feces any longer. Everyone tangled up in their hectic lives simply takes it as the new norm and moves on while we, the every day working class , get taken for more and more dollars for less and less quality and quantity.

You outline this entire concept concisely in your own post yet you just say "oh well, I just have to take it".

Sheep to the slaughter.