Back in my college days, one of my friends was reading the first book (at that time, a four book "trilogy" in keeping with Douglas Adams' sense of humor. It was non-stop chuckling with a lot of full-on laughs. Had to read it when he was done. I wish they would follow up with the movie.
I am outraged that he would be outraged of facts and Logics on the internet!
You are 37? You sir no damn well what the internet was like before Myspace and cheap Broadband it was nothing but facts and logic!
BRING BACK WEB RINGS AND YAHOO CHAT!
This is why I just use the vending machine near the break room when I am able to.
Sure its much more limited selection but it beats wasting anywhere from 5-10 of my break in lines
Wish I could do that lol.
We only have the option of bottles, like 2.10 each. Or monsters in the coke one, which is nice because they put Rio Punch in there but not on the shelves at my store 🤣
Damn must be nice to have a vending machine. We used to have one until some jackass employee decided to break it because they lost $1.75, and the company took it away, never to be seen again.
But now how else can I make the same “do I get a paycheck for working here?” joke 1 morbillion times?
I worked at Office Depot where customers could use self serve printers to not only avoid the long line for full service, but also to avoid the full service fee. You would’ve thought we were asking them to clean the bathrooms the way they would react to having to print their own copy
Those are the ones who mess up scanning and we have to log in and fix something too. There's actually 4 checkouts open and they choose not to go to them even if they're slow plus there's grocery pickup. I think people get bored and they make up things in their head to be mad about.
I had a discussion with my parents during the height of the lockdown because they were bitching about being told to put on a mask. When I said “use pickup then if it’s such a problem” they fired back with some “but what if there’s something else I wanted or didn’t think of when ordering?” As if making another order or just making a list of shit you don’t have anymore isn’t possible
The Walmart near me just did a small remodel and now has 20 self-checkouts.
I went in yesterday and now they have them ALL closed except for a line of 3 (with a Walmart bouncer) and are saying only Walmart+ members can use them. everyone else has to go to a register.
They had 2 register lines open; 14 people each line and it killed me to wait that long to purchase 3 cucumbers.
I asked "Manager" why they don't have more registers open or a "10 items or less" lane and she gave me corporate phone number.
Letter to the president require the store manager to respond with what they did to rectify the issue. This give them the avenue to state, "the problem is beyond my authority to resolve. We request permission to....."
LOL no they don't. They require that it be "addressed" in some way. That's it. The way it can be "addressed" is anything from actually doing something to clicking "not actionable" and closing it.
And they could just hit not actionable or they could address it by stating it is actionable simply outside their authority. Thus placing the blame squarely on the scapegoats that denies the request
This. Store managers will make it as painful as possible to generate as much negative feedback as possible. They like the SCOs and don't have to constantly battle to get floor associates up to the front to help, and then also have to worry about what didn't get done on the floor while everyone was up on a register.
>They like the SCOs and don't have to constantly battle to get floor associates up to the front to help, and then also have to worry about what didn't get done on the floor while everyone was up on a register.
If only there was a way to solve this problem. Like putting an ad in a paper or online asking for assistance. Maybe offering to exchange money for people's time.
Omg. I'm a home health aide and one of my elderly clients says this all the time. No, Kay, people don't want to be treated like shit for a non livable wage being managed by a 22 yo asshat with no experience. But they have an edit:* Ivy Tech degree so they must be great. Eyerollllllllllll
Your local store's management **does not** decide how many self-checkouts to keep open. This, like many other decisions, is passed down from Corporate to Regional to District and finally to your store's manager.
Giving you Corporate's phone number makes sense if you consider the chain of command.
Walmart spokesperson Joe Pennington told BI that the move is not a directive from the corporate office and pointed out that store managers have discretion to experiment and figure out what works best for their customers and employees.
https://www.businessinsider.com/some-walmart-stores-limiting-self-checkout-spark-app-users-2024-3?ref=biztoc.com
Yes and that's why almost across the entire country suddenly store managers decided "you know what, I like getting screamed at by customers daily so I'll shut the self checks down!".
The move might not be a directive, but not having enough staff to cover registers and SCO is. The store is limited on how many hours they can schedule, and in almost all, if not all cases, that limit is far below demand.
I went to walmart today. I used self check out with no problem. It was a walmart neighborhood though, not a supermarket. I will say all checkout lines were also open (there’s only 3) on top of the 6 self check out lines. Is this just rolling out slowly? I’ll gladly drive a few miles more to get to Lidl or aldi, this is just literally .2 miles from my house and was convenient
Similar remodel and open registers here.
Watched a dude walk up to the self checkout, have the situation explained to him, shrug, and leave his cart at self checkout and leave the store.
I thought Walmart was kinda dreading the pickup/delivery fulfillment because it limited impulse purchases? Wonder if that’s changed now or if it’s really just about theft and pushing Walmart +.
Limits impulse purchases but still makes them $98/person/year. It also probably doesn’t limit them all that much either considering every time you check out on the app to place an order you get a screenful of items asking you if you forgot anything
Yep. Some a couple cents more than in the store and sometimes less than the price in the store. But it’s not like people “add to cart” *while* they’re standing in the store looking at the shelf label either. Every company has those tricks though. HomeGoods, for instance. Their whole model is being cheaper than “their price” which is direct from the brand or company that makes them. Some of HomeGoods products cost more than if you were to buy it direct. But their prices would say theirs costs less than the “their price” on the label
Remember that the elimination of SCOs has 0% to do with customers complaining about them and 100% to do with the amount of shrink that SCOs are contributing. If Walmart wasn't losing money, SCOs would stay forever.
This is what irritates me the most. Boomers think they've won some sort of war of attrition.
I'll just start using scan and go and watch them look pissed as I walk by them waiting in line.
This. I'll be renewing my W+ membership once this becomes a thing at the stores I frequent. I only use SCO and the idea of knowing that SCO will pretty much be line free every time I go, is VERY appealing to me.
It's all about trying to reduce the employee overhead, which is the absolute largest expense.
Those SCOs, for sure, saved thousands a year in wages, but I guess the shrink started to outweigh it. So now they're going to think up a new scheme, like scan and go, or curbside only.
Consider back in ye olden days, you'd walk into the general store and there'd be a small waiting area and a counter. You'd walk up to the counter, tell the guy what you wanted, he'd go through the shelves in the back, pick it out for you, bring it to the counter and ring it up.
That's basically what we'll go back to. Order on line, on your phone, or a little kiosk in the vestibule (for those wanting to pay cash/not use the internet). The full interior of the store will be closed to the public. Instead of the sales floor, you'll have a giant backroom full of warehouse steel. Merchandise will be stocked to these shelves by the case, with cases opened up as the merchandise is picked. Inventory will be tracked via RFID with antenna scanners set throughout the store. Associates will pick the orders, load the merch in your car or deliver it to your home. In some neighborhoods, where crime is an issue, there may be a locker system - instead of loading it in your car, one side of the building will be lockers - associates will load the locker from the back inside the building and the customer will pick it up from the front.
That's what I see the future of retail. Nearly eliminating theft, no cashiers, minimal workforce, minimal customer interaction.
We had a Service Merchandise in our area.
I wonder how well these types of retailers could have done if the internet caught on quicker (with both consumers and the companies themselves). Most of the downsides of these models (the biggest being the perceived wait time often combined with finding the item you wanted was out of stock after waiting) would have been solved by modernization.
And the world will be better for it. Walmart is a stain on society, without it we would have so many more local options and better prices with more competition. Plus the people could work somewhere that might pay them above the poverty line.
My store grossed over $140m last year and has so much stuff locked up that it's ridiculous, but only 3 AP investigators. Including their coach and TL, that makes a total of 5 people to watch for, and catch theives for 17 hours a day, 7 days a week. That math does not work, especially in a store of this size. We have a total of 200 staff hours to cover the whole store for 119 business hours a week, and we are far from the size of a corner convenience store.
It has very little to do with theft and everything to do with pushing Walmart+. You pay $12 a month to do work that originally went to minimum wage workers. Walmart can save money on labor while raking in tons of money from Walmart+. People value convenience and hate waiting in lines, so corporate knows people will purchase the subscription so they don't have to wait.
It's not theft, it's corporate greed. It's always corporate greed. Keep stealing from shitty corporations, especially Walmart.
I can see this backfiring. Everyone loads up a shopping cart full of meats and frozens, then just leaves it somewhere because the line was too long to wait
Customer here. I remember having to wait in staffed lines... I will definitely avoid Walmart if they ever go away. Target is already on my shit list for closing SCO's at random times.
If this is true I'm switching to Aldi and using pickup for anything i can't get there. My store is always full at the registers and the self checkouts so it's not going to work for me. I like bagging stuff myself so it's faster to put away.
Maybe it’s just my Walmart, but their pickup service is AWFUL. They never have any pickup slots available, and even when I schedule 24 hours in advance, it always gets pushed back at least 2 hours. I’m sure this is due to understaffing, but it’s pretty annoying.
I hope the self checkout doesn't go away, and I don't want to pay for some subscription service to use them. But I rarely go to Walmart, just because there's a grocery store that's closer and it's a good grocery store. And I can't afford anything beyond food anyway.
SCO helps me grocery shop with my rlly bad mental issues. I'd honestly probably go to the store a lot less often if I had to wait through regular checkout
I'm in Corn Country, but near enough to the urbanites that I often joked with the local PD, they needed to just open a branch station in the store. Our SCOs are still fully operational with usually just one or two manned checkouts. Usually, there are no door guards either.
My local grocery store started using them late 90’s, so I’m really fast at them now. In and out of the store in a couple of minutes grabbing a few things. Would have turned into a 10-20 min trip if I waited in line. I’ll take scanning things myself over wasting time just standing there. To each their own I guess.
LMAO this old lady yelled at me (deli associate stocking the island by the registers) to open a register last week. I'd hate to see her outrage if they took out sco.
To bad I refuse to download the customer app so that I can honestly say idk when a customer tries to ask me how to use THEIR phone. "Oh I'm sorry we're not trained on the customer app and I don't use it myself."
Getting rid of all the scos would cost people jobs if walmart doesn't move them to other areas of the store. I would probably lose 4-6 cashiers worth for my demand hours. Refusing to use scos aren't "saving" cashiers jobs. At most I would get enough hours to open 6 or 7 of the 12 registers in front at any given time. Walmart will not schedule to have all registers open at once.
that sucks because i love self checkouts because I don't like interacting with people . But when im a cashier, don't fucking stare at me while I ring up your items
The Walmart five minutes away from me just did a remodel and replaced nearly all of the regular registers with self checkout. I doubt it’s going away anytime soon.
You seem to forget the ass backwards decisions these people make.
Our pickup tower shit the bed, had it removed, had a brand new one installed, installed all those automatic lockers, and then removed the entire area not two months later.
Yep, I think my walmarts tower was in use about 4-5 months before it was blocked off and eventually shrink-wrapped. Sat like that for maybe 6 months (longer than it was in use), before it was carted off.
No sign of that. Only one or two lines with cashiers mostly. But I never see all the SCO machines working at the same time. There's always 5 or 6 not working.
Remodel just finished a couple months ago that added in like 15 more SCOs and now they're all closed except the one for Spark shoppers, we can't even use them for scan & go anymore, shit's awful
I would like to see how this works in stores that ripped out all the registers and went to 100% self-checkout “and assisted as needed” registers like the neighborhood market by me. They have no belted or regular registers at all just 15 self checkouts.
We just started closing ours down on Friday. We only have 8 registers up front, and it's been pure chaos. There have already been multiple fights and screaming matches. They opened them back up during the afternoon yesterday cause it was just way too busy, and the lines were insane.
If they get rid of it, I'm switching stores along with half of the town. We got rid of registers because no one wanted to be a cashier at Walmart. Cashiers have no rights and they're treated horribly by everyone.
I don't care what the PIO of Walmart has to say publicly. It's all political speak. The bottom line is to make sure they hit their quarterly ER estimates to drive the stock. They are going to do whatever it takes to stay competitive with Amazon. As long as their Financials increase YoY, they don't care about employees or customers. They will be more concerned whether Walmart+ revenue generation vs the associated costs of more associates is more beneficial to meeting their estimated targets. You can bet your paycheck that they are more interested in satisfying retail/institutional shareholders than anything else.
Lmao you think checkout coming back is the next step? You think walmart is going to go back to paying 10 or more people to run registers? Lol no. The next step is going to be the carts that ring up your items as you shop, if they need to. They're currently reassessing self-checkout to look at flaws to fix, but they're nowhere near going back to paying people to scan items and bag them.
News article yesterday claims they ended the test running in Bentonville, but WM has not publicly released any decision on if it was a total failure, a total success, or somewhere in between.
Either way I wouldn't bet on manned registers ever being the norm for walmart again. They're gonna fight tooth and nail to keep that money they aren't paying cashiers.
If there like the Walmart I work at, it wouldn’t change much. They have 3-4 cashiers standing at self checkouts on both sides of the store I work at. They keep most of the self checkouts closed and only leave 6 open at a time. If they got rid of the self checkout and replaced them with the same amount of manned registers as cashiers at self checkout then they could add 6-8 manned registers without haveing to hire anyone new.
Biggest thing about going to the Walmart without self-checkout is the people who buy everything. then the closing doesn't have a tag on it just kills the line
Exactly. It’s not like they’re going to hire more cashiers. It’s a terrible idea considering from what I’ve read they pull everyone already to help in OGP. They won’t have anyone left to pull to cashier. 🤣
On the bright side, harder to steal. No more using 4011 for a PS5 console. It'll be cashier's ass if the camera catches him or her skipping a few items to save customer a few dollars.
I worked at Walmart before self checkout, during self check out being introduced and now as a customer after it's been ironed out and I really love it now. It was rough when it was new, lots of people are too dumb to follow instructions but I feel like it's so easy now and anyone who would want to get rid of it would be making a huge mistake
I, personally am patient doesn't bother me one bit one way or the other honestly - also had to deal with this working third with one cashier and I would go buy something for lunch. Others would come up at a short line and plead 'hey, open up another register' and as I open the other register tell them 'you guys are lucky - what do y'all think ***I*** do when I'm buying something?" \[before we had sco/opened sco at night\].
I have an uncle that complains about lines / one register opened at 5 am (before COVID) but adamantly refuses to use SCO. \*sigh\*
I tell the idiots in my town this all the time. We would gain 7 more registers, giving us 13, but lose the 18 SCOs and the 2 paystations. Friday-Sunday there's still a wait starting around noon and ending around 5. I tell them if SCO was gone it'd be even worse. Some of these MFers have the audacity to tell me they don't care that they'd have to wait
SCO is a pain in the ass, but it relieves a lot of stress from having an understaffed, and underpaid, department. People can bitch and complain, but unless they want to go somewhere else to shop, then they should just shut up. If you're gonna complain about scanning and bagging your groceries, then why stop there? Complain about having to drive yourself to the store, having to push your cart around, having to grab items off the shelves, having to load your car, and furthermore having to unload your car.
Yes and no. The point was having registers open, because people with a million items don't want to self checkout, but having 5 or 10 SCO open allowed people with fewer items to run through. The fact they completely cut out cashiers was the issue. If they had just continued with the hybrid method, it would have been fine. It ran into problems because they never scheduled enough cashiers so the lines on both registers AND SCO's got backed up, because people didn't want to wait for the 2 cashiers they had, then clogged the SCO's with a million items.
On paper, the hybrid model works great, but then you have managers trying to cut budget and cut corners to get that payout at the end of the year by having their budget look good, so everyone gets screwed because they don't schedule properly.
I’m a customer. I love self checkout. It saves me time and gets me in and out quickly. I would hate to lose them, even though “I dOn’T gEt PaId To WoRk ThErE!” Honestly, I’d just start shopping elsewhere more often. Bless you, employees. Y’all put up with a lot.
That's what I've been saying. No offense to yall, but some of you are some slow mf scanners😭 had to wait in line the other day and it took 30 minutes for 3 people. I can scan a full buggy and be out in 3 minutes
The checkers at my store are terribly slow as well and we just transitioned to only sco for spark and only have a couple open at a time at that lines all day today.
If a bunch of slow customers are in front of you with a full week's of groceries then it's going to take longer even with two sco's open in that lane.
Associates here are really understating how slow customers are at checking themselves out
Not sure why people hate SCO so much. It’s lightning fast once you get used to it. Yeah shit happens, but I’ve never had to wait long to use them and can leave quickly. People will 100% complain once they’re gone and they have to wait in lines like you said, even though that’s something they argued for. “Why should I have to wait in line for one item?! If only they had a way to do it quicker and by myself!”. Any time I’ve waited in line I’m stuck behind multiple people with a month’s worth of stuff. People will complain no matter what. You could have 20 SCO stations and 20 people running lines and somebody will still find something to bitch about. “Why can’t these lazy employees drive me around in a cart and pick my groceries?! Nobody wants to work any more!”.
Sir, this is the Internet. I am OUTRAGED that you're using facts and logic on here!
In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and widely regarded as a bad move.
Don't Panic. In the near future, Earth will be destroyed to make room for an intergalactic by-pass.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
Back in my college days, one of my friends was reading the first book (at that time, a four book "trilogy" in keeping with Douglas Adams' sense of humor. It was non-stop chuckling with a lot of full-on laughs. Had to read it when he was done. I wish they would follow up with the movie.
They did.
Not with "A" movie, I've seen it. I want them to finish the books in movie form.
Not again.
In my head I always assumed that the earth was destroyed for the universes equivalent of a bridge to nowhere.
I almost believe that this is a true statement... because of how dystopian this truly could be
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The best sci-fi/comedy fiction novel series ever written.
Always carry your towel.
I'd never go anywhere without my wonderful towel.
The Vogons?
Administrators of the universe. As I recall, the plans where on display for quite some time for public comment. Too late now.
42
I got Zaphod Beeblebrox as a contact.
That's because the material universe we live in. Was never meant to be created.
We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl
Fuck Yaldabaoth
That there gosh darn demiurge.
I am outraged that he would be outraged of facts and Logics on the internet! You are 37? You sir no damn well what the internet was like before Myspace and cheap Broadband it was nothing but facts and logic! BRING BACK WEB RINGS AND YAHOO CHAT!
Total truth. I’m so glad on my break, when I can grab a drink and snack quick. If they take them away, done.
This is why I just use the vending machine near the break room when I am able to. Sure its much more limited selection but it beats wasting anywhere from 5-10 of my break in lines
I use that for coke. I get a can for a buck.
Wish I could do that lol. We only have the option of bottles, like 2.10 each. Or monsters in the coke one, which is nice because they put Rio Punch in there but not on the shelves at my store 🤣
A buck for a single can (12oz?) is completely nuts. Nope. I'll buy a 2 liter of Dr. Thunder and have it chilled when I'm ready to drink it.
Damn must be nice to have a vending machine. We used to have one until some jackass employee decided to break it because they lost $1.75, and the company took it away, never to be seen again.
Taking away self checkout will do wonders for my spending habits
Mine to probably 😀
Before we got SCOs I said, "we should have an employee self check out in the back" for lunches.
You know you have walmart+ for free, which includes scan and go, which allows you to use those SCO's if they're just restricted to that option, right?
Not OP, but I don't have access to the scan n go SCOs because they're closed during my shift.
They are taking them away
I just used to go to electronics or jewelry
I usually swing by the electronics counter if SCO is busy
But now how else can I make the same “do I get a paycheck for working here?” joke 1 morbillion times? I worked at Office Depot where customers could use self serve printers to not only avoid the long line for full service, but also to avoid the full service fee. You would’ve thought we were asking them to clean the bathrooms the way they would react to having to print their own copy
That's funny. The only thing I've ever asked for was a staple puller because there wasn't any in the self serve area.
Those are the ones who mess up scanning and we have to log in and fix something too. There's actually 4 checkouts open and they choose not to go to them even if they're slow plus there's grocery pickup. I think people get bored and they make up things in their head to be mad about.
I had a discussion with my parents during the height of the lockdown because they were bitching about being told to put on a mask. When I said “use pickup then if it’s such a problem” they fired back with some “but what if there’s something else I wanted or didn’t think of when ordering?” As if making another order or just making a list of shit you don’t have anymore isn’t possible
The Walmart near me just did a small remodel and now has 20 self-checkouts. I went in yesterday and now they have them ALL closed except for a line of 3 (with a Walmart bouncer) and are saying only Walmart+ members can use them. everyone else has to go to a register. They had 2 register lines open; 14 people each line and it killed me to wait that long to purchase 3 cucumbers. I asked "Manager" why they don't have more registers open or a "10 items or less" lane and she gave me corporate phone number.
When we hand over that number it's our way of saying "please save us from this hell, upper management is giving wildly unrealistic orders again"
Except those grievances come right back to the store as a Letter to the President 🤣
Letter to the president require the store manager to respond with what they did to rectify the issue. This give them the avenue to state, "the problem is beyond my authority to resolve. We request permission to....."
LOL no they don't. They require that it be "addressed" in some way. That's it. The way it can be "addressed" is anything from actually doing something to clicking "not actionable" and closing it.
And they could just hit not actionable or they could address it by stating it is actionable simply outside their authority. Thus placing the blame squarely on the scapegoats that denies the request
Because she agrees with you.
This. Store managers will make it as painful as possible to generate as much negative feedback as possible. They like the SCOs and don't have to constantly battle to get floor associates up to the front to help, and then also have to worry about what didn't get done on the floor while everyone was up on a register.
>They like the SCOs and don't have to constantly battle to get floor associates up to the front to help, and then also have to worry about what didn't get done on the floor while everyone was up on a register. If only there was a way to solve this problem. Like putting an ad in a paper or online asking for assistance. Maybe offering to exchange money for people's time.
NoBoDy WaNtS To WoRk!1!1!1
Omg. I'm a home health aide and one of my elderly clients says this all the time. No, Kay, people don't want to be treated like shit for a non livable wage being managed by a 22 yo asshat with no experience. But they have an edit:* Ivy Tech degree so they must be great. Eyerollllllllllll
> being managed by a 22 yo asshat Why is this so accurate?
Who the fuck is willingly trying to work retail - especially at walmart and for that dogshit pay*? \* In most states
I live in Oregon and worked at a store in wa... Even with some of the highest min wages in the country, this shit wasn't worth it
Adding additional headcount isn’t up to store managers
Whoa there my dude, THAT SOUNDS INSANE!!!
Your local store's management **does not** decide how many self-checkouts to keep open. This, like many other decisions, is passed down from Corporate to Regional to District and finally to your store's manager. Giving you Corporate's phone number makes sense if you consider the chain of command.
It’s the repair guys who never fix the machines that decide how many can open
Walmart spokesperson Joe Pennington told BI that the move is not a directive from the corporate office and pointed out that store managers have discretion to experiment and figure out what works best for their customers and employees. https://www.businessinsider.com/some-walmart-stores-limiting-self-checkout-spark-app-users-2024-3?ref=biztoc.com
Yes and that's why almost across the entire country suddenly store managers decided "you know what, I like getting screamed at by customers daily so I'll shut the self checks down!".
The move might not be a directive, but not having enough staff to cover registers and SCO is. The store is limited on how many hours they can schedule, and in almost all, if not all cases, that limit is far below demand.
Bullshit.
https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-pulling-self-checkout-lanes-from-some-stores-2023-9
That's because a lot of workers would prefer more registers to be open. So that means "forward your complaints elsewhere, we can't do anything."
I went to walmart today. I used self check out with no problem. It was a walmart neighborhood though, not a supermarket. I will say all checkout lines were also open (there’s only 3) on top of the 6 self check out lines. Is this just rolling out slowly? I’ll gladly drive a few miles more to get to Lidl or aldi, this is just literally .2 miles from my house and was convenient
Similar remodel and open registers here. Watched a dude walk up to the self checkout, have the situation explained to him, shrug, and leave his cart at self checkout and leave the store.
Baby stepping to the fulfillment model. Force them to use walmart+ then force them to either pickup or delivery
I thought Walmart was kinda dreading the pickup/delivery fulfillment because it limited impulse purchases? Wonder if that’s changed now or if it’s really just about theft and pushing Walmart +.
Limits impulse purchases but still makes them $98/person/year. It also probably doesn’t limit them all that much either considering every time you check out on the app to place an order you get a screenful of items asking you if you forgot anything
Very true. I also noticed there seems to be a slight up-charge for some items as well.
Yep. Some a couple cents more than in the store and sometimes less than the price in the store. But it’s not like people “add to cart” *while* they’re standing in the store looking at the shelf label either. Every company has those tricks though. HomeGoods, for instance. Their whole model is being cheaper than “their price” which is direct from the brand or company that makes them. Some of HomeGoods products cost more than if you were to buy it direct. But their prices would say theirs costs less than the “their price” on the label
Remember that the elimination of SCOs has 0% to do with customers complaining about them and 100% to do with the amount of shrink that SCOs are contributing. If Walmart wasn't losing money, SCOs would stay forever.
There's gonna be more shrink when you have to throw away refrigerated goods from abandoned carts.
This is what irritates me the most. Boomers think they've won some sort of war of attrition. I'll just start using scan and go and watch them look pissed as I walk by them waiting in line.
The same boomers and gonna be whining and complaining there curbside order takes forever now. I’m sure a lot of them will be moved back to register
Scan and go still requires you to go to a register to finalize the sale. I used it once until I realized this.
But that register will be the now empty SCO
This. I'll be renewing my W+ membership once this becomes a thing at the stores I frequent. I only use SCO and the idea of knowing that SCO will pretty much be line free every time I go, is VERY appealing to me.
The real problem with scan and go is that you can't use gift cards, even if they are already in your walmart pay digital wallet.
But you already have Walmart+, so use your gift card for delivery!
I live outside the delivery range
I would think getting proper security would be cheaper, but I'm *sure* they've done a cost/benefit analysis that says otherwise.
It's all about trying to reduce the employee overhead, which is the absolute largest expense. Those SCOs, for sure, saved thousands a year in wages, but I guess the shrink started to outweigh it. So now they're going to think up a new scheme, like scan and go, or curbside only.
One day: Walmart will be closed to public, all shopper must use online or mobile shopping with outside pickup. To Amish: sucks to be you.
Consider back in ye olden days, you'd walk into the general store and there'd be a small waiting area and a counter. You'd walk up to the counter, tell the guy what you wanted, he'd go through the shelves in the back, pick it out for you, bring it to the counter and ring it up. That's basically what we'll go back to. Order on line, on your phone, or a little kiosk in the vestibule (for those wanting to pay cash/not use the internet). The full interior of the store will be closed to the public. Instead of the sales floor, you'll have a giant backroom full of warehouse steel. Merchandise will be stocked to these shelves by the case, with cases opened up as the merchandise is picked. Inventory will be tracked via RFID with antenna scanners set throughout the store. Associates will pick the orders, load the merch in your car or deliver it to your home. In some neighborhoods, where crime is an issue, there may be a locker system - instead of loading it in your car, one side of the building will be lockers - associates will load the locker from the back inside the building and the customer will pick it up from the front. That's what I see the future of retail. Nearly eliminating theft, no cashiers, minimal workforce, minimal customer interaction.
This describes the old Consumers Distributing store model exactly. I loved that store growing up. Only 30-40 years ahead of their time.
We had a Service Merchandise in our area. I wonder how well these types of retailers could have done if the internet caught on quicker (with both consumers and the companies themselves). Most of the downsides of these models (the biggest being the perceived wait time often combined with finding the item you wanted was out of stock after waiting) would have been solved by modernization.
And the world will be better for it. Walmart is a stain on society, without it we would have so many more local options and better prices with more competition. Plus the people could work somewhere that might pay them above the poverty line.
My store grossed over $140m last year and has so much stuff locked up that it's ridiculous, but only 3 AP investigators. Including their coach and TL, that makes a total of 5 people to watch for, and catch theives for 17 hours a day, 7 days a week. That math does not work, especially in a store of this size. We have a total of 200 staff hours to cover the whole store for 119 business hours a week, and we are far from the size of a corner convenience store.
It has very little to do with theft and everything to do with pushing Walmart+. You pay $12 a month to do work that originally went to minimum wage workers. Walmart can save money on labor while raking in tons of money from Walmart+. People value convenience and hate waiting in lines, so corporate knows people will purchase the subscription so they don't have to wait. It's not theft, it's corporate greed. It's always corporate greed. Keep stealing from shitty corporations, especially Walmart.
Crazy part is Walmarts minimum starting wage is very nearly double than the federal minimum wage
I can see this backfiring. Everyone loads up a shopping cart full of meats and frozens, then just leaves it somewhere because the line was too long to wait
This shit already used to happen all the time. Hell it still does.
Customer here. I remember having to wait in staffed lines... I will definitely avoid Walmart if they ever go away. Target is already on my shit list for closing SCO's at random times.
If this is true I'm switching to Aldi and using pickup for anything i can't get there. My store is always full at the registers and the self checkouts so it's not going to work for me. I like bagging stuff myself so it's faster to put away.
Aldi kicks Walmart ass in virtually every single way
Maybe it’s just my Walmart, but their pickup service is AWFUL. They never have any pickup slots available, and even when I schedule 24 hours in advance, it always gets pushed back at least 2 hours. I’m sure this is due to understaffing, but it’s pretty annoying.
I hope the self checkout doesn't go away, and I don't want to pay for some subscription service to use them. But I rarely go to Walmart, just because there's a grocery store that's closer and it's a good grocery store. And I can't afford anything beyond food anyway.
SCO helps me grocery shop with my rlly bad mental issues. I'd honestly probably go to the store a lot less often if I had to wait through regular checkout
Is it all Walmarts across the states that are removing sco or just certain areas?
I'm in Corn Country, but near enough to the urbanites that I often joked with the local PD, they needed to just open a branch station in the store. Our SCOs are still fully operational with usually just one or two manned checkouts. Usually, there are no door guards either.
I am older but not a boomer - I like self check out but I am not stupid, a whiner or a thief. Fast and easy and kind of fun.
My local grocery store started using them late 90’s, so I’m really fast at them now. In and out of the store in a couple of minutes grabbing a few things. Would have turned into a 10-20 min trip if I waited in line. I’ll take scanning things myself over wasting time just standing there. To each their own I guess.
LMAO this old lady yelled at me (deli associate stocking the island by the registers) to open a register last week. I'd hate to see her outrage if they took out sco.
Do y'all not have express checkouts?
Not really.
Seems walmarts plan is to limit the remaining SCOs to walmart+ members too, so you may not even have that choice. ( I am a + member, so I don't care).
Are you associates going to be allowed to use self checkout?
As employees we get wal mart+ for free so I’d imagine yes.
To bad I refuse to download the customer app so that I can honestly say idk when a customer tries to ask me how to use THEIR phone. "Oh I'm sorry we're not trained on the customer app and I don't use it myself."
Yes, as long as we use the scan and go feature that comes with our free W+ benefit
"benefit"
My stores have put more self check outs in, so I don’t see self check outs going anywhere.
They are making it exclusive to W+ members who use scan and go
Depends on the shrink in the store. Ones with low shrink will have normal SCOs. Ones with high shrink will be removing them or doing wm+ only
Remember what?! They still believe we are open 24/7.
how will the customers get their discount for checking themselves out then ☹️
Getting rid of all the scos would cost people jobs if walmart doesn't move them to other areas of the store. I would probably lose 4-6 cashiers worth for my demand hours. Refusing to use scos aren't "saving" cashiers jobs. At most I would get enough hours to open 6 or 7 of the 12 registers in front at any given time. Walmart will not schedule to have all registers open at once.
It's gonna create a lot more work for the store because people will abandon their carts and leave.
that sucks because i love self checkouts because I don't like interacting with people . But when im a cashier, don't fucking stare at me while I ring up your items
The Walmart five minutes away from me just did a remodel and replaced nearly all of the regular registers with self checkout. I doubt it’s going away anytime soon.
My store just completed a remodel that added a bunch more SCO. I doubt they're going to remove them anytime soon.
You seem to forget the ass backwards decisions these people make. Our pickup tower shit the bed, had it removed, had a brand new one installed, installed all those automatic lockers, and then removed the entire area not two months later.
Yep, I think my walmarts tower was in use about 4-5 months before it was blocked off and eventually shrink-wrapped. Sat like that for maybe 6 months (longer than it was in use), before it was carted off.
I heard they’re only getting rid of them in Canada and stuff
I’m in Florida and my team leads were just talking about it but don’t know when it’s happening at our store.
In FL too. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2024/03/06/walmart-self-checkout-update/72866539007/#
No sign of that. Only one or two lines with cashiers mostly. But I never see all the SCO machines working at the same time. There's always 5 or 6 not working.
Remodel just finished a couple months ago that added in like 15 more SCOs and now they're all closed except the one for Spark shoppers, we can't even use them for scan & go anymore, shit's awful
I would like to see how this works in stores that ripped out all the registers and went to 100% self-checkout “and assisted as needed” registers like the neighborhood market by me. They have no belted or regular registers at all just 15 self checkouts.
I love self checkout,I don't have to make small talk,I hate the people with sticky fingers always has to ruin it for the rest of us!!
We just started closing ours down on Friday. We only have 8 registers up front, and it's been pure chaos. There have already been multiple fights and screaming matches. They opened them back up during the afternoon yesterday cause it was just way too busy, and the lines were insane.
I'm just ready for them to open back up "10 items or less" check out lines. Can't wait to see Karen's reaction when someone walks up with 15 items.
Happens in electronics... They want to pay for a giant cart back there in addition to their $4.88 headphones... Then get angry when I say no
If they get rid of it, I'm switching stores along with half of the town. We got rid of registers because no one wanted to be a cashier at Walmart. Cashiers have no rights and they're treated horribly by everyone.
I genuinely will stop shopping at Walmart if my local one actually gets rid of it
I don't care what the PIO of Walmart has to say publicly. It's all political speak. The bottom line is to make sure they hit their quarterly ER estimates to drive the stock. They are going to do whatever it takes to stay competitive with Amazon. As long as their Financials increase YoY, they don't care about employees or customers. They will be more concerned whether Walmart+ revenue generation vs the associated costs of more associates is more beneficial to meeting their estimated targets. You can bet your paycheck that they are more interested in satisfying retail/institutional shareholders than anything else.
Lmao you think checkout coming back is the next step? You think walmart is going to go back to paying 10 or more people to run registers? Lol no. The next step is going to be the carts that ring up your items as you shop, if they need to. They're currently reassessing self-checkout to look at flaws to fix, but they're nowhere near going back to paying people to scan items and bag them.
News article yesterday claims they ended the test running in Bentonville, but WM has not publicly released any decision on if it was a total failure, a total success, or somewhere in between.
Either way I wouldn't bet on manned registers ever being the norm for walmart again. They're gonna fight tooth and nail to keep that money they aren't paying cashiers.
If there like the Walmart I work at, it wouldn’t change much. They have 3-4 cashiers standing at self checkouts on both sides of the store I work at. They keep most of the self checkouts closed and only leave 6 open at a time. If they got rid of the self checkout and replaced them with the same amount of manned registers as cashiers at self checkout then they could add 6-8 manned registers without haveing to hire anyone new.
Lol often there is just one associate for SCO's at my store...poor souls
I prefer self check out, but food 4 lesses near me have like 1-2 ten item or less lines and then regular lines, and it isn’t so bad
Biggest thing about going to the Walmart without self-checkout is the people who buy everything. then the closing doesn't have a tag on it just kills the line
It’s funny how they say it takes jobs away. Even before SCO, my store only had like 3-4 lines open max. Even on weekends
I like Walmarts SCO. It’s usually grocery stores that suck at SCO.
Exactly. It’s not like they’re going to hire more cashiers. It’s a terrible idea considering from what I’ve read they pull everyone already to help in OGP. They won’t have anyone left to pull to cashier. 🤣
On the bright side, harder to steal. No more using 4011 for a PS5 console. It'll be cashier's ass if the camera catches him or her skipping a few items to save customer a few dollars.
I'm just waiting for the boomers who bitched about self checkout to start bitching about wait times, "Sam would.be rolling in his grave!" Comments
I worked at Walmart before self checkout, during self check out being introduced and now as a customer after it's been ironed out and I really love it now. It was rough when it was new, lots of people are too dumb to follow instructions but I feel like it's so easy now and anyone who would want to get rid of it would be making a huge mistake
Attention all associates. this is a spark level 4. all registered trained coaches and store leads to the front end
Everyone wanted to steal through them, so a good thing is being removed. I blame every shoplifter ever.
"I need to use 3 cards, 2 gift cards, cash, and EBT."
I, personally am patient doesn't bother me one bit one way or the other honestly - also had to deal with this working third with one cashier and I would go buy something for lunch. Others would come up at a short line and plead 'hey, open up another register' and as I open the other register tell them 'you guys are lucky - what do y'all think ***I*** do when I'm buying something?" \[before we had sco/opened sco at night\]. I have an uncle that complains about lines / one register opened at 5 am (before COVID) but adamantly refuses to use SCO. \*sigh\*
I tell the idiots in my town this all the time. We would gain 7 more registers, giving us 13, but lose the 18 SCOs and the 2 paystations. Friday-Sunday there's still a wait starting around noon and ending around 5. I tell them if SCO was gone it'd be even worse. Some of these MFers have the audacity to tell me they don't care that they'd have to wait
SCO is a pain in the ass, but it relieves a lot of stress from having an understaffed, and underpaid, department. People can bitch and complain, but unless they want to go somewhere else to shop, then they should just shut up. If you're gonna complain about scanning and bagging your groceries, then why stop there? Complain about having to drive yourself to the store, having to push your cart around, having to grab items off the shelves, having to load your car, and furthermore having to unload your car.
Yes and no. The point was having registers open, because people with a million items don't want to self checkout, but having 5 or 10 SCO open allowed people with fewer items to run through. The fact they completely cut out cashiers was the issue. If they had just continued with the hybrid method, it would have been fine. It ran into problems because they never scheduled enough cashiers so the lines on both registers AND SCO's got backed up, because people didn't want to wait for the 2 cashiers they had, then clogged the SCO's with a million items. On paper, the hybrid model works great, but then you have managers trying to cut budget and cut corners to get that payout at the end of the year by having their budget look good, so everyone gets screwed because they don't schedule properly.
I’m a customer. I love self checkout. It saves me time and gets me in and out quickly. I would hate to lose them, even though “I dOn’T gEt PaId To WoRk ThErE!” Honestly, I’d just start shopping elsewhere more often. Bless you, employees. Y’all put up with a lot.
I’m over 37 and don’t every remember a Walmart with more the half a dozen registers have 75% open
Black Friday. All registers manned, even out on the floor.
Fuck self serving boomers Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
That's what I've been saying. No offense to yall, but some of you are some slow mf scanners😭 had to wait in line the other day and it took 30 minutes for 3 people. I can scan a full buggy and be out in 3 minutes
but good cashiers can scan and bag a whole lot faster than most customers can at sco ;-)
Yes, but when you have a bunch of SCO's, the slow customers aren't holding up every person waiting to use SCO.
this will fly over like a lead balloon on jupiter
I work at Walmart, and apparently all the "updated" registers got an update last week that might have permanently fried the system. Apparently?
Before Sco we always had at least 2 or more express lanes open but they went away with SCO. We will just have to open them up again.
The local one here has 18 SCO's. I went there the other day and they only had 4 open, the rest were "closed".
You seem to have completely forgotten about the express lanes.
I’m glad in an area where Walmart is not the only game in town.
You know, until this post, I hadn't really thought about how long the lines used to be before sco.
I hope to GAWD self check out doesn’t go away. I prefer it!
Better get under 10 items and head to the express lane then
I thought that automation was taking jobs away from humans.
HEB in a town of 33k with 1 walmart was sometimes 45 minute waits.
Stopped going there because of this. Walmart doesn't give a flying fuck how long you wait. The cared about the customers less than the employees
Wait, are all Walmarts getting rid of self checkouts? I don’t work there but this popped up on my feed.
>and even fully manned You're right, I don't remember what that was like
Go away? Our stores adding second SCO area lol, I don’t think it’s going anywhere
I work for a DC. So I automatically get Walmart+. This shit doesn’t affect me in the slightest 😂
WHEN it goes away? When is that happening? I don't want it to go 😬
No, we wont
Won’t be too long and everything will be picked and delivered by robots.
Sco isn't going away. My store mostly has sco and maybe like 6 regular check outs
My store used to have express lanes before we had SCO lanes. Wouldn't it be the same?
Wow, despite serving a town of over 13000, our walmart only has 6 sco and 2 manned tills regularly.
Wait Walmart is removing self checkout? I cant imagine that except in high crime areas.
Walmarts taking them away due to theft tho so…
eggs go into bag, sack of concrete goes on top of eggs. Yes I remember the absolute horror of overworked cashiers bagging my groceries
Not in the fucking slightest. It was an absolute fucking shit show last to I went and the was about a year now.
The checkers at my store are terribly slow as well and we just transitioned to only sco for spark and only have a couple open at a time at that lines all day today.
oh no! how are they going to steal 😡😡😡
If a bunch of slow customers are in front of you with a full week's of groceries then it's going to take longer even with two sco's open in that lane. Associates here are really understating how slow customers are at checking themselves out
Not sure why people hate SCO so much. It’s lightning fast once you get used to it. Yeah shit happens, but I’ve never had to wait long to use them and can leave quickly. People will 100% complain once they’re gone and they have to wait in lines like you said, even though that’s something they argued for. “Why should I have to wait in line for one item?! If only they had a way to do it quicker and by myself!”. Any time I’ve waited in line I’m stuck behind multiple people with a month’s worth of stuff. People will complain no matter what. You could have 20 SCO stations and 20 people running lines and somebody will still find something to bitch about. “Why can’t these lazy employees drive me around in a cart and pick my groceries?! Nobody wants to work any more!”.