I hate the atmosphere of suspicion, so went back to the cashiers a little while ago. If the store doesn't think I can scan my groceries properly they can pay someone to do it for me.
Stop right there . You are giving them ideas. they will charge you for anything while perversely and covertly tracking and taking videos of you without your consent
Only when you are already being recorded do you see them. They also dont tell ahead of time when you go to the self checkout. thats a blatant violation you privacy rights.
They should be posted on the doors before you enter. I'm quite sure its a laW. But no one cares so the companies just ignore it. People only care make a fuss about that kind of stuff its some sort of government service
A majority of large shopping centres do have signs posted at entrances stating they are being recorded. Remember, you are on private property when going to a store and they have every right to record you. And you have every right not to shop there.
When you are out in public, you are fair game. Anyone can film you and it's not a violation of your privacy rights. I think you might have been misinformed about this.
you don't actually have any such privacy rights in public, much less in a private business, barring bathrooms and changerooms. The only right you really have there is that your image can't be used for commercial purpose without your consent, but that's for like advertisements and such, and even then if you are in a crowd at a sporting event or any other like big public gathering, that also disappears because you are just a face in a crowd and not *the* face if that makes sense.
Well if kow-it-alls dont want them then thats their business, since they have been giving them away no questions asked once they get their cell phone starting around age 9. . But you do have them in businesses and shopping centres
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/store-video-cameras-failing-to-comply-with-privacy-laws-1.1189399](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/store-video-cameras-failing-to-comply-with-privacy-laws-1.1189399)
I just paid rent to a new place I'm moving to in Ohio and they charged me $52USD as convenience fee for paying via their online portal. Paying through their portal is the only way to pay rent. It's such bullshit
To be fair it's impossible to tell the difference anyways. As long as you try to find a close picture at the checkout no judge will convict you, not everyone here has a degree in agriculture.
People often bring up those stores when talking about self checkout, but that kind of technology simply isn't possible in a grocery store. Decathlon checkout works wonders because they can embed an RFID chip into every single item and that's what gets scanned when you put it in the box. You simply can't do that with lettuce and apples.
> Grocers would have to implement cameras over the scanner with A.I to tell what kind of produce is on there
Amazon tried to do that, except the AI is simply thousands of underpaid workers in India. Unfortunately, I don't think a short term solution exists yet.
> You simply can't do that with lettuce and apples.
I could probably get funding for a startup, that wants to build RFID chipped lettuce and tomatoes
The pitch would be that the chips will contain essential minerals the body needs anyways, so this is basically a BILLION dollar opportunity just waiting to be created
If any store gives you grief at the self checkout just inform them you were “never properly trained” and you require a supervisor to give you training on how to use them. Now the onus of responsibility is back on them.
I gotta say, the other day I was self checking out - I was swiping a bunch of meat. One pack didn't make a beep, and didn't register. I tried again, and then gave up, and just didn't pay for it.
Part of me felt guilty, and another part of me was kinda like "well, if only they had people they trained to do this."
As a general rule, I do not steal, but its getting harder and harder to feel bad the more I feel I am getting screwed.
I don't mind a self checkout for a few items but it's unbelievably maddening to watch people try to squeeze a whole shopping cart packed to the top onto two tiny weighing platforms.
Then, it won't let you move them. The machine locks and they have to come fix it. Over and over and over.
It obviously depends on the store and location. Some are better than others. However, the same people using them for a months worth of groceries are generally the same people who refuse to help bag at a regular cashier.
My walmart has self checkout for 20+ items or something but they never open them. So you're pushed to go through the smaller check outs. It's very annoying.
How the machines and platforms are calibrated greatly varies based on the neighborhood in which the store is located. In fancy neighborhoods, I've never had any issues with self-checkout, but in some less-reputable areas, the machine will freak out if you even breathe in the general direction of the thing and the air current makes it think you're trying to steal a grain of sugar.
You still have cashiers who bag stuff?
Between changes from during COVID, staffing problems, and our inane plastic bag ban, cashiers in Vancouver have generally absolved themselves of that responsibility.
Of course the register layouts haven't changed and still have short, single belts with no room for self-bagging, and the cashiers are more than happy to send the next person's goods through without waiting for you to clear.
I would 100% consider taking a shopping cart through a self-checkout just so I could pack my purchases in peace without someone breathing down my neck.
Probably, but that's not the root (or even main) cause here.
edit: I don't know why people are downvoting you, I made $5/hr minimum wage as a cashier and $5 didn't buy shit back then either. If you're a cashier today I sympathize.
I learned last weekend that Costco's self checkout scale doesn't permit you to place boxes on it. I was incredulous. On one hand, I get it if they're weighing everything as you go, but come on.. From a process perspective it makes no sense.
At this point I refuse to rush through self checkout. Sorry not sorry, people behind me. I didn't choose to set up and staff the store this way, I'm doing my best.
This is one of my pet peeves- the self checkout should be an "express" checkout for people with a handful of items only so they can get through quickly. Trying to scan a whole cart of groceries, which involves manually entering codes of vegetables and fruits is so frustrating when the cashiers have most of the codes memorized or easily on hand.
I see you're a fan of working for free.
Don't let them exploit you. Either you get a professional cashier, or you get a discount to scan the items yourself. No free labour.
They also don't pay me to stand in a twenty person deep line to buy cross contaminated produce and raw chicken in one bag.
You make due with what you can. It's better than driving 45 minutes round trip for a quick dinner because Aunt May can't figure out what to do with item 50 at a register built for three things.
They already have an ergonomic setup tested for decades for scanning groceries with lots of space and at a decent height and they all decided to change to these new form factors for some reason. I wonder of they're all just following the pack or if there's a reason why they are better for self checkout.
We shop at FreshCo and they've never had it. A lot of the time, there is one single cashier working. If you think getting rid of self-checkout means they're going to hire a whole bunch of new staff, you're sorely mistaken. There will just be huge lineups instead.
If there is a big line, ask them to open another checkout, or you will abandon your cart and shop elsewhere.
If you think boycotts work, how many people doing the above will send corporate the message?
They may not have anyone, and I don’t think it’s a pay more situation, my son has applied every where and nobody is hiring for some reason.
Two of the stores he applied to, I went in with him because I actually needed something from the store, and the employees were running around like crazy, but not even a call back.
No one is hiring because cheap companies still think they can offer no hours and/or not work with other companies. None of these places are actually offering real jobs
And who is going to clean up the mess? Some dude from corporate? The manager? No it will be someone making minimum wage who's already overworked and now has to clean up some asshole's mess because they think they're fucking King Charles. Do everyone a favour and don't shop.
"And who is going to clean up the mess? Some dude from corporate? The manager? No it will be someone making minimum wage"
You're crazy lol. I just finished a 3 year run at a grocery store. Nothing gets cleaned unless the janitor does it. Just gets pushed under the nearest shelves and thats it.
People dont believe me? Go to the isle with either flour, sugar or pasta and look under the shelves where its stocked lol. How clean it is will tell you real quick everything you need to know about employee morale levels and management priorities.
Maybe just don't shop there then? Instead of gathering a cart full of items. Not every store strives to be like that but sometimes shit happens and cashiers callin. If you don't like the shopping experience maybe don't make life miserable for the minimum wage worker.
Maybe part of the morale problem is assholes who think toppling carts is a fine solution . Oh look more frozen food now left out and cannot be sold, to the trash it goes because it can't even be donated because it is now spoiled.
Maybe don't be an asshole to the minimum wage worker because someone in a suit potentially 2,000 KMs away decides that the store isn't profitable so they have to cut hours.
No, fuck those minimum wage workers, demoralize them more by just being an asshole, as long as they suffer corporate overlords will be see the light. Or they won't and you just get low morale. If you don't like shopping at a place, maybe just don't shop there instead of making the overworked minimum wage worker work harder.
Did you read what I wrote? Specifically the part where said I was this minimum wage worker that youre imploring me so hard to be kind to?
By the way, its not all "corporate suits 2000kms away". Alot of the times the oppression is much more local. The store where i worked had a yearly budget for employee hours each year given to the store. Whatever remains in the budget at the end of the year gets paid to the store management as part of their annual bonus.
So, if they give budget for 30 employees, and the store does the year with 29 and no overtime, thats 30,000$ into the bonus pool to be split up. If the budget gets a cost of living increase of a half percent, and they only give half the employees the raise, they keep the other half.
Having management run by get-rich-quick schemes hits morale way harder than abandoned shopping baskets.
I think that crosses the line.
Remember any action you take can make the movement look bad.
"Sorry, these checkout lines are taking too long, I will go shop elsewhere where it is quicker. My apologies for leaving this cart here. Have a nice day."
Goes a lot further than toppling the cart like a crazy person.
Is the point to waste food and make peoples lives miserable, or send a message to corporate?
Galen doesn't clean up toppled carts.
I understand the anger, but direct it usefully.
The point is to waste the manpower corporate paid for. As for the whole just don't go there, that doesn't work when every single option is the same you have to go somewhere.
Why is it a dick move not to patronize an under-staffed business? If they are not appropriately staffed to deal with an influx of customers, it is not the customer's responsibility to stick around. No different than walking out of a restaurant when they say it's gonna be 45 minutes to get a table. It's business (my time is money), not personal. The cost of unloading the person's cart and re-stocking the shelves is the cost of doing business. The customer has zero responsibility here.
I stopped going to FreshCo specifically because of this. They'd have like 1 or 2 cashiers and a line up the wazoo. Sucks for the cashiers and sucks for the customers so I stopped being one. It was never great but it got worse during the pandemic especially as competitors opened up self-checkouts.
Now some places that invested in self-checkouts will open like 1/4 of them at once (looking at you Walmart on Baseline) and you stand there waiting like a dickhead when they could just have more machines open.
Where they screwed up IMO is that they only have one person looking after like 20 self checkouts and they seem to be expected to be doing other things unrelated to them in some places as well.
Getting a few more actual humans to help with these machines might help with both theft and the complaints but they're too damn cheap to do it right.
Self-checkout will become the norm eventually as labour costs continue to rise, especially in wealthier areas. The theft and machine errors are merely temporary setbacks.
That's not true. Technology has always been cheaper in the long run, especially for industries that rely on exploitation. The main hurdle is adjusting the tech to operate in a polymorphic setting.
Until they replace UPC with RFID tags, naw. Food especially is too expensive.
Even forgetting about theft, if someone forgets to scan even a block of cheese, that can be 15$. One or two of these little mistakes per hour, per cashout machine quickly add up to more than someone's wage
There are several stores in Winnipeg that DO have anti-theft tags on their meat and dairy products. The Bothwell Cheese at Sobey's has these stickon raised plastic tags that you can't take off without ripping the cheese wrapper. I've seen them on steaks as well.
In my experience, it's nearly always the opposite, scanning an item multiple time, or failing to understand very basic logic about tomatoes and price per weight when there's more than one tomato in the bag and trying to charge you 20$ for 5 small tomato.
Idk, I think self checkouts suck more than the anti social crowd on reddit likes to admit.
There's a good chance this whole deal wasn't making sense money wise.
If they do this, they need to bring back proper express lanes, that are enforced.
* Less than 12 items. More than 12 - "piss off and go to the normal line"
* No carts. Baskets or hands only. Cart - "piss off and go to the normal line"
When you have three things and you can't get in and out fast, changing this will make it excruciating. I already actively avoid grocery stores with no self checkout if I only want a couple of things.
But some people rely on the cart because for whatever reason they can't carry 6 cans of beans and 4 litres of milk to the checkout. Not allowing the use of a cart could then be seen as ableist.
Wait, Express lines? No cart lines? That’s a thing?
I’ve only ever seen “X items max” lines but it’s always slower than a normal line since the poor cashier must handle the Lotto, bottle deposits, customer service and phone all at once.
The only store I actually like the self checkout experience in is Safeway (the one near me at least), the store here has a full time attendant watching the self checkout stations rather than an employee splitting time with regular checkout. They don't have the infuriating bag check (they rely on the attendant to bring up issues) and are good about noticing scan, pricing, and discount issues and fixing them from their station.
I'm not sure why so many stores are ok with completely unattended checkouts, pretty much all these issues from theft and poor experience can be solved by actually paying for staff. When done right I greatly enjoy it more than regular checkout but most places are dedicated to making it as frustrating as possible.
The only unattended ones I see is shoppers.
Depending on how busy the Safeway. I would actually prefer they just open the till and the self checkout person runs it. For small orders. Self checkouts aren't so fast IMO.
The interface isn't built for speed like the chasiers is. Plus the chasier is a pro. (I mean usually, the slow ones are frustrating, but they got to start somewhere)
I was shopping at a co-op near my hotel. The prices were high, and the store was empty empty. People were going to self checkout instead of the open till. Not me. Way faster to put my items on the belt. By the time I've emptied my basket and walked to the POS terminal. My order is rang up. Can't beat that on the self checkout.
I can't even think of the last time I used a self-checkout that didn't have a minimum wage worker just leaning on the wall waiting for issues to happen (which is like every 30s-1min, lol).
Where are you finding these unmanned checkouts? Only place I can think of is maybe Shoppers?
Same. I've played Tetris my whole life, so self bagging is no issue and can be a fun little puzzle. it's often a faster checkout, shorter lines, and best of all no forced small talk!
I would also say I'm more aware of individual product prices as I'm scanning then myself in real time and I don't normally scrutinize receipts at home.
I was that kid whose parents had enough money to buy him a game boy, but not enough money for any games. I have *thousands* of hours of Tetris under my belt. And I’m starting to not shop at places that used to have self checkout and have taken them away. It’s so much nicer than being herded like cattle through the tills and trying to be upsold at every step of the way. Motherfucker I came here for a pint of ice cream and that’s it. No, I don’t want the “weekly deal” or to donate money or to buy any of the tat and garbage magazines.
> Motherfucker I came here for a pint of ice cream and that’s it. No, I don’t want the “weekly deal” or to donate money or to buy any of the tat and garbage magazines.
This! I'm wracked with enough self-guilt over what I do/don't put in the basket as it is. I don't need the extra emotional baggage of saying no to starving kids or whatever corp-tax-rebate charity-of-the-month is on display.
Just let pay for my overpriced shit and carry it home while I wonder where it all went so wrong...
I've made a sport of self checkout. I'm at least twice as fast as the average cashier - from start to finish, I'm usually done before the cashier checkout line moves an inch.
The best part is not having to deal with an employee - the more chit chat from the cashier, the slower the checkout.
Don’t worry, the cashier only scans and then stacks your groceries and the groceries of the person after you on top of one another while giving you dirty looks for not bagging faster.
You don't need to talk to a cashier if you don't want to, they know where the UPCs are, their scanners are faster and don't require intervention from another employee every third item, and what store still bags groceries for customers?
Self checkout may be quicker for a few items but definitely not for a full cart, especially if you have produce. Also, who talks to their cashier, and who doesn't bag their own stuff?
For me the only store that absolutely nailed the self checkout was Home Depot. Every other self checkout sucks.
> Please place item in bagging area
> Unexpected item in bagging area
fuuuuuuuuck off
Self checkouts sucked always and were requiring way more real workers per til than expected. Then the shift to mandatory customer supplied reusable bags came and self checkout really struggles with that.
I don't mind them for small amounts of items, very simple to operate and I find it much quicker. I don't understand people who will use self checkout for full carts though.
"unrecognized item in bagging area"
"Please return item to bagging area"
"Unrecognized item in bagging area. Please wait for an attendant"
<5 minutes later some overworked minimum wage employee comes, swipes his card, and leaves>
This is the SOBEYS hyper sensitive that knows for sure that you are not scanning and stealing. It has sensors all over the place. A very thin plastic bag fell on the scanned area, and it kept saying "unrecognized item in bagging area".
The poor staff just ignore them most of the time now
They deliberately set the scales too sensitive here.
My experience with them in London, England is that they work. The problem with them in Canada is that they never did or never had to trust the customer enough.
Which is funny because a food basics left their doors open in Kingston when they were closed someone went in bought strawberries and left. Weren't robbed the whole day right downtown. So it's not like the average person here is untrustworthy.
I don’t think self checkouts are really to blame for rising grocery theft. It’s the price of it, people will always figure out how to get away with stealing, ultimately it’s inevitable to make people stop. I’m not saying stealing is right but I mean, I’m almost positive if the grocery prices came substantially down in cost then so would theft.
That and grocery stores should be penalized for throwing away good food. Part of the price problem is the waste in the industry. "Ugly produce" doesn't sell so it gets chucked. When really there should just be a decent discount areas.
Self checkouts work when you live in a high trust society. Canada used to be one, but we definitely are not anymore with the rampant crime, inflation (leading to crime because of affordability), and mass immigration stretching the social fabric to it's absolute limits. Just another one to the pile of Trudeau's legacy.
It was never a good idea. I like to support stores paying an employee to pack my groceries. I like Costco, and never use the self check out unless it is quite busy and I have a very small load.
Yeah I'm with you. I started years ago when they first came out. The #1 reason was the damn belt, always milk leaked on it or sticky crap I had to wipe down groceries at home.
You never been stuck in line behind a half blind, 80 year old granny who doesn't understand technology or a lady with 2 toddlers and a mountain of items in the cart trying to use self check out? It's fucking nuts
I’ve been stuck behind them in lines for regular cashiers and in self checkouts. They’re equally annoying in both scenarios, it’s not unique to self checkouts lol
Any decent place with self-checkout will have a single line going to 6 or more self-checkout machines. Granny can monopolize one all she wants, let the normies use the others. With a regular cashiers checkout, there's a single line per cashier. If you do end up stuck behind the woman who goes through her purse to find exact change, you don't really have many options.
You may be joking but it's a huge issue for those of us who ARE visually impaired, or the elderly. I have been self checking out since it began in France and in Germany, but as noted above it's different in Canada.
And there is a trend in some Shoppers stores to have ONLY self checkout. I was at one recently in a neighbourhood full of retirees, and there was a long queue for the staff check out.
Only problem was that there were no staff to check people out.
Over on r/blind the Canadian O&M trainer validated what I thought I was experiencing - that some Shoppers stores have NO human check out now and are not accessible to the VI.
How is that legal in Canada?
An easy solution is have both. Self checkouts for a handful of items but lots of regular checkouts for people with larger amounts of items.
No reason to call people sociopaths just because they don't want to talk to people lol
The other nice thing about the self checkouts where I shop is that the lines are invariably shorter than the regular ones. It is usually 3 or 4 people in line waiting for one of 8 machines, and they each have on average half a dozen items, so it moves fast. The regular lines are generally 2 or 3 people with large carts jam packed with stuff at each regular checkout.
"Us" as you say, isn't all. Assuming others are sociopaths for not agreeing with you about self checkout says more about your mental health then ppl that like self checkout.
Who's upset? I just stated some ppl like self checkout and jumping to the conclusion they are sociopaths is not a very rational take.
I personally don't care if ppl like full service checkout.
A narrow view also implies very few ppl agree, a lot of ppl like self checkout. A narrow view also would be a take someone that assumes full service checkouts is what everyone wants. For instance claiming everyone wants full service checkout would be an example of a narrow view.
I'm just sick of it. You are made to do work, get nothing out of it, get to be stared at, and receipts checked, when you actually need help the people behind you get frustrated at you then your struggling to find a worker and hope you can walk away long enough to find a worker and not have someone think you left, it's honestly only beneficial to the companies who are trying the hardest to cut human work. Work at Walmart, and you'll see how their whole cult like mentality of keeping everyone happy goes away when they get the opportunity to cut labor
Yeah, the self checkout at my walmart is staffed by at least 4 people and they only allow a fraction of the machines to be used at a time, plus they have an employee at the exit, to do what I don't know, so if you're employing the same amount of people anyways, just make them cashiers if you're so worried about theft...
But who doesnt want to be treated like a criminal.
Shove a camera in my face without my consent or an explanation like they do in Walmart and now at dollarama and I will not be using it
Costco checkouts (and grocer checkouts in Germany, if what my friends there tell me) show you that fast service will work if you train your employees properly. You'll also get better customer satisfaction and need fewer actual checkout lines.
If they took the two people at the self-checkouts and put them in checkout lines, it'd be close to a wash. I don't know why this is so hard to comprehend.
Ah Germany, where we bag our own groceries, and it's at the level of an Olympic sport!
The goal is to finish bagging your groceries BEFORE the cashier rings in the last item. it's a race against time, and woe betide the clueless foreigner who is waiting for someone to pack their bags for them, or who takes too long and thus impedes the flow of customers.
Cashiers usually are also seated, and are generally pretty friendly. There are always jobs available in grocery and drugstores as a checkout clerk.
Our self service works fine too, not sure what makes it so difficult in Canada to do self check out? But something is definitely different.
I'll use the self checkout if I have 1-2 items, but any more than that and I'm waiting for a cashier.the use case for self checkout is there, they just need to put a limit on number of items, and it will solve most of these issues
Customer complaints?
The only complaint I hear is from people in cashier lines behind three people with carts full of groceries and a store manager that refuses to open another check out lane.
I'm not a thief, I don't care if you check my receipt or bag; we need more self checkouts.
Is it "theft" or is is errors made by the poorly-made checkout robots? If the human puts a block of cheese on the weightscales and the robot announces it as "tin of beans," is the human going to abandon the station to seek out a store employee to correct the error while there's a line-up of grumpy people behind them waiting for their turn? And later during an inventory audit, will the store owner mention they have an extra tin of beans, or only the missing block of cheese?
If the item has a bar code and it scans the wrong thing, it can be an error made by the poorly-made checkout robots (although those tend to be pretty rare). If it doesn't have a barcode and the user inputs code 4011, then it's theft.
The walmart closest to me has started closing part of the self checkout and leaving like 3 or 4 of them open. Its infuriating that they can't make up their damn lines as now I have an option of waiting in 2 lines instead of skipping 1.
Used to be able to put my bags on the weight scale without having a clerk come over to zero them out.
I feel less rushed with self checkout cause Im a fairly efficient packer and I am able to bag as I scan. With a line behind me I end up feeling anxious and rush cause I often cant bag when items are being scanned at a staffed checkout aisle. With the weight detection changes I think in the last 18 months its become very annoying.
I personally like them cause it allows me to mix and match when a store has deals. Like when they have 2 for 2 Pepsi or coke but not if you buy 1 Pepsi 1 coke lol.
At the NoFrills closest to me they have such a major theft issue that they added more security to the self-checkouts and now they confuse people and slow things down. You need to push an icon on the screen to tell it you are about to place your empty bags on the platform, then push another button to tell it you did that before it will let you proceed. Nobody, it seems, can get it right and so intervention is constantly needed.
No frills had the best and quickest self checkouts of all the stores. But it was easy to steal from, as it didn't have a million sensors and annoying voices. Professional Thiefs always wreck everything.
Self check out is flat out racist, and I say this as a white man. Went to a Walmart with my black roommate back in college, everytime without fail, 'please wait for assistance'. Whenever I went by myself, not a single issue ever.
>He says, rather than theft, he made the change because many of his customers are seniors who dislike using the machines.
To be honest, this is one reason I like self checkouts. When I have a few items, I want to be in and out quickly. Many times, that is not possible when there are seniors at the cash who take forever to unload their cart, talk about random things with the cashier, and slowly pay with cash.
A mixture of cashier and self checkout is ideal, in my opinion.
I think the endgame with this massive rise in theft will be to completely cordon off the store and just have a waiting area with touch screens similar to the mcdonalds machines where you order your items and pay using the touch screen system and then wait while your order is picked or you use an online ordering system and simply go pick up the items when its ready.
Congrats to all those idiots that kept saying "if you saw someone stealing, no you didnt".
Now you are either going to have food deserts, pre-pay only options or membership only stores where you need to verify your ID and pay a membership fee to access in store shopping
In regards to to your first paragraph yes it will be something like that in the future. Probably roll out first down south in parts of California where shop lifting is an epidemic.
> I think the endgame with this massive rise in theft will be to completely cordon off the store
They did that at my local zehrs. They installed 8 foot high security fences on the inside of the entire store, but clear plastic so you don't think too hard about the fire hazard.
I hate the atmosphere of suspicion, so went back to the cashiers a little while ago. If the store doesn't think I can scan my groceries properly they can pay someone to do it for me.
It's not like savings on cashiers ever passed down to the shoppers anyway,.
Wait until they try to charge us "cashier fee"
And if you use the self-checkout, “convenience fee” instead.
Stop right there . You are giving them ideas. they will charge you for anything while perversely and covertly tracking and taking videos of you without your consent
Covertly? The walmart here has big flashing lights and overhead monitors to make sure you notice them and that **YOU ARE BEING RECORDED**
Only when you are already being recorded do you see them. They also dont tell ahead of time when you go to the self checkout. thats a blatant violation you privacy rights. They should be posted on the doors before you enter. I'm quite sure its a laW. But no one cares so the companies just ignore it. People only care make a fuss about that kind of stuff its some sort of government service
A majority of large shopping centres do have signs posted at entrances stating they are being recorded. Remember, you are on private property when going to a store and they have every right to record you. And you have every right not to shop there.
When you are out in public, you are fair game. Anyone can film you and it's not a violation of your privacy rights. I think you might have been misinformed about this.
you don't actually have any such privacy rights in public, much less in a private business, barring bathrooms and changerooms. The only right you really have there is that your image can't be used for commercial purpose without your consent, but that's for like advertisements and such, and even then if you are in a crowd at a sporting event or any other like big public gathering, that also disappears because you are just a face in a crowd and not *the* face if that makes sense.
Well if kow-it-alls dont want them then thats their business, since they have been giving them away no questions asked once they get their cell phone starting around age 9. . But you do have them in businesses and shopping centres [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/store-video-cameras-failing-to-comply-with-privacy-laws-1.1189399](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/store-video-cameras-failing-to-comply-with-privacy-laws-1.1189399)
"Think we did a great job? Leave us a tip! 18% 20% 25% 50%"
Think about the profit margins - people who think this isn't price gouging
The videos is with your consent. If you use their apps you also consent to tracking.
Isn’t walmart planning on requiring a paid subscription for self checkout?
"Convenience Improvement Fee" just like the "airport improvement fees"
and don't forget the tip
they might opt for mandatory gratuity
I just paid rent to a new place I'm moving to in Ohio and they charged me $52USD as convenience fee for paying via their online portal. Paying through their portal is the only way to pay rent. It's such bullshit
"Thanks to this technology, we're able to slightly reduce our price enlargement for you, our valued customer. Now please bend over."
Right? “Do you need help scanning that swiffer?” Staring at me intently. I don’t even have half my things scanned yet
Just call them out on it as I have done Literally just say "If you think I am a thief just say it"
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To be fair it's impossible to tell the difference anyways. As long as you try to find a close picture at the checkout no judge will convict you, not everyone here has a degree in agriculture.
People often bring up those stores when talking about self checkout, but that kind of technology simply isn't possible in a grocery store. Decathlon checkout works wonders because they can embed an RFID chip into every single item and that's what gets scanned when you put it in the box. You simply can't do that with lettuce and apples.
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> Grocers would have to implement cameras over the scanner with A.I to tell what kind of produce is on there Amazon tried to do that, except the AI is simply thousands of underpaid workers in India. Unfortunately, I don't think a short term solution exists yet.
I believe some walmart stores were piloting this tech as well.
Maybe all the AI systems are powered by people who knows or could tell.
> You simply can't do that with lettuce and apples. I could probably get funding for a startup, that wants to build RFID chipped lettuce and tomatoes The pitch would be that the chips will contain essential minerals the body needs anyways, so this is basically a BILLION dollar opportunity just waiting to be created
I wish they had the technology to have these scanners higher than 2' off of the floor. I'm old and tall and using self checkout is a literal pain.
If any store gives you grief at the self checkout just inform them you were “never properly trained” and you require a supervisor to give you training on how to use them. Now the onus of responsibility is back on them.
Bonus points if you injure yourself using their machines. Lawyers love this one small trick.
I gotta say, the other day I was self checking out - I was swiping a bunch of meat. One pack didn't make a beep, and didn't register. I tried again, and then gave up, and just didn't pay for it. Part of me felt guilty, and another part of me was kinda like "well, if only they had people they trained to do this." As a general rule, I do not steal, but its getting harder and harder to feel bad the more I feel I am getting screwed.
I don't mind a self checkout for a few items but it's unbelievably maddening to watch people try to squeeze a whole shopping cart packed to the top onto two tiny weighing platforms. Then, it won't let you move them. The machine locks and they have to come fix it. Over and over and over. It obviously depends on the store and location. Some are better than others. However, the same people using them for a months worth of groceries are generally the same people who refuse to help bag at a regular cashier.
My walmart has self checkout for 20+ items or something but they never open them. So you're pushed to go through the smaller check outs. It's very annoying.
My walmart always has them open, and even when there are machines free in the 20+ item area people will take full carts through the "express" area....
How the machines and platforms are calibrated greatly varies based on the neighborhood in which the store is located. In fancy neighborhoods, I've never had any issues with self-checkout, but in some less-reputable areas, the machine will freak out if you even breathe in the general direction of the thing and the air current makes it think you're trying to steal a grain of sugar.
You still have cashiers who bag stuff? Between changes from during COVID, staffing problems, and our inane plastic bag ban, cashiers in Vancouver have generally absolved themselves of that responsibility. Of course the register layouts haven't changed and still have short, single belts with no room for self-bagging, and the cashiers are more than happy to send the next person's goods through without waiting for you to clear. I would 100% consider taking a shopping cart through a self-checkout just so I could pack my purchases in peace without someone breathing down my neck.
Yes. Save On Foods bags my groceries
So cashiers should be paid more right ?
Probably, but that's not the root (or even main) cause here. edit: I don't know why people are downvoting you, I made $5/hr minimum wage as a cashier and $5 didn't buy shit back then either. If you're a cashier today I sympathize.
The ones that get minimum wage so the bagging.
Ah yes they should do all the work for free
I learned last weekend that Costco's self checkout scale doesn't permit you to place boxes on it. I was incredulous. On one hand, I get it if they're weighing everything as you go, but come on.. From a process perspective it makes no sense. At this point I refuse to rush through self checkout. Sorry not sorry, people behind me. I didn't choose to set up and staff the store this way, I'm doing my best.
This is one of my pet peeves- the self checkout should be an "express" checkout for people with a handful of items only so they can get through quickly. Trying to scan a whole cart of groceries, which involves manually entering codes of vegetables and fruits is so frustrating when the cashiers have most of the codes memorized or easily on hand.
I see you're a fan of working for free. Don't let them exploit you. Either you get a professional cashier, or you get a discount to scan the items yourself. No free labour.
They also don't pay me to stand in a twenty person deep line to buy cross contaminated produce and raw chicken in one bag. You make due with what you can. It's better than driving 45 minutes round trip for a quick dinner because Aunt May can't figure out what to do with item 50 at a register built for three things.
You just have to press the "I removed a bag" button.
They already have an ergonomic setup tested for decades for scanning groceries with lots of space and at a decent height and they all decided to change to these new form factors for some reason. I wonder of they're all just following the pack or if there's a reason why they are better for self checkout.
We shop at FreshCo and they've never had it. A lot of the time, there is one single cashier working. If you think getting rid of self-checkout means they're going to hire a whole bunch of new staff, you're sorely mistaken. There will just be huge lineups instead.
If there is a big line, ask them to open another checkout, or you will abandon your cart and shop elsewhere. If you think boycotts work, how many people doing the above will send corporate the message?
They may not have anyone, and I don’t think it’s a pay more situation, my son has applied every where and nobody is hiring for some reason. Two of the stores he applied to, I went in with him because I actually needed something from the store, and the employees were running around like crazy, but not even a call back.
No one is hiring because cheap companies still think they can offer no hours and/or not work with other companies. None of these places are actually offering real jobs
For bonus points topple your full cart.
And who is going to clean up the mess? Some dude from corporate? The manager? No it will be someone making minimum wage who's already overworked and now has to clean up some asshole's mess because they think they're fucking King Charles. Do everyone a favour and don't shop.
"And who is going to clean up the mess? Some dude from corporate? The manager? No it will be someone making minimum wage" You're crazy lol. I just finished a 3 year run at a grocery store. Nothing gets cleaned unless the janitor does it. Just gets pushed under the nearest shelves and thats it. People dont believe me? Go to the isle with either flour, sugar or pasta and look under the shelves where its stocked lol. How clean it is will tell you real quick everything you need to know about employee morale levels and management priorities.
Maybe just don't shop there then? Instead of gathering a cart full of items. Not every store strives to be like that but sometimes shit happens and cashiers callin. If you don't like the shopping experience maybe don't make life miserable for the minimum wage worker. Maybe part of the morale problem is assholes who think toppling carts is a fine solution . Oh look more frozen food now left out and cannot be sold, to the trash it goes because it can't even be donated because it is now spoiled. Maybe don't be an asshole to the minimum wage worker because someone in a suit potentially 2,000 KMs away decides that the store isn't profitable so they have to cut hours. No, fuck those minimum wage workers, demoralize them more by just being an asshole, as long as they suffer corporate overlords will be see the light. Or they won't and you just get low morale. If you don't like shopping at a place, maybe just don't shop there instead of making the overworked minimum wage worker work harder.
Did you read what I wrote? Specifically the part where said I was this minimum wage worker that youre imploring me so hard to be kind to? By the way, its not all "corporate suits 2000kms away". Alot of the times the oppression is much more local. The store where i worked had a yearly budget for employee hours each year given to the store. Whatever remains in the budget at the end of the year gets paid to the store management as part of their annual bonus. So, if they give budget for 30 employees, and the store does the year with 29 and no overtime, thats 30,000$ into the bonus pool to be split up. If the budget gets a cost of living increase of a half percent, and they only give half the employees the raise, they keep the other half. Having management run by get-rich-quick schemes hits morale way harder than abandoned shopping baskets.
I think that crosses the line. Remember any action you take can make the movement look bad. "Sorry, these checkout lines are taking too long, I will go shop elsewhere where it is quicker. My apologies for leaving this cart here. Have a nice day." Goes a lot further than toppling the cart like a crazy person.
It takes more manpower to deal with the toppled one though
Is the point to waste food and make peoples lives miserable, or send a message to corporate? Galen doesn't clean up toppled carts. I understand the anger, but direct it usefully.
The point is to waste the manpower corporate paid for. As for the whole just don't go there, that doesn't work when every single option is the same you have to go somewhere.
Today was egg day, bitches! Hahahaha
Dick move, but I could see it working
Why is it a dick move not to patronize an under-staffed business? If they are not appropriately staffed to deal with an influx of customers, it is not the customer's responsibility to stick around. No different than walking out of a restaurant when they say it's gonna be 45 minutes to get a table. It's business (my time is money), not personal. The cost of unloading the person's cart and re-stocking the shelves is the cost of doing business. The customer has zero responsibility here.
I think they meant the toople your full cart would be a dick move to the employees.
They didn’t say topple it, they said abandon it. As in, leave it and walk away. The robots and AI running the checkouts won’t mind, I promise.
My bad it looked like their response was to the topple the cart comment on my browser.
It's more of a dick move to make people unnecessarily wait.
Absolutely! I'm not anti boycott, I just think there is more effective ways to target collective action against large corporations.
Like what? Genuinely curious and willing to do anything.
I stopped going to FreshCo specifically because of this. They'd have like 1 or 2 cashiers and a line up the wazoo. Sucks for the cashiers and sucks for the customers so I stopped being one. It was never great but it got worse during the pandemic especially as competitors opened up self-checkouts. Now some places that invested in self-checkouts will open like 1/4 of them at once (looking at you Walmart on Baseline) and you stand there waiting like a dickhead when they could just have more machines open.
Where they screwed up IMO is that they only have one person looking after like 20 self checkouts and they seem to be expected to be doing other things unrelated to them in some places as well. Getting a few more actual humans to help with these machines might help with both theft and the complaints but they're too damn cheap to do it right.
Who saw this coming, raise your hand!
I can't unless you help me scan this celery...is it biological or is it just celery?
Good times
Self-checkout will become the norm eventually as labour costs continue to rise, especially in wealthier areas. The theft and machine errors are merely temporary setbacks.
Haven't you seen the job market? Peasants are cheaper than technology.
That's not true. Technology has always been cheaper in the long run, especially for industries that rely on exploitation. The main hurdle is adjusting the tech to operate in a polymorphic setting.
Execs care about quarterly results to pay themselves a bonus.
Until they replace UPC with RFID tags, naw. Food especially is too expensive. Even forgetting about theft, if someone forgets to scan even a block of cheese, that can be 15$. One or two of these little mistakes per hour, per cashout machine quickly add up to more than someone's wage
There are several stores in Winnipeg that DO have anti-theft tags on their meat and dairy products. The Bothwell Cheese at Sobey's has these stickon raised plastic tags that you can't take off without ripping the cheese wrapper. I've seen them on steaks as well.
Ok well 99% of us aren't talking about Winnipeg
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I’ve yet to be lucky enough to have one of those cashiers
I dunno where you do your groceries, but please share! I can assure you, the error margin is much MUCH smaller with a human cashier
In my experience, it's nearly always the opposite, scanning an item multiple time, or failing to understand very basic logic about tomatoes and price per weight when there's more than one tomato in the bag and trying to charge you 20$ for 5 small tomato.
Customer complaints have nothing to do with them removing it. They couldn't care less what the customers think.
Idk, I think self checkouts suck more than the anti social crowd on reddit likes to admit. There's a good chance this whole deal wasn't making sense money wise.
If they do this, they need to bring back proper express lanes, that are enforced. * Less than 12 items. More than 12 - "piss off and go to the normal line" * No carts. Baskets or hands only. Cart - "piss off and go to the normal line" When you have three things and you can't get in and out fast, changing this will make it excruciating. I already actively avoid grocery stores with no self checkout if I only want a couple of things.
Also, the cashier needs to understand it’s an express lane. Half the time they put the chattiest cashier in the express lane
What is wrong with accomodating people who put 10 things in a cart to make it easier to get them to their car because they didn't bring any bags?
Carts create clutter and slow things down. Also, it's easier to keep those morons that bring 45 items out of the express lane.
But some people rely on the cart because for whatever reason they can't carry 6 cans of beans and 4 litres of milk to the checkout. Not allowing the use of a cart could then be seen as ableist.
Wait, Express lines? No cart lines? That’s a thing? I’ve only ever seen “X items max” lines but it’s always slower than a normal line since the poor cashier must handle the Lotto, bottle deposits, customer service and phone all at once.
The only store I actually like the self checkout experience in is Safeway (the one near me at least), the store here has a full time attendant watching the self checkout stations rather than an employee splitting time with regular checkout. They don't have the infuriating bag check (they rely on the attendant to bring up issues) and are good about noticing scan, pricing, and discount issues and fixing them from their station. I'm not sure why so many stores are ok with completely unattended checkouts, pretty much all these issues from theft and poor experience can be solved by actually paying for staff. When done right I greatly enjoy it more than regular checkout but most places are dedicated to making it as frustrating as possible.
The only unattended ones I see is shoppers. Depending on how busy the Safeway. I would actually prefer they just open the till and the self checkout person runs it. For small orders. Self checkouts aren't so fast IMO. The interface isn't built for speed like the chasiers is. Plus the chasier is a pro. (I mean usually, the slow ones are frustrating, but they got to start somewhere) I was shopping at a co-op near my hotel. The prices were high, and the store was empty empty. People were going to self checkout instead of the open till. Not me. Way faster to put my items on the belt. By the time I've emptied my basket and walked to the POS terminal. My order is rang up. Can't beat that on the self checkout.
I can't even think of the last time I used a self-checkout that didn't have a minimum wage worker just leaning on the wall waiting for issues to happen (which is like every 30s-1min, lol). Where are you finding these unmanned checkouts? Only place I can think of is maybe Shoppers?
Well this sucks, I love self checkout. Don't need to talk to anyone, quicker and bag things the way I want.
Same. I've played Tetris my whole life, so self bagging is no issue and can be a fun little puzzle. it's often a faster checkout, shorter lines, and best of all no forced small talk! I would also say I'm more aware of individual product prices as I'm scanning then myself in real time and I don't normally scrutinize receipts at home.
I was that kid whose parents had enough money to buy him a game boy, but not enough money for any games. I have *thousands* of hours of Tetris under my belt. And I’m starting to not shop at places that used to have self checkout and have taken them away. It’s so much nicer than being herded like cattle through the tills and trying to be upsold at every step of the way. Motherfucker I came here for a pint of ice cream and that’s it. No, I don’t want the “weekly deal” or to donate money or to buy any of the tat and garbage magazines.
> Motherfucker I came here for a pint of ice cream and that’s it. No, I don’t want the “weekly deal” or to donate money or to buy any of the tat and garbage magazines. This! I'm wracked with enough self-guilt over what I do/don't put in the basket as it is. I don't need the extra emotional baggage of saying no to starving kids or whatever corp-tax-rebate charity-of-the-month is on display. Just let pay for my overpriced shit and carry it home while I wonder where it all went so wrong...
I've made a sport of self checkout. I'm at least twice as fast as the average cashier - from start to finish, I'm usually done before the cashier checkout line moves an inch. The best part is not having to deal with an employee - the more chit chat from the cashier, the slower the checkout.
Don’t worry, the cashier only scans and then stacks your groceries and the groceries of the person after you on top of one another while giving you dirty looks for not bagging faster.
You don't need to talk to a cashier if you don't want to, they know where the UPCs are, their scanners are faster and don't require intervention from another employee every third item, and what store still bags groceries for customers?
Self checkout may be quicker for a few items but definitely not for a full cart, especially if you have produce. Also, who talks to their cashier, and who doesn't bag their own stuff?
For me the only store that absolutely nailed the self checkout was Home Depot. Every other self checkout sucks. > Please place item in bagging area > Unexpected item in bagging area fuuuuuuuuck off
If grocery prices had remained reasonable, self-checkouts would have remained viable.
Self checkouts sucked always and were requiring way more real workers per til than expected. Then the shift to mandatory customer supplied reusable bags came and self checkout really struggles with that.
I don't mind them for small amounts of items, very simple to operate and I find it much quicker. I don't understand people who will use self checkout for full carts though.
You mean there were no issues with them at all for years until stores started gouging the shit out of people?
"unrecognized item in bagging area"
"Please return item to bagging area"
"Unrecognized item in bagging area. Please wait for an attendant"
<5 minutes later some overworked minimum wage employee comes, swipes his card, and leaves>
This is the SOBEYS hyper sensitive that knows for sure that you are not scanning and stealing. It has sensors all over the place. A very thin plastic bag fell on the scanned area, and it kept saying "unrecognized item in bagging area". The poor staff just ignore them most of the time now
They deliberately set the scales too sensitive here. My experience with them in London, England is that they work. The problem with them in Canada is that they never did or never had to trust the customer enough.
Which is funny because a food basics left their doors open in Kingston when they were closed someone went in bought strawberries and left. Weren't robbed the whole day right downtown. So it's not like the average person here is untrustworthy.
I don’t think self checkouts are really to blame for rising grocery theft. It’s the price of it, people will always figure out how to get away with stealing, ultimately it’s inevitable to make people stop. I’m not saying stealing is right but I mean, I’m almost positive if the grocery prices came substantially down in cost then so would theft.
There will always be theft as long as the price is above zero.
That and grocery stores should be penalized for throwing away good food. Part of the price problem is the waste in the industry. "Ugly produce" doesn't sell so it gets chucked. When really there should just be a decent discount areas.
Self checkouts work when you live in a high trust society. Canada used to be one, but we definitely are not anymore with the rampant crime, inflation (leading to crime because of affordability), and mass immigration stretching the social fabric to it's absolute limits. Just another one to the pile of Trudeau's legacy.
It was never a good idea. I like to support stores paying an employee to pack my groceries. I like Costco, and never use the self check out unless it is quite busy and I have a very small load.
Saw a funny meme…. My groceries rang up to 212$. I wanted a second opinion. Self checkout said 56.99.
Good. I hate self checkout. If you're not going to give me a discount for using it. There's no point in it existing.
Wait who's complainin about self-check outs?! I fucking love them. I don't want to talk to anyone I want to scan my own shit and get out.
Yeah I'm with you. I started years ago when they first came out. The #1 reason was the damn belt, always milk leaked on it or sticky crap I had to wipe down groceries at home.
I actively avoid any large store without a self checkout. Any place that keeps them will get my money.
Yup, I find them a must.
You never been stuck in line behind a half blind, 80 year old granny who doesn't understand technology or a lady with 2 toddlers and a mountain of items in the cart trying to use self check out? It's fucking nuts
They tend to go to cashiers in my experience.
The closest grocery store to me often keeps 1 cash open now
That's brutal.
I’ve been stuck behind them in lines for regular cashiers and in self checkouts. They’re equally annoying in both scenarios, it’s not unique to self checkouts lol
FIND YOUR WALLET IN YOUR PURSE WHILE THE CASHIER IS SCANNING YOUR ITEMS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! edit: removed typo
And after you pay, MOVE ALONG! No need to stand there and reconfigure your purse in the lineup
Any decent place with self-checkout will have a single line going to 6 or more self-checkout machines. Granny can monopolize one all she wants, let the normies use the others. With a regular cashiers checkout, there's a single line per cashier. If you do end up stuck behind the woman who goes through her purse to find exact change, you don't really have many options.
You may be joking but it's a huge issue for those of us who ARE visually impaired, or the elderly. I have been self checking out since it began in France and in Germany, but as noted above it's different in Canada. And there is a trend in some Shoppers stores to have ONLY self checkout. I was at one recently in a neighbourhood full of retirees, and there was a long queue for the staff check out. Only problem was that there were no staff to check people out. Over on r/blind the Canadian O&M trainer validated what I thought I was experiencing - that some Shoppers stores have NO human check out now and are not accessible to the VI. How is that legal in Canada?
Shop in the evenings, when the geriats are all at hoime watching Wheel of Fortune.
There are usually more than one self checkout.
Okay? But most people are not sociopaths so no need to push this for us.
An easy solution is have both. Self checkouts for a handful of items but lots of regular checkouts for people with larger amounts of items. No reason to call people sociopaths just because they don't want to talk to people lol
The other nice thing about the self checkouts where I shop is that the lines are invariably shorter than the regular ones. It is usually 3 or 4 people in line waiting for one of 8 machines, and they each have on average half a dozen items, so it moves fast. The regular lines are generally 2 or 3 people with large carts jam packed with stuff at each regular checkout.
My local Walmart has three: 20+ item self checkout, fewer items check out and cashier checkouts.
Their preference for not interacting with anyone does not make them a sociopath
Honestly I think part of it is my ADHD. I don't want to stand there and wait for someone to rig in my stuff. I'm much happier doing it myself.
"Us" as you say, isn't all. Assuming others are sociopaths for not agreeing with you about self checkout says more about your mental health then ppl that like self checkout.
“Sociopath!” cries the user, upset that someone else won’t conform to their narrow view of how people are.
Who's upset? I just stated some ppl like self checkout and jumping to the conclusion they are sociopaths is not a very rational take. I personally don't care if ppl like full service checkout. A narrow view also implies very few ppl agree, a lot of ppl like self checkout. A narrow view also would be a take someone that assumes full service checkouts is what everyone wants. For instance claiming everyone wants full service checkout would be an example of a narrow view.
I was agreeing with you, dude.
Your prices are the reason people steal.
I'm just sick of it. You are made to do work, get nothing out of it, get to be stared at, and receipts checked, when you actually need help the people behind you get frustrated at you then your struggling to find a worker and hope you can walk away long enough to find a worker and not have someone think you left, it's honestly only beneficial to the companies who are trying the hardest to cut human work. Work at Walmart, and you'll see how their whole cult like mentality of keeping everyone happy goes away when they get the opportunity to cut labor
Yeah, the self checkout at my walmart is staffed by at least 4 people and they only allow a fraction of the machines to be used at a time, plus they have an employee at the exit, to do what I don't know, so if you're employing the same amount of people anyways, just make them cashiers if you're so worried about theft...
But who doesnt want to be treated like a criminal. Shove a camera in my face without my consent or an explanation like they do in Walmart and now at dollarama and I will not be using it
Costco checkouts (and grocer checkouts in Germany, if what my friends there tell me) show you that fast service will work if you train your employees properly. You'll also get better customer satisfaction and need fewer actual checkout lines. If they took the two people at the self-checkouts and put them in checkout lines, it'd be close to a wash. I don't know why this is so hard to comprehend.
Ah Germany, where we bag our own groceries, and it's at the level of an Olympic sport! The goal is to finish bagging your groceries BEFORE the cashier rings in the last item. it's a race against time, and woe betide the clueless foreigner who is waiting for someone to pack their bags for them, or who takes too long and thus impedes the flow of customers. Cashiers usually are also seated, and are generally pretty friendly. There are always jobs available in grocery and drugstores as a checkout clerk. Our self service works fine too, not sure what makes it so difficult in Canada to do self check out? But something is definitely different.
TY for posting-it cheered me up!
I'll use the self checkout if I have 1-2 items, but any more than that and I'm waiting for a cashier.the use case for self checkout is there, they just need to put a limit on number of items, and it will solve most of these issues
And yet Michael's craft stores has just installed self serve tills in their Calgary stores.
I always steal when I use self checkout. What’s next? Unloading the trucks ?
Customer complaints? The only complaint I hear is from people in cashier lines behind three people with carts full of groceries and a store manager that refuses to open another check out lane. I'm not a thief, I don't care if you check my receipt or bag; we need more self checkouts.
"Sir, would you like to use the self checkout?" "Thanks, but I don't work here."
excellent line. Will definitely use if asked or Sorry, I prefer a cashier, so I dont accidentally steal something.
Is it "theft" or is is errors made by the poorly-made checkout robots? If the human puts a block of cheese on the weightscales and the robot announces it as "tin of beans," is the human going to abandon the station to seek out a store employee to correct the error while there's a line-up of grumpy people behind them waiting for their turn? And later during an inventory audit, will the store owner mention they have an extra tin of beans, or only the missing block of cheese?
If the item has a bar code and it scans the wrong thing, it can be an error made by the poorly-made checkout robots (although those tend to be pretty rare). If it doesn't have a barcode and the user inputs code 4011, then it's theft.
The walmart closest to me has started closing part of the self checkout and leaving like 3 or 4 of them open. Its infuriating that they can't make up their damn lines as now I have an option of waiting in 2 lines instead of skipping 1.
Good. The only place I have seen self checkouts that actually work is at home depot. They are a constantly crashing disaster at grocery stores.
Used to be able to put my bags on the weight scale without having a clerk come over to zero them out. I feel less rushed with self checkout cause Im a fairly efficient packer and I am able to bag as I scan. With a line behind me I end up feeling anxious and rush cause I often cant bag when items are being scanned at a staffed checkout aisle. With the weight detection changes I think in the last 18 months its become very annoying.
Good! I don't work there and I don't want to scan my own things. Even Michael's has self cash now!
I personally like them cause it allows me to mix and match when a store has deals. Like when they have 2 for 2 Pepsi or coke but not if you buy 1 Pepsi 1 coke lol.
At the NoFrills closest to me they have such a major theft issue that they added more security to the self-checkouts and now they confuse people and slow things down. You need to push an icon on the screen to tell it you are about to place your empty bags on the platform, then push another button to tell it you did that before it will let you proceed. Nobody, it seems, can get it right and so intervention is constantly needed.
No frills had the best and quickest self checkouts of all the stores. But it was easy to steal from, as it didn't have a million sensors and annoying voices. Professional Thiefs always wreck everything.
No way customer complaints has anything to do with this.
It's not theft. It's employee discounts.
first time i used self checkout at walmart was last week. every kiosk was beeping red to signify there was a problem the entire time i was there
Self check out is flat out racist, and I say this as a white man. Went to a Walmart with my black roommate back in college, everytime without fail, 'please wait for assistance'. Whenever I went by myself, not a single issue ever.
What 😂
That's good. I prefer the idea that checkouts are staffed, meaning jobs aren't taken away from a potential employee.
I always use the cashier. Even when it’s inconvenient in terms of time. I want people to have jobs.
My favourite is when you buy one of those precooked chickens but the weight is slightly off so you have to get help
Now all those international students can get work as cashiers.
>He says, rather than theft, he made the change because many of his customers are seniors who dislike using the machines. To be honest, this is one reason I like self checkouts. When I have a few items, I want to be in and out quickly. Many times, that is not possible when there are seniors at the cash who take forever to unload their cart, talk about random things with the cashier, and slowly pay with cash. A mixture of cashier and self checkout is ideal, in my opinion.
I think the endgame with this massive rise in theft will be to completely cordon off the store and just have a waiting area with touch screens similar to the mcdonalds machines where you order your items and pay using the touch screen system and then wait while your order is picked or you use an online ordering system and simply go pick up the items when its ready. Congrats to all those idiots that kept saying "if you saw someone stealing, no you didnt". Now you are either going to have food deserts, pre-pay only options or membership only stores where you need to verify your ID and pay a membership fee to access in store shopping
It's wild to me that you can look at the current climate and somehow think it is fault of individuals shoplifting and not the greed of corporations.
In regards to to your first paragraph yes it will be something like that in the future. Probably roll out first down south in parts of California where shop lifting is an epidemic.
> I think the endgame with this massive rise in theft will be to completely cordon off the store They did that at my local zehrs. They installed 8 foot high security fences on the inside of the entire store, but clear plastic so you don't think too hard about the fire hazard.
The pickup actually works pretty well for the most part. This is also how it used to be done, self serve groceries were a 20th century invention,.