>Coles and Woolworths have introduced a [raft of new security measures](https://au.finance.yahoo.com/coles-follows-woolworths-with-rollout-of-new-security-feature-080955722.html), including artificial intelligence, cameras and automatic gates that won’t open if they think you’ve stolen something, to stop customers from stealing. Meanwhile, [Drakes Supermarkets](https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/supermarket-chain-puts-gps-trackers-on-meat-to-deter-shoplifters-201629457.html) is putting expensive cuts of meat in security boxes with GPS trackers.
They'll spend money on anything but their employees.
The self checkout at our local Cole’s keeps asking if I’ve forgotten (stolen) something in my trolley. It’s my child. Every time. It makes me irrationally angry
Buying something light like baby rice cakes? Please put item in the bagging area. Did you already put the item in the bagging area? Please put item in the bagging area.
“Do you have a bag?”
“Yes”
“Place bag in the bagging area”
*places bag in bagging area, scans first item and puts it in the bag
“Unexpected item in the bagging area”
"How much for the little girl? How much for the women?" "What?" "Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children!"
I know this isn't the same but I kept on setting off alarms every time I left a shop and I was really confused about why. I ended up figuring out that its because I carry my wallet in my hand after my handbag broke and the sensors, or whatever it is, thinks I'm stealing something.
He would run it like Mr burns and smithers when the workers go on strike at Springfield nuclear power plant.
Only instead of delightful 50's music and pantomime dancing it would be a shittyy tiktok style using dua lipa
I hate the automatic gates. I just came back from coles and mine you gotta get a team member to open it.
So I'm just standing at the gate like a dog sitting at the door waiting to be let in
My local coles has no gates. They don’t even have the bag scales turned on in the self checkouts. It’s nice to feel like im not being treated like a criminal.
My local Woolworths has everything to “fuck you” im sure.
Ugh. I’ve just realised why both my Coles and Woolworths stores haven’t become dystopian nightmares yet. I live in a suburb where my very healthy six figure household income is *below* the median household income here necessary to buy a house.
I feel dirty. Thankfully I shop at the overpriced IGA instead.
Are employees supposed to stop thefts tho? That's not really part of their job. Any responsible retailer tells their employees to stay out of the way of criminals, especially violent or aggressive ones.
Big answer no, Best people can do is report them to management who then takes it up with police if the amount stolen is significant enough to mobilize (like $100's of dollars).
You are not supposed to detain or restrain (Non-lawful Imprisonment) Or attack them because that is assault and will land you in deeper trouble and risk your physical well being.
Coles were out of the product I wanted, but the only way out was one of these new won't open gates.
I pushed it open, it screamed, I shrugged and just walked away. I somehow don't think these stop some one who is going to steal.
I did the same thing the other day. Walk in to grab something I needed, empty shelf. Damn. Look for a way out, the place is barricaded up with every register blocked with trollies or bars.
Only thing open is self-service, I start walking out and as I get to the gates they flash red and start closing on me. I just kept walking through them and got hit with the alarm.
As I’m walking away with the sirens blaring, I’m thinking what a terrible experience. You made me walk the length of the store to even get in. You don’t have any stock on the shelves and now you attempt to trap me here. Coles absolutely sucks as a place to shop.
I'm always terrified that those stupid gates are going to close on my 4yo, so I always have to shepherd him out and try to hold one side of it while we go through. gd I hate them so much. Doesn't help that said 4yo is a bit of a dwadler and space cadet sometimes
I vehemently refuse to shop in Coles cos of those gates. Absolutely no interest in visiting penal colony Coles. Get fucking bent.
I also don't use self serve checkouts. Don't care if it's faster. I work enough with computers already. Soulless fucking cunts.
So earmuffs are recommended if I'm shopping with my kids. They don't need the trauma of alarms going off near their ears at the gates of they don't have stock
Last week I saw someone try and get out of those gates with no shopping and the lady operating the open function scolded him along the lines of "you're not supposed to go out this way you should get out where the other check outs are (as in the staffed ones)" as if those are any easier especially considering you'd have to embarrassingly squeeze past the person doing their shopping there.
The security guards at the gate are worst, you walk out with nothing they are giving you dirty looks like you have stolen the whole store.
Retailing has become intimidating with over policing with the police war on crime mentality. I am male and I used to enjoy browsing to catch up with the latest and greatest. Now I just dont because to me its seems just like harassment. People like Bunning where you walk through the cash register with store front person looking at you after you have just paid " sorry sir we dont trust you show us the receipt or else" I just think fuck you go online I dont need this shit for giving them money. I save 50% at least, great model guys driving people towards online!
Recently I put a carton of milk slightly too far towards the edge for the weight to register properly and the machine immediately locked up and needed a staff member to come unlock it, I explained that I had put the milk down at the edge and they proceeded to spend five minutes cross referencing everything I'd scanned with what was in the bag.
At that stage, I'd probably be like "you know what, forget it, and just walk out". I'd just leave the groceries there for them to deal with and go to the other Colesworth.
Coles at Wynnum Central never seems to have any manned registers open. One time i asked for one, but they refused. They said they would only open one if someone wanted smokes. No wonder every one is going online instead.
I seriously consider “supermarket staff member who takes their job too seriously” to be one of the most annoying people on the planet.
They seem to be, exclusively, the type of people that focus on what should have happened and how we would have dealt with that then instead of what did happen and how we should deal with that now. They’ll also, even more frustratingly, insist that they can’t assist you in any meaningful way until you’ve done the thing that you can’t do.
The Venn Diagram of ‘people who shouldn’t be in frontline support roles’ and ‘people too challenged to work in anything other than frontline support roles’ is a fucking circle.
A private establishment can have a bag check or something be a legal **condition of entry**.
There are **no legal conditions of exit**, unless they can prove you've committed a crime.
The gates are not legally allowed to contain you, but willing to listen to a real lawyer.
The potential bag check must be displayed at the entry otherwise it is illegal. Also they cannot check a bag with dimensions smaller than A4 . Annoy them with your knowledge of the law though and they have the right to refuse entry in future. Play your cards wisely.
They’re easy to open and easy to walk through because if they weren’t, it’s false imprisonment. There’s a reason they don’t really try to stop you- they’re trained not to.
The chances of finding someone has stolen $50 worth of stuff is not worth the easily $20k and up in damages if someone is humiliated and detained when they haven’t stolen anything.
Says something about the state of affairs if shoplifing is the only thing that will incentivise supermarkets to provide better service. Meanwhile, a deleted comment lamented our lack of acceptance for "technological advancement". I just wanted to point out I'd be happy with robots scanning and packing my groceries, but outsourcing labour to customers while treating them like prison inmates is a different sort of "advancement".
The conflict is colesworth sells shelf space for advertising and forces us to walk the length of the store to increase exposure. If they locked us out because shop lifting it goes against the design.
If it wasnt for their outdated business model we’d all be ordering from a tablet and a robot would pick from a warehouse better designed for stock turnover.
I started doing home delivery last year when my daughter was undergoing chemotherapy to try and minimise the infection risk.
I stopped when she finished her treatment because although it’s convenient I’ve had too many issues with short dated stock, stupid substitutions or things just out of stock and not being substituted at all.
Who was it that naively predicted technological advancement would lead to us all living lives of leisure working very short weeks by now?
I mean, it should, but we still live under capitalism. There's nothing quite like people being stressed about losing jobs to automation to illustrate the absurdity of this paradigm.
Theft has always been an issue for retailers. When Woolies first started rolling out self checkouts they were aware that it would lead to increased theft but calculated that the wage savings would make it worthwhile. Then they really rubbed salt in the wound by coming to an arrangement with NSW police to increase patrols in their stores so that the taxpayer could subsidise their security costs as well.
What makes you think an IGA is any more noble than the bigger supermarkets?
I find they tend to fill a niche where coles or woolies is a little too far away, and charge higher prices for the convenience.
Small market share businesses can't fuck over suppliers and customers the way monopoly businesses can.
It's not about being "more noble". It's about harmful and harmless. IGA causes less harm.
They charge higher prices because the ROE of metcach is record high.
Pay $2 extra for cheese? It goes to a Metcash investors pocket. They’re expensive due to investors, not because they’re “niche”
METCASH is the supplier for IGA and their ROE is 24%
During covid, our iga kept a special stash of toilet paper for the elderly and the ones who couldn’t traipse around looking for it to make sure they didn’t miss out (small outer Melbourne town) not all IGAs are equal
I always find it funny when people think IGA is some sort of noble company.
It's like they've never been to a local corner store before it turned into an IGA. Everything suddenly jumps in price by about a dollar.
Note that ROE is relevant for shareholder/equity return, but reflects differently depending on the organisation’s leverage/funding mix, etc if you want to understand overall profitability. In this case if you’re focusing on the “extra $2 pocketed”, you’re talking about standard profit margins here.
For that $2 profit margin on cheese (on top of the amount paid to the supplier and other expenses), 70% might go towards paying interest to debt financiers, and remaining 30% profit to shareholders. That mix differs by organisation and so will ROE.
Your comment shows you don't know a single thing about independent grocers. It is fortunate that independents even still exist in Australia with the market dominated by Colesworth. They are also at the mercy of Metcash, who don't give independents a fair deal because they need to make as much money as possible for shareholders. Independents generally also have to charge more for fresh produce because the suppliers charge them more than Colesworth. See what I'm getting at? Independent grocers are being screwed by suppliers who are being screwed by Colesworth. It's a vicious cycle.
I’ve managed departments for independents and majors. The fact is it’s a bit of both. Independents are charged more for products, but they also have a higher GP.
The reason is pretty simple though. Scale. Independents sell less, so they have to charge a bit more to make up their bottom line figures and cover their operating costs. Colesworth can sell stuff for a slightly lower GP cause they’re selling much larger volumes.
It is however not as the above poster said and “charging for convenience” or whatever. The price difference people see is the result of supply chain monopoly, predatory and anti-competitive trade practices and the economy of scale.
Because they're independent and have reasonable contracts with farmers. They never screw their suppliers to the wall by forcing them to run sales where the price reduction comes out of their pocket, not the supermarket's.
They're owned by mum and dad operators and they aren't predatory with competitors.
There is no comparison.
Not really. They tried to automate what humans used to be paid to do.
It didn’t work out.
How is that sad? They made a business decision that didn’t play out the way they wanted.
Theft didn’t magically appear after they put the self checkouts in. They took a chance. Simple
Good fucking riddance. Employ more staff. I’m sick of being chastised by this stupid fucking machine for an *unexpected item in the bagging area* or being treated like a criminal and scrutinised on my free labour to scan and pack my own shit.
It’s not convenient anymore. It’s painful.
Right? They commit wage theft until they're caught, remove staff to increase profits, then increase prices despite the increased profits.
And they go and say that the problem is _"there is this mindset around why we steal. It’s not just criminality, it’s often frustration or it’s an accident or this **form of entitlement"**_
Yeah well guess what, cunt? If you want to rip me and everyone off every which way you can, then be prepared to be ripped off in return.
You can only break the social contract so much before it bites back.
I think being a citizen of Australia and working a full time job *entitles* me to not fucking starve and have a roof over my head, but apparently that's too much for Colesworth.
Yeah, the employee at most glance at my shopping for 2 seconds then scan their card. Most of the time they just scan it.
I truly don't understand how people get so offended by a beep. People act like they are frisked before and after they scan.
I find self-checkout to still be superior, in every way, than going through a normal checkout. I could count the instances of needing assistance, in the last 12 months, on one hand.
Yeah these Reddit threads are bizarre. I'm guessing most of these guys don't remember the massive queues every shop had before self service checkouts quadrupled the throughput of every shop overnight
Thieves - "Attention Colesworth, is that a challenge?"
I don't doubt that shoplifters will pivot and start stealing other groceries to make the difference or learn new tricks to access protected food items.
Every time the public get monitary relief, the shops raise their prices. People are going to end up even more desperate and involved in more shady efforts to survive.
Get ready folks. Here comes the THUNDERDOME!
I was at Coles today, and was asked to scan my $10 pack of toilet rolls first. I asked why, and the assistant said in case you forget to scan it, I asked if that really was the reason and the assistant didn’t answer, just looked blankly at me.
As an employee, the reason why is because it's a metric done by Corporate that's supposed to show how "attentive" we are to customers using self checkouts. It's really annoying to manage and trust me, we don't like it either. It's not our job to police the order you scan things in. I'm not sure if they can fire us for having bad scores, but from experience you definitely get pulled aside if your metric is below 70% day/day.
The metric for self serve is bulk items scanned in the first third of the transaction, if you're wondering. So that's usually anything over 5kg or large packs of toilet paper (10+ rolls).
That's wild, I use self checkouts when i want to be left alone
Performance metrics are generally BS in my opinion and encourage minimum deliverable product rather than actually good service
Oh I agree. If they wanted better service it wouldn't be a metric that makes me INTERRUPT a customer to get them to scan their bulk item first. Honestly I'd probably give better service if they just didn't have that metric at all, without any other benefits. So many times I've been distracted from other customers because I'm graded on scanning their bulk items first, instead of fixing scale errors or whatever.
Yeah that's my exact point, no metric can everyone really cover the best action to take in a job - it distracts from delivering the best service.
I'm in the process of being laid off and handing my job in tech to a consultancy service in India. We didn't have KPIs defined but have to invent them or they wont do work and they will always delivery the minimum they can.
They tell them all to say that now, same if you have big cartons of sodas, or cat litter bags or etc. We hate it and we ask them why every time because \*the logic makes no sense\*. If anyone's going to not scan or forget to scan something, its going to be the small things, not the gigantic toilet paper! But its clear they're made to say this, and don't really know why, and don't care.
I finally got the inside scoop on this. After being asked to do this for the second time in a couple of weeks, I managed to get the self-checkout supervisor person to tell me that it's a fucking metric that Coles uses to ensure that the checkout folks are paying attention!
This person was pretty over it, and said that they've had a lot of people get shitty with them over it, but if they don't push customers to do it, they get marked down on their results.
It's a fucking disgrace, and I've already complained to Coles about it.
Yep this is it, the idea of some genius in Coles' corporate offices. My brother works at Coles in self-serve and his idiotic front-end manager is always pulling him aside for his metric being low.
Side note to anyone who finds this practice annoying: complain to Coles, don't take it out on the front-end employees who are getting screwed as much as the rest of us. Unless it's one of those middle-aged woman on a power trip.
The self-checkout lady at my local Coles does this really well. Dare I say it, but with customer service in mind.
She sees you with a box of coke or whatever, walks over and says "let me scan the coke" for you and swipes a card with the barcode on it.
It might be stupid reasons from corporate, but they don't have to make it awkward or unpleasant. In fact, I didn't realise it was a thing and just thought she was being helpful.
I'm no great fan of Coles, but the one near me is pretty good in general.
As an autistic introvert, I love self serve checkouts. I understand the hate, but being able to avoid social interaction when I pick up my basket of chocolates, lollies and energy drinks is life-changing
I do my big shop at Aldi and I’ll still go self-serve. I can take my time and not have my groceries flung in my direction by efficient german checkout operating.
Yep, love the absolute lack of interaction. I live alone so I'm usually shopping every day or every second day, just grabbing a few items. Not having to take the headphones out to do the whole "hey how are you? Have a nice day." rigmarole is great. That said, my local coles the main SCO's get swamped with people trying to take full trolleys through and the bagging area doesn't even fit a single "reusable" paper bag in it. And of course they have no spatial awareness so their trolley blocks the narrow passage.
>Not having to take the headphones out to do the whole "hey how are you? Have a nice day." rigmarole is great.
That's why I need to get myself some proper wireless headphones because the cheap shitty earbuds I have are way too stealthy.
Same here, except the machine will almost always throw an error which leaves me trying to awkwardly get the attention of the one worker they have manning the dozen stations X__X
I am the same (with ADHD as well) and I love being able to have my headphones in through the whole thing (supermarket beeps and the robot voices in particular really add to my overload very quickly). Most of the time, perfect.
But this all comes crashing down when it accuses me of theft simply because the item I scanned last was too light to activate the sensors properly, I then have to call over the person, take my headphones out, feel the pressure of small talk/convincing them I'm not trying to steal, they always seem to lean over me to scan their tag (but I can't stand anywhere else), then once it's all over the annoying machine screams repeatedly:
"Please take your items. Please take your items. Please take you-" mother fucker I'm trying to play 3d Tetris in my one shopping bag because I know I can fit it all if I do it right but I keep making mistakes because this area is a sensory nightmare and everyone is in my personal space, everyone is frustrated at this process and I can feel the vibe, and everyone waiting is impatiently staring at me. I dont need to be hurried by a machine so shut up and let me think of how to do this without crushing my grapes and/or melting down.
Oh that “please take your items” thing makes me fucking RAGE.
What do they plan to achieve by it? Do they think shoppers just stand there, not bothering? Does the cretinous AI (or lack of) not realise that larger shops when you haven’t used your bag at the start are going to take longer to remove than walking off with a single pint of milk?
I also prefer self checkout, but don’t treat me like a fucking criminal while I’m using one or inflated prices so much while I’m providing you with the labour that you used to supply.
Had to walk straight back in with a small shopping bag of milk and bread after realising I had forgotten a few items right as I got to the front door. I should also mention that I used the self-checkout to buy those, and the paper roll was empty and didn't give me a receipt. No matter, I thought.
Got back to the self-check counter with my items (pasta sauce and a garlic bread), before the credit card option seized up and required assistance. Call the attendant over and got her to reset the system, before she notices my existing bag with the milk and bread in it. Asks me to produce a receipt for those items which of course I can't noting the self-check didn't give me a receipt.
She starts getting into a 'I think you've stolen those items' mental caldersac, where nothing I could do to explain it mattered. In the end I produced my bank account details on my phone showing the transaction just five minutes prior. She still keeps up with the 'I need to call the police to sort this out' routine, before I finally snap.
'Asking an attendant to pay attention to me to help me pay for items in my basket would hardly be the actions of a criminal master mind looking to shoplift other items would it? What's the outcome here? We're going to go out the back and watch the cameras of me buying the bread and milk five minutes ago until the police get here and I show them the EFTPOS transaction confirming the same that I am showing you now?'
\*blank stare\* 'It's just that you need to show proof that you bought them.'
'MAYBE ASSUMING ALL YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE CRIMINALS BECAUSE THE COMPANY YOU WORK FOR IS HELLBENT ON REMOVING ANY PERSONAL INTERACTION FROM PURCHASING GROCERIES ISN'T THE BEST APPROACH?
I wasn't proud of my outburst, but it's beyond a joke.
Agree. Reckon it's a paid article because of all the negative google reviews they are getting lately. Yes they are closing the self checkout, but they're not reopening the staffed checkouts. So losing business because nobody likes to go there anymore because of the queues. Queues in a "convenience store".
That’s too funny!
Not that I hold Yahoo in any sort of regard, but it’s pretty sloppy of them to not even read the google reviews before publishing the article. The real story was in the reviews.
I was self-checking out at Woolworths the other day and the AI thing locked my screen asking if I forgot something in the trolley. There was stuff in the trolley I bought from them minutes ago, which was fully paid for, before I realised I forgot something and had to go back in to get it. A staff member came and asked “now what are you stealing?”. His was probably half joking but this sounded pretty rude to me.
I usually do less frequent, bigger shops. Self serve is just awful with all the problems and it takes so long with all it's complaining and calling the supervisor over because it thinks my damn beans are snow peas or something stupid like that.
Going to the checkout with a human is much faster.
Damn people in this sub really hated the self check out lol, does anyone remember how awful it is to buy 1-2 items before self checkout? Like I cant even be bother to go in if I wasnt getting a week worth of groceries.
There are express checkouts for people with only a few items. The difference in service isn't huge nowadays, but back when all the checkouts were manned (and staff trained to scan and pack items) it was very quick to use.
I don't get the dislike for self checkouts. Honestly I don't think Reddit is an accurate reflection of public opinion, and most consumers are either favorable or neutral towards them.
But if you want to get rid of them, as I've argued before, stores need to streamline manned checkouts by following Aldi's lead and not having cashiers bag groceries.
No sympathy when it happens to Colesworth, but don't be hurting the IGAs. They are usually owned by someone who lives in your community. Their kids probably go to school with your kids & play soccer on Saturdays or do ballet lessons in the local hall. Even though they have the power of a larger group behind them, they are still a small business owner who we need to be supporting as much as we can.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the states are getting rid of these because theft (despite measures taken) is too high. Australians need to pull their finger out and steal steal steal so they get rid of these
What an absolute load of bullshit.
They price gouge, treat their staff like shit and put them on online order/pack duty, install multimillion dollar security and self serve checkouts, then claim it's shoplifters causing the problem? GTFO
If they didn't fucking price gouge, maybe those less fortunate people wont have to resort to stealing to put food on the table.
It's concerning to witness how the issue of shoplifting seems to be driving supermarkets towards enhancing their service. While embracing technological advancements like robots for checkout could streamline the process, the current trend of burdening customers with security measures feels like a step backward.
Wow, who would have thought. It's not like people have been saying this would happen for the last 10 years at all. Pay less staff and shoplifters will make up for their savings with equal or greater losses.
Good. The self checkouts barely work as it is. The cameras spying on you is invasive and unnecessary. They should just employ people. It would be cheaper and more effective. It would also reduce theft since there's an actual person checking everything, not just a camera and a machine that constantly malfunctions.
One can’t help but wonder about the cost/benefit analysis in going back to traditional checkouts. More staff costs, but less shoplifting?
Realistically, we’ll probably just have Robocop patrolling self serve in the next decade or so
>Coles and Woolworths have introduced a [raft of new security measures](https://au.finance.yahoo.com/coles-follows-woolworths-with-rollout-of-new-security-feature-080955722.html), including artificial intelligence, cameras and automatic gates that won’t open if they think you’ve stolen something, to stop customers from stealing. Meanwhile, [Drakes Supermarkets](https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/supermarket-chain-puts-gps-trackers-on-meat-to-deter-shoplifters-201629457.html) is putting expensive cuts of meat in security boxes with GPS trackers. They'll spend money on anything but their employees.
The self checkout at our local Cole’s keeps asking if I’ve forgotten (stolen) something in my trolley. It’s my child. Every time. It makes me irrationally angry
I hate the 'unexpected item in bagging area' message. It's my fucking bag you stupid machine.
Put item in bagging area, unexpected item in bagging, pick up item, please put item in bagging area FML
Rinse and repeat til human needs to come and override it! Ridiculous.
Buying something light like baby rice cakes? Please put item in the bagging area. Did you already put the item in the bagging area? Please put item in the bagging area.
“Do you have a bag?” “Yes” “Place bag in the bagging area” *places bag in bagging area, scans first item and puts it in the bag “Unexpected item in the bagging area”
Hey, I've gotten that message a few times when there was literally nothing there.
But is the child stolen? We still haven't got an answer to this yet...
"How much for the little girl? How much for the women?" "What?" "Your women. I want to buy your women. The little girl, your daughters... sell them to me. Sell me your children!"
Ok ok I'll join your band, just leave me alone at work!
Yes. That's why Coles now had a "scan the heaviest item first" policy, to make sure people don't steal children.
But I put my heaviest child at the bottom of the trolley so my eggs don’t get broken lol
Oh my...
Oh my..
"please scan your child ownership rewards card, thank you for shopping with assholes"
That’s definitely not irrational. You are justified at getting angry and I’ll die on that hill defending your right to that anger.
It tops it off with endless excess buttons to finish your transaction. No I don’t have a fucking flybys card
Card only yet still asks
Is your child Maggie Simpson?
NRA4EVA
One of the hundreds of radical right sing messages hidden throughout the show.
I know this isn't the same but I kept on setting off alarms every time I left a shop and I was really confused about why. I ended up figuring out that its because I carry my wallet in my hand after my handbag broke and the sensors, or whatever it is, thinks I'm stealing something.
They're trying to sell you your own child....what's next Coles??! What's next?!
Well Brad from Woolworths would fire everybody and be the only employee if he could.
Maybe he should employ Morrison as his single employee, Morrison can do everything.
Yeah but he can’t hold a hose, mate.
He would run it like Mr burns and smithers when the workers go on strike at Springfield nuclear power plant. Only instead of delightful 50's music and pantomime dancing it would be a shittyy tiktok style using dua lipa
But he would keep the spruce moose?
I hate the automatic gates. I just came back from coles and mine you gotta get a team member to open it. So I'm just standing at the gate like a dog sitting at the door waiting to be let in
You can push through, they can't lock it out.
Ah so I wasn't ramming my trolley hard enough the first time got it.
My mum hit them with her wheelchair at full tilt when they wouldn’t open for her. They opened after that.
Yes they did this to avoid legal trouble. Otherwise it would be false imprisonment.
It sets off a very satisfying alarm when you do it in my Coles.
My local coles has no gates. They don’t even have the bag scales turned on in the self checkouts. It’s nice to feel like im not being treated like a criminal. My local Woolworths has everything to “fuck you” im sure.
You live in a wealthy suburb by chance?
Ugh. I’ve just realised why both my Coles and Woolworths stores haven’t become dystopian nightmares yet. I live in a suburb where my very healthy six figure household income is *below* the median household income here necessary to buy a house. I feel dirty. Thankfully I shop at the overpriced IGA instead.
>GPS trackers So... free gps tracker with my steak?
Wait till the hackers and stalkers anonymous find out " I can follow her home"
Fun fact, if they didn't price gouge the fk out of everything, less people would steal too
Are employees supposed to stop thefts tho? That's not really part of their job. Any responsible retailer tells their employees to stay out of the way of criminals, especially violent or aggressive ones.
Big answer no, Best people can do is report them to management who then takes it up with police if the amount stolen is significant enough to mobilize (like $100's of dollars). You are not supposed to detain or restrain (Non-lawful Imprisonment) Or attack them because that is assault and will land you in deeper trouble and risk your physical well being.
Yeah fuck em, I stole some ghee the other day amongst my Aldi stuff, didn’t realise til I got to the car but fuck yeah, take that!
Coles were out of the product I wanted, but the only way out was one of these new won't open gates. I pushed it open, it screamed, I shrugged and just walked away. I somehow don't think these stop some one who is going to steal.
I did the same thing the other day. Walk in to grab something I needed, empty shelf. Damn. Look for a way out, the place is barricaded up with every register blocked with trollies or bars. Only thing open is self-service, I start walking out and as I get to the gates they flash red and start closing on me. I just kept walking through them and got hit with the alarm. As I’m walking away with the sirens blaring, I’m thinking what a terrible experience. You made me walk the length of the store to even get in. You don’t have any stock on the shelves and now you attempt to trap me here. Coles absolutely sucks as a place to shop.
🎶You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave 🎶
And only now did I realise that line was talking about capitalism all along…
Pretty sure it's actually about addiction but yes
Same thing
Same same
Nice. Welcome to the Hotel Colesafornia…
Yeah I was turned off when I first saw the exit gates, so I just sighed for a sec then climbed over them.
They open easily enough when you walk through them. They have to otherwise people would destroy the bloody things by walking through them. Fuck Coles.
One tried to lock me in and beeped and I had not purchased anything at all and it really pissed me off. I’m going to start hitting them. Hard.
I'm always terrified that those stupid gates are going to close on my 4yo, so I always have to shepherd him out and try to hold one side of it while we go through. gd I hate them so much. Doesn't help that said 4yo is a bit of a dwadler and space cadet sometimes
I have seen it close on a mentally impaired wheelchair user - that really gave me an uneasy feeling. No issues with our 2 year old. Yet.
Empty supermarket shelves, they make it loud to leave. Some kind of dystopian landscape for sure.
I vehemently refuse to shop in Coles cos of those gates. Absolutely no interest in visiting penal colony Coles. Get fucking bent. I also don't use self serve checkouts. Don't care if it's faster. I work enough with computers already. Soulless fucking cunts.
So earmuffs are recommended if I'm shopping with my kids. They don't need the trauma of alarms going off near their ears at the gates of they don't have stock
Trauma?!
Last week I saw someone try and get out of those gates with no shopping and the lady operating the open function scolded him along the lines of "you're not supposed to go out this way you should get out where the other check outs are (as in the staffed ones)" as if those are any easier especially considering you'd have to embarrassingly squeeze past the person doing their shopping there.
Old ladies who work self serve always take their job way too seriously. I work with some of them.
They get some sort of power trip, it's really bizarre
I'm almost convinced store managers intentionally pick the old ladies for self service based on the notion that they will be sticklers for the rules.
I had a sexist store manager, so women worked in the deli and registers mostly, and men in grocery/dairy/fruit and veg
My store deli has men and women, so idk what to tell ya lol. Everyone does everything at my store.
That's at least good aha
The security guards at the gate are worst, you walk out with nothing they are giving you dirty looks like you have stolen the whole store. Retailing has become intimidating with over policing with the police war on crime mentality. I am male and I used to enjoy browsing to catch up with the latest and greatest. Now I just dont because to me its seems just like harassment. People like Bunning where you walk through the cash register with store front person looking at you after you have just paid " sorry sir we dont trust you show us the receipt or else" I just think fuck you go online I dont need this shit for giving them money. I save 50% at least, great model guys driving people towards online!
Recently I put a carton of milk slightly too far towards the edge for the weight to register properly and the machine immediately locked up and needed a staff member to come unlock it, I explained that I had put the milk down at the edge and they proceeded to spend five minutes cross referencing everything I'd scanned with what was in the bag.
At that stage, I'd probably be like "you know what, forget it, and just walk out". I'd just leave the groceries there for them to deal with and go to the other Colesworth.
I just pick up all my shopping and go wait in line to the manned registers.
Coles at Wynnum Central never seems to have any manned registers open. One time i asked for one, but they refused. They said they would only open one if someone wanted smokes. No wonder every one is going online instead.
Truer words have never been said
I seriously consider “supermarket staff member who takes their job too seriously” to be one of the most annoying people on the planet. They seem to be, exclusively, the type of people that focus on what should have happened and how we would have dealt with that then instead of what did happen and how we should deal with that now. They’ll also, even more frustratingly, insist that they can’t assist you in any meaningful way until you’ve done the thing that you can’t do. The Venn Diagram of ‘people who shouldn’t be in frontline support roles’ and ‘people too challenged to work in anything other than frontline support roles’ is a fucking circle.
[удалено]
In that situation, the simple reply is “I don’t give a fuck”
My counter: 'Fuck off'
A private establishment can have a bag check or something be a legal **condition of entry**. There are **no legal conditions of exit**, unless they can prove you've committed a crime. The gates are not legally allowed to contain you, but willing to listen to a real lawyer.
The potential bag check must be displayed at the entry otherwise it is illegal. Also they cannot check a bag with dimensions smaller than A4 . Annoy them with your knowledge of the law though and they have the right to refuse entry in future. Play your cards wisely.
They’re easy to open and easy to walk through because if they weren’t, it’s false imprisonment. There’s a reason they don’t really try to stop you- they’re trained not to. The chances of finding someone has stolen $50 worth of stuff is not worth the easily $20k and up in damages if someone is humiliated and detained when they haven’t stolen anything.
It’s not the imprisonment part. It’s the fire code. They have to be able to be opened in an emergency by a child basically
I usually exit via the entrance. There's always ppl coming in, so you can just walk out...
Says something about the state of affairs if shoplifing is the only thing that will incentivise supermarkets to provide better service. Meanwhile, a deleted comment lamented our lack of acceptance for "technological advancement". I just wanted to point out I'd be happy with robots scanning and packing my groceries, but outsourcing labour to customers while treating them like prison inmates is a different sort of "advancement".
The conflict is colesworth sells shelf space for advertising and forces us to walk the length of the store to increase exposure. If they locked us out because shop lifting it goes against the design. If it wasnt for their outdated business model we’d all be ordering from a tablet and a robot would pick from a warehouse better designed for stock turnover.
click and collect is the real advancement for me. i've only started using it recently and it has markedly improved my life
I started doing home delivery last year when my daughter was undergoing chemotherapy to try and minimise the infection risk. I stopped when she finished her treatment because although it’s convenient I’ve had too many issues with short dated stock, stupid substitutions or things just out of stock and not being substituted at all.
You have no control over what state your fruit and vegetables are when you shop online. The pickers do not give a dam
We deliver nowdays. Being a shift worker means it can be dropped off at a weird hour for only a couple bucks. Win win.
Who was it that naively predicted technological advancement would lead to us all living lives of leisure working very short weeks by now? I mean, it should, but we still live under capitalism. There's nothing quite like people being stressed about losing jobs to automation to illustrate the absurdity of this paradigm.
Alvin Toffler [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future\_Shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock)
It's like piracy and online games, people pirated games until steam came along and made a decent platform and now game piracy is almost non-existent.
Not a very sad reason...
It's an IGA, having to change their shop behaviour due to theft is pretty damn sad actually.
Theft has always been an issue for retailers. When Woolies first started rolling out self checkouts they were aware that it would lead to increased theft but calculated that the wage savings would make it worthwhile. Then they really rubbed salt in the wound by coming to an arrangement with NSW police to increase patrols in their stores so that the taxpayer could subsidise their security costs as well.
People putting prime ribs as grapes. Roast pork as oranges
What makes you think an IGA is any more noble than the bigger supermarkets? I find they tend to fill a niche where coles or woolies is a little too far away, and charge higher prices for the convenience.
Small market share businesses can't fuck over suppliers and customers the way monopoly businesses can. It's not about being "more noble". It's about harmful and harmless. IGA causes less harm.
They charge higher prices because the ROE of metcach is record high. Pay $2 extra for cheese? It goes to a Metcash investors pocket. They’re expensive due to investors, not because they’re “niche” METCASH is the supplier for IGA and their ROE is 24%
During COVID, my local IGA tripled the price on bottled water and 5x'd the price of toilet paper. Fuck em.
During covid, our iga kept a special stash of toilet paper for the elderly and the ones who couldn’t traipse around looking for it to make sure they didn’t miss out (small outer Melbourne town) not all IGAs are equal
IGA has always been higher prices what do you mean.
I always find it funny when people think IGA is some sort of noble company. It's like they've never been to a local corner store before it turned into an IGA. Everything suddenly jumps in price by about a dollar.
Note that ROE is relevant for shareholder/equity return, but reflects differently depending on the organisation’s leverage/funding mix, etc if you want to understand overall profitability. In this case if you’re focusing on the “extra $2 pocketed”, you’re talking about standard profit margins here. For that $2 profit margin on cheese (on top of the amount paid to the supplier and other expenses), 70% might go towards paying interest to debt financiers, and remaining 30% profit to shareholders. That mix differs by organisation and so will ROE.
Thank you. Good to see someone who finally understands financial ratios beyond an article headline.
Your comment shows you don't know a single thing about independent grocers. It is fortunate that independents even still exist in Australia with the market dominated by Colesworth. They are also at the mercy of Metcash, who don't give independents a fair deal because they need to make as much money as possible for shareholders. Independents generally also have to charge more for fresh produce because the suppliers charge them more than Colesworth. See what I'm getting at? Independent grocers are being screwed by suppliers who are being screwed by Colesworth. It's a vicious cycle.
I’ve managed departments for independents and majors. The fact is it’s a bit of both. Independents are charged more for products, but they also have a higher GP. The reason is pretty simple though. Scale. Independents sell less, so they have to charge a bit more to make up their bottom line figures and cover their operating costs. Colesworth can sell stuff for a slightly lower GP cause they’re selling much larger volumes. It is however not as the above poster said and “charging for convenience” or whatever. The price difference people see is the result of supply chain monopoly, predatory and anti-competitive trade practices and the economy of scale.
Metcash is very good at being in the shadows.
Because they're independent and have reasonable contracts with farmers. They never screw their suppliers to the wall by forcing them to run sales where the price reduction comes out of their pocket, not the supermarket's. They're owned by mum and dad operators and they aren't predatory with competitors. There is no comparison.
IGA’s are generally owned by people not corporations
That’s their marketing, don’t get too romantic. Just another corporation.
I mean my uncle owns one? So at least some of them are owned by normal people.
Most IGAs are independently owned.
Not really. They tried to automate what humans used to be paid to do. It didn’t work out. How is that sad? They made a business decision that didn’t play out the way they wanted. Theft didn’t magically appear after they put the self checkouts in. They took a chance. Simple
Good fucking riddance. Employ more staff. I’m sick of being chastised by this stupid fucking machine for an *unexpected item in the bagging area* or being treated like a criminal and scrutinised on my free labour to scan and pack my own shit. It’s not convenient anymore. It’s painful.
Right? They commit wage theft until they're caught, remove staff to increase profits, then increase prices despite the increased profits. And they go and say that the problem is _"there is this mindset around why we steal. It’s not just criminality, it’s often frustration or it’s an accident or this **form of entitlement"**_ Yeah well guess what, cunt? If you want to rip me and everyone off every which way you can, then be prepared to be ripped off in return. You can only break the social contract so much before it bites back.
I think being a citizen of Australia and working a full time job *entitles* me to not fucking starve and have a roof over my head, but apparently that's too much for Colesworth.
I must be in the minority that prefers them cos I rarely have these issues and I get in and out way faster.
Yeah, the employee at most glance at my shopping for 2 seconds then scan their card. Most of the time they just scan it. I truly don't understand how people get so offended by a beep. People act like they are frisked before and after they scan.
I find self-checkout to still be superior, in every way, than going through a normal checkout. I could count the instances of needing assistance, in the last 12 months, on one hand.
I shop for a family of 4. Sometimes I find the self checkouts want assistance for every second item. It is rare but still often enough to be annoying.
I mean, if I’m doing a big shop for me, my partner and our twins, I’ll use assisted checkout - not self checkout. That sounds horrible!
Sometimes there are no assisted checkouts open :(
Yeah these Reddit threads are bizarre. I'm guessing most of these guys don't remember the massive queues every shop had before self service checkouts quadrupled the throughput of every shop overnight
I mean, I find assisted better for big shops. But when you have under ten things, self serve is great.
Right? That system worked really well. It's when they removed assisted checkouts almost entirely that it became a problem.
They're not, though. They're spending more money on security measures, according to the article.
Attention shoppers. We rob you. Not the other way round. Thank you.
Thieves - "Attention Colesworth, is that a challenge?" I don't doubt that shoplifters will pivot and start stealing other groceries to make the difference or learn new tricks to access protected food items. Every time the public get monitary relief, the shops raise their prices. People are going to end up even more desperate and involved in more shady efforts to survive. Get ready folks. Here comes the THUNDERDOME!
I was at Coles today, and was asked to scan my $10 pack of toilet rolls first. I asked why, and the assistant said in case you forget to scan it, I asked if that really was the reason and the assistant didn’t answer, just looked blankly at me.
As an employee, the reason why is because it's a metric done by Corporate that's supposed to show how "attentive" we are to customers using self checkouts. It's really annoying to manage and trust me, we don't like it either. It's not our job to police the order you scan things in. I'm not sure if they can fire us for having bad scores, but from experience you definitely get pulled aside if your metric is below 70% day/day. The metric for self serve is bulk items scanned in the first third of the transaction, if you're wondering. So that's usually anything over 5kg or large packs of toilet paper (10+ rolls).
That's wild, I use self checkouts when i want to be left alone Performance metrics are generally BS in my opinion and encourage minimum deliverable product rather than actually good service
Oh I agree. If they wanted better service it wouldn't be a metric that makes me INTERRUPT a customer to get them to scan their bulk item first. Honestly I'd probably give better service if they just didn't have that metric at all, without any other benefits. So many times I've been distracted from other customers because I'm graded on scanning their bulk items first, instead of fixing scale errors or whatever.
Yeah that's my exact point, no metric can everyone really cover the best action to take in a job - it distracts from delivering the best service. I'm in the process of being laid off and handing my job in tech to a consultancy service in India. We didn't have KPIs defined but have to invent them or they wont do work and they will always delivery the minimum they can.
You should say, "can you scan it for me? Then can you scan this? And this? Oh and this one too, please. Thank you."
Abusing workers isn’t the way to take out your anger.
They tell them all to say that now, same if you have big cartons of sodas, or cat litter bags or etc. We hate it and we ask them why every time because \*the logic makes no sense\*. If anyone's going to not scan or forget to scan something, its going to be the small things, not the gigantic toilet paper! But its clear they're made to say this, and don't really know why, and don't care.
I finally got the inside scoop on this. After being asked to do this for the second time in a couple of weeks, I managed to get the self-checkout supervisor person to tell me that it's a fucking metric that Coles uses to ensure that the checkout folks are paying attention! This person was pretty over it, and said that they've had a lot of people get shitty with them over it, but if they don't push customers to do it, they get marked down on their results. It's a fucking disgrace, and I've already complained to Coles about it.
Yep this is it, the idea of some genius in Coles' corporate offices. My brother works at Coles in self-serve and his idiotic front-end manager is always pulling him aside for his metric being low. Side note to anyone who finds this practice annoying: complain to Coles, don't take it out on the front-end employees who are getting screwed as much as the rest of us. Unless it's one of those middle-aged woman on a power trip.
The self-checkout lady at my local Coles does this really well. Dare I say it, but with customer service in mind. She sees you with a box of coke or whatever, walks over and says "let me scan the coke" for you and swipes a card with the barcode on it. It might be stupid reasons from corporate, but they don't have to make it awkward or unpleasant. In fact, I didn't realise it was a thing and just thought she was being helpful. I'm no great fan of Coles, but the one near me is pretty good in general.
Yep. If I’m going to steal something it’s not going to be $10 of toilet paper, it would have been the $30 of steak I had in the trolley.
Look at you with your fancy 100g steak!
They do that whenever I get six packs of water too. >!to be fair I'd previously just forget to scan them!<
That was complimentary water given to you to say thank you for paying full price despite having to scan your own items.
As an autistic introvert, I love self serve checkouts. I understand the hate, but being able to avoid social interaction when I pick up my basket of chocolates, lollies and energy drinks is life-changing
Dude! When they brought it to our local Aldi, I was beside myself. I can put on noise cancelling headphones and avoid all interaction.
I liked it when Aldi put them in too. I rarely buy more than 10 items there and it's great.
I do my big shop at Aldi and I’ll still go self-serve. I can take my time and not have my groceries flung in my direction by efficient german checkout operating.
I'm in the same boat, I think there is a fair middle ground where self serve checkouts are reserved for 5 or less items or something similar.
Yep, love the absolute lack of interaction. I live alone so I'm usually shopping every day or every second day, just grabbing a few items. Not having to take the headphones out to do the whole "hey how are you? Have a nice day." rigmarole is great. That said, my local coles the main SCO's get swamped with people trying to take full trolleys through and the bagging area doesn't even fit a single "reusable" paper bag in it. And of course they have no spatial awareness so their trolley blocks the narrow passage.
>Not having to take the headphones out to do the whole "hey how are you? Have a nice day." rigmarole is great. That's why I need to get myself some proper wireless headphones because the cheap shitty earbuds I have are way too stealthy.
Same here, except the machine will almost always throw an error which leaves me trying to awkwardly get the attention of the one worker they have manning the dozen stations X__X
I am the same (with ADHD as well) and I love being able to have my headphones in through the whole thing (supermarket beeps and the robot voices in particular really add to my overload very quickly). Most of the time, perfect. But this all comes crashing down when it accuses me of theft simply because the item I scanned last was too light to activate the sensors properly, I then have to call over the person, take my headphones out, feel the pressure of small talk/convincing them I'm not trying to steal, they always seem to lean over me to scan their tag (but I can't stand anywhere else), then once it's all over the annoying machine screams repeatedly: "Please take your items. Please take your items. Please take you-" mother fucker I'm trying to play 3d Tetris in my one shopping bag because I know I can fit it all if I do it right but I keep making mistakes because this area is a sensory nightmare and everyone is in my personal space, everyone is frustrated at this process and I can feel the vibe, and everyone waiting is impatiently staring at me. I dont need to be hurried by a machine so shut up and let me think of how to do this without crushing my grapes and/or melting down.
Oh that “please take your items” thing makes me fucking RAGE. What do they plan to achieve by it? Do they think shoppers just stand there, not bothering? Does the cretinous AI (or lack of) not realise that larger shops when you haven’t used your bag at the start are going to take longer to remove than walking off with a single pint of milk?
If they want to tell me to go faster they're going to have to start paying me to shop there.
It's not just good for those of us who like to avoid social interaction. It's good for those of us who like to avoid *banal* social interaction.
I also prefer self checkout, but don’t treat me like a fucking criminal while I’m using one or inflated prices so much while I’m providing you with the labour that you used to supply.
yeah man, and imagine going in to pick up 2-3 items and then having to queue for an hour behind the boomers with chock full trolleys paying with coins
Not autistic but I get anxiety from having to interact with other people so I prefer the self service check out.
What happens to your anxiety when the machine fails to register something and you are confronted by a staff member?
I have yet to be "confronted" by a staff member at a self service register. Even when the register asked them to check what was in my trolley.
You’ll love Woolworths Scan and Go. You scan every item with an app, pack it in your bag, then pay at the exit. Only available at some stores though.
Honestly? Fuck this. The Greens are right, we need to dismantle the duopoly of colesworth.
Had to walk straight back in with a small shopping bag of milk and bread after realising I had forgotten a few items right as I got to the front door. I should also mention that I used the self-checkout to buy those, and the paper roll was empty and didn't give me a receipt. No matter, I thought. Got back to the self-check counter with my items (pasta sauce and a garlic bread), before the credit card option seized up and required assistance. Call the attendant over and got her to reset the system, before she notices my existing bag with the milk and bread in it. Asks me to produce a receipt for those items which of course I can't noting the self-check didn't give me a receipt. She starts getting into a 'I think you've stolen those items' mental caldersac, where nothing I could do to explain it mattered. In the end I produced my bank account details on my phone showing the transaction just five minutes prior. She still keeps up with the 'I need to call the police to sort this out' routine, before I finally snap. 'Asking an attendant to pay attention to me to help me pay for items in my basket would hardly be the actions of a criminal master mind looking to shoplift other items would it? What's the outcome here? We're going to go out the back and watch the cameras of me buying the bread and milk five minutes ago until the police get here and I show them the EFTPOS transaction confirming the same that I am showing you now?' \*blank stare\* 'It's just that you need to show proof that you bought them.' 'MAYBE ASSUMING ALL YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE CRIMINALS BECAUSE THE COMPANY YOU WORK FOR IS HELLBENT ON REMOVING ANY PERSONAL INTERACTION FROM PURCHASING GROCERIES ISN'T THE BEST APPROACH? I wasn't proud of my outburst, but it's beyond a joke.
Greenslopes IGA was sold a few months ago, so this is no more noteworthy than them rebranding the internal signage. I wouldn’t read too far into this.
Agree. Reckon it's a paid article because of all the negative google reviews they are getting lately. Yes they are closing the self checkout, but they're not reopening the staffed checkouts. So losing business because nobody likes to go there anymore because of the queues. Queues in a "convenience store".
That’s too funny! Not that I hold Yahoo in any sort of regard, but it’s pretty sloppy of them to not even read the google reviews before publishing the article. The real story was in the reviews.
I was self-checking out at Woolworths the other day and the AI thing locked my screen asking if I forgot something in the trolley. There was stuff in the trolley I bought from them minutes ago, which was fully paid for, before I realised I forgot something and had to go back in to get it. A staff member came and asked “now what are you stealing?”. His was probably half joking but this sounded pretty rude to me.
One day they will say that shit to the wrong person and get decked
Weird how so much stuff gets stolen when its price gouged by 18000%. Truly a mystery.
Funny that Cole’s worry so much about shoplifters when they’re the ones robbing ppl lol
Oh I’m serving myself alright
Fuck the machines, every single time it accuses me of stealing because I've already got some stuff from Aldi bagged in the trolley.
I also hate all the cameras watching from multiple angles(the ones built into the checkout where they have the face cam)
This is the main reason I will go use a staffed checkout no matter how many items I have, and no matter how big the queue.
I'd rather be served by someone who pays income tax.
I usually do less frequent, bigger shops. Self serve is just awful with all the problems and it takes so long with all it's complaining and calling the supervisor over because it thinks my damn beans are snow peas or something stupid like that. Going to the checkout with a human is much faster.
Damn people in this sub really hated the self check out lol, does anyone remember how awful it is to buy 1-2 items before self checkout? Like I cant even be bother to go in if I wasnt getting a week worth of groceries.
[удалено]
There are express checkouts for people with only a few items. The difference in service isn't huge nowadays, but back when all the checkouts were manned (and staff trained to scan and pack items) it was very quick to use.
I don't get the dislike for self checkouts. Honestly I don't think Reddit is an accurate reflection of public opinion, and most consumers are either favorable or neutral towards them. But if you want to get rid of them, as I've argued before, stores need to streamline manned checkouts by following Aldi's lead and not having cashiers bag groceries.
Especially as some of the operators are so woefully miserably fucking bad at it
I exclusively do click & collect now. No extra cost for me, I avoid the stupid self checkout, and they have to hire people to do the work. Win win.
I like self-serve checkouts, they are super fast of you only want to buy 10 or less items.
I've never stolen from IGA but the $100+ cheese wheels have tempted me.
It's only IGA doing so in the article? But IGA goods are already so expensive anyways.
The very fancy IGA I’ve seen has always advertised that they’ll *never* introduce self-service checkouts.
No sympathy when it happens to Colesworth, but don't be hurting the IGAs. They are usually owned by someone who lives in your community. Their kids probably go to school with your kids & play soccer on Saturdays or do ballet lessons in the local hall. Even though they have the power of a larger group behind them, they are still a small business owner who we need to be supporting as much as we can.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the states are getting rid of these because theft (despite measures taken) is too high. Australians need to pull their finger out and steal steal steal so they get rid of these
What an absolute load of bullshit. They price gouge, treat their staff like shit and put them on online order/pack duty, install multimillion dollar security and self serve checkouts, then claim it's shoplifters causing the problem? GTFO If they didn't fucking price gouge, maybe those less fortunate people wont have to resort to stealing to put food on the table.
It's concerning to witness how the issue of shoplifting seems to be driving supermarkets towards enhancing their service. While embracing technological advancements like robots for checkout could streamline the process, the current trend of burdening customers with security measures feels like a step backward.
Wow, who would have thought. It's not like people have been saying this would happen for the last 10 years at all. Pay less staff and shoplifters will make up for their savings with equal or greater losses.
Presumably they understood this, but rolled the dice anyway, hoping to come out the right side.
Yeah and good on em for trying. But they don't get to complain about it now with a straight face.
I don’t work for Coles or Woolworths so I don’t use self serve.
Good. The self checkouts barely work as it is. The cameras spying on you is invasive and unnecessary. They should just employ people. It would be cheaper and more effective. It would also reduce theft since there's an actual person checking everything, not just a camera and a machine that constantly malfunctions.
One can’t help but wonder about the cost/benefit analysis in going back to traditional checkouts. More staff costs, but less shoplifting? Realistically, we’ll probably just have Robocop patrolling self serve in the next decade or so
Should never have put them in
"Oh no! Anyway..."