[gnufied]

Same goes for almost all grocery shops here - Publix, Kroger, target etc replacing checkout with self-checkout kiosks completely.

I absolute hate using self-checkout for non-packaged groceries items. Especially if I have lots of stuff. Freaking "unintended item in baggage area".

Not to mention, I feel like Publix etc in particular employed lots of folks with disability. It warmed my heart to talk to them.

I don't know what humanity plans is. Even if we pay folks free money, they still loose on social interactions.

[ghaff]

Grocery stores and others absolutely still need cashier checkout. If I have a handful of items I can barcode swipe and even a couple pieces of produce that's fine. But they simply aren't designed for a full shopping cart which includes a ton of non-barcoded items.

Ditto with home repair stores. Scan a new smoke detector? Sure. Check out a bunch of lumber etc. That would be no.

In my experience, most stores are finding a reasonable balance. And one of my cheaper grocery stores doesn't use self-checkout at all for now. Which is just fine.

[techsupporter]

> In my experience, most stores are finding a reasonable balance.

I hope you're right but this hasn't been the case at the grocery stores around me. QFC (a Kroger-owned brand in the Pacific Northwest) has, at least at two I usually frequent, stopped staffing checklanes after 8 or 9pm. It's self-checkout only. These are at stores that have a lot of signage advertising that "summer hours are here, all locations open until 1am!"

I normally shop around 9 or 10pm and there has historically been at least a "push this button to ask someone to come to the in-person method". Much as I like self-checkout, I don't like doing it with a full cart of groceries. Both recent times, I was told rather bluntly that a full cart was my problem.

With service like that, I'd rather just go to the Amazon spyware grocery store. At least I can put everything in a bag myself and they're open until 11pm.

[Denvercoder9]

Self-service checkout at the store exit is such a wasted opportunity. In my (non-USA) grocery store I can scan product with my phone while I'm walking through the store and putting them in the cart; afterwards I only have to pay. Not having to take everything from my cart, scan it and put it back saves quite some time, even compared to cashiers scanning. There's also a handheld scanner for people that can't or don't want to use their smartphone.

[alex_young]

I used such a system when I lived in Switzerland, and found it much easier for the reasons you mentioned.

I did have an odd conversation with someone at work who warned me that sometimes they check your basket to make sure you’ve scanned everything before leaving, which I thought was an odd way to tell someone you like to shoplift. Anyway.

[techsupporter]

We used to have that, at QFC/Kroger funny enough.

They got rid of it because few people used it (I tried it and it was very clunky) and replaced it with more self checkout lanes.

[bobthepanda]

Right, but the issue there seems to be execution, which admittedly non-tech firms dislike investing in.

[Dylan16807]

> But they simply aren't designed for a full shopping cart which includes a ton of non-barcoded items.

Huh. Everything at my grocery store either has a barcode or is produce that needs to be weighed, so there's no speed advantage for a cashier.

And they've gone through different sizes of self-checkout, some of which actually had more room than the cashier checkouts.

[codetrotter]

> produce that needs to be weighed

In Spain and France (and probably other countries too) they’ve been doing something that’s pretty neat in regards to the fruits and vegetables since long before self-checkout even became a thing, but which helps a lot now with self-checkout as well.

When you go to the fruits and vegetables section of the store, a lot of these stores have a scale there with a printer.

So when you pick the fruits and vegetables, you weigh and print a label for them there and then.

And then when you get to the checkout, you just scan the item.

You kind of have to experience this in person to see why that works well, but it does :)

[function_seven]

> You kind of have to experience this in person to see why that works well, but it does :)

Nope. Your description of it is enough. This sounds like a great solution to the bulk goods issue (produce, nuts, beans, etc.)

I love self checkout at Home Depot. It’s just a wireless barcode scanner. No scales or annoying “unknown item in the bagging area” admonishments. Just scan scan scan scan done. You can leave all the items in the cart.

Uniqlo’s self checkout is also cool. All RFID. You dump the clothes into the bin and they instantly tally up on the screen. I didn’t know this the first time I used it, so it was magical.

[dfox]

I remember that in 1991 there was an article (IIRC paid PR by Siemens) how the checkout by RFID is the next big thing that will happen the following year. 20 years later it started to really pop up in the stores in the form of EPC Gen2 RFID for customer-facing applications. The obvious common usecase are libraries, as there is defacto standard extension for exactly that application (the tags can also work as EAS tags that can be enabled/disabled over the EPC radio interface), another huge application are clothing and sporting goods retailers. From extensive playing with the technology I had concluded that the reliability leaves a many things to be wished for, but apparently in these applications either the amount of distinct items is small enough or missing few of them do not really matter (if you scan a whole pallet of EPC tagged items you are bound to miss some of them and thus it is only good as an approximation, if you scan a shopping cart it is probably more reliable. Reason for that is on one hand the physics of the radio interface that can be shadowed by somewhat surprising kinds of objects, like people, and the other is that there is a ridiculously large, but still finite amount of tags that can be de-conflicted and read in a given time).

[r00fus]

Decathlon in France also has RFID bin + digital readout. It is quite magical. It's interesting how much coaching the attendants did so that we would be comfortable (I guess we looked clueless).

[codetrotter]

Yeah same with Decathlon in Spain too. My mind was literally blown when I saw this because I did not know until we were at the checkout.

[azherebtsov]

Same thing in Poland. I’m very surprised that this is not a common standard. I saw rage same in Austria, Italy… basically EU countries. I’m very surprised this is not common in US which is usually known as a place where many retail technologies have emerged. By the way, the plastic bag must not be wasted. If I take a few bananas I do not take any plastic bag, I just put a sticker on one of them, and then drop them all into bag area after scanning so that total weight matches expected. Same applies to many fruits which do not need a separate plastic bag (apples, oranges, …).

[bombcar]

In america we seem to be headed toward individually wrapping everything in plastic.

I'm not going to be surprised when I see individual onions in plastic, or blueberries by the berry. Potatoes and corn have already fallen.

[dfox]

This was common in Czech Republic, but the large stores switched back to weighting at the cashier checkout. I assume that the way how the consumer-facing scales are connected to the rest of the store's system has something to do with the stores wanting to eliminate it (different vendors and the backend interface typically involves shuffling CSV files around over FTP or SMB). Obviously, with the variations of borrow a scanner (Typically Zebra MC17/MC18/PS20)/scan by mobile application they had to reintroduce the scales back, so now they are somewhat stuck in supporting both of these processes. And well, I became so accustomed to scanning things myself as I put them into the cart that for me and large grocery purchases the only real alternative for that is not going to the store at all and ordering it online.

[dkjaudyeqooe]

This is how this actually works:

1. Put product in bag

2. At the checkout, suddenly remember that you have to label it yourself

3. Go back to the fruit and veg section

4. Try to find the 2 to 4 digit number that denotes said product

5. Wait your turn to use one of the two scales, more usually the single functioning one

6. Realise you've forgotten the number and go find it again

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 as required.

8. Print label and return to checkout

It is the antithesis of neat, and just because they don't want to install scales at the checkout.

Of course after a few years they actually got scales at the checkout, probably because all checkout systems had them and they were no longer and option, but now the cheap and barely functioning self-checkout systems have no (functioning) scales, so back to self-labeling hell.

[r00fus]

France (at least all the places I've shopped) omits steps 6 & 7 because the scale has item lookup.

Also if they see you're a clueless foreigner, they will have an attendant go label them for you while you're in line - keeping you uncomfortable so you won't screw up again.

[vel0city]

I'm in a market where a US grocery brand likes to trial technology at their stores. They had some produce UPC generation stations there for about a year and eventually got rid of them. I asked some people at the store about it, and they essentially gave the same reason. People didn't understand it, didn't want to deal with it, etc. So most customers just ignored them and the checkout counter still had to deal with it anyways.

[macNchz]

The NYC area grocery chain Fairway–of which most locations have sadly closed after a bankruptcy in 2020–took this concept a step further with a mobile checkout app, you could weigh your produce and enter it into the app as you shopped (as well as scan package barcodes), then pay directly in the app and walk out. A clerk would sometimes audit your bags, but it was so much better than the typical American supermarket self-checkout.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fairway-market-mobile-checkout...

[Dylan16807]

We have that in my US grocery, I just worded it that way because it doesn't affect the point I was making.

Though personally I use those scales but not their printer. I scan every item as I add it to my cart, and those scales display a bar code too.

[badrequest]

American produce aisles have these as well, but now I have to create the waste of a printed sticker and most likely a bag as well to get groceries I could have otherwise purchased by weight.

[bombcar]

I wish a grocery store would understand "tare" correctly and let me have barcoded and labelled reusable containers - fill the potato bag with potatoes, scan and weight the filled bag and be on my way.

[barrkel]

In the UK, the self checkout machine has a weighing scale built in, and you select the type of produce while it's on the scales during checkout, much like a cashier might. I prefer it to the code system you find on the continent.

[bombolo]

And you have to find your item among hundreds of items

[Cyberdog]

> Huh. Everything at my grocery store either has a barcode or is produce that needs to be weighed, so there's no speed advantage for a cashier.

An experienced cashier knows what side and corner of the box of Wheaties the bar code is on without having to look, and has the produce code for the bananas memorized. If I have a lot of things, I always go to the cashier rather than the self-checkout. They can always do it faster than I can myself.

[azherebtsov]

When self checkout desks were setup in my grocery store, there were 2 cashiers and 3 self service points. The queues to cashiers are different, but there is a single queue to self service. After a few observations I found that longer queue to selfservice usually goes faster. Probably because of two reasons:

1. There is one more cashdesk in there 2. The payments are done by card, whereas there those who pays in cash to the cashiers

In general cashier, of course, faster than a customer in operating goods. But there are other slow processes involved. Like: loading goods on the tape (not present in selfservice), paying with cash (some advanced selfservice desks have that though), packing goods into bag (could be done right after scanning in selfservice)

P.s: the location of a barcode on a box almost does not matter with a good scanners doing scans in two dimensions

[bombcar]

I've noticed the self-checkouts seem to have some safeties in place which the normal cashiered checkouts don't (because they assume the cashier is trained). For example, if I buy ten cans of the same soup, the cashier's system seems to let her scan one can ten times, whereas I can't do the same on the self-checkout, even the Walmart ones that don't care about the weight being placed. They have a "prevent double-scan" delay built in that is long enough I may as well grab the next can.

[executive]

bananas is 4011 almost everywhere. an experienced cashier has the code for ginger root memorized.

[ghaff]

I'm going to have to squint to read the number on the vegetable which is sometimes there. Might have to do a lookup. It doesn't have a barcode. There's no real place to put a shopping cart. I'm having to take out items, find their price, and bag them. Something will probably go wrong which means the person watching over the self-checkout will have to come over and do something.

I can do it. But it's a pain for a large order.

[gorlilla]

Maybe it's just because self-checkout has always played into my intorvertedness. But i have become very effecient at self checkout no matter how much i buy.

I shop for myself, spouse and 4 adolescent/teenage children. I can typically ring myself out faster and more orderly than the cashier.

Most cashiers are super wasteful with bags and just pack things illogically. These aren't the trained baggers of yester-year afterall.

Either way, my favorite way to shop at my local wholesale warehouse has been the app which lets you ring up as you load up the cart, pay and simply walk out the door.

Cashiers are not in fact still necessary, the self-checkout lanes are merely a stop-gap yo better automation.

[saurik]

This "balance" still cuts out a lot of employees and still removes the social interaction for most use cases. My local Home Depot, FWIW, still has a person to do checkout... but I think it is only one person, not even two: the rest of the checkout opportunities are self-checkout.

Also, btw: it isn't so bad to do self-checkout of large items as they have a wireless handheld barcode scanner at each self-checkout stand; it isn't like you are having to lift each item and place it on the platform. There is something similar now at Target, and I routinely self-checkout large/heavy furnishings.

[bombcar]

Target and Home Depot have some of the best, but that may be because the anti-theft is tuned all the way down because they're in high-trust areas. Neither seems to complain much about the weights on the scale.

[gnufied]

I would say it is getting harder. Walmart for example I think has switched to largely self-checkout with some helpers thrown in.

Other stores where had more than 3 or 4 human manned lanes, now have just 1 most of the time.

[bombcar]

My local Walmart often has a line waiting for the ocean of self-checkouts whilst they have two or three humanned checkouts empty.

I prefer the human ones because they have the bag carousel which is faster.

[morkalork]

I watched someone try taking a freaking step ladder through the self check out and the machine scanned it okay but then wouldn't proceed to the next item or cash out because "item must be placed on scale". Really?

[bombcar]

It really comes down to how the store has them tuned; one local grocery store's system freaks out if a fly lands on the scale, whereas the local Walmart doesn't seem to care if the weight is ten pounds more or less than what it thinks it should be.

[hooverd]

Self checkout shoppers should be timed just like cashiers. I swear everyone else using the self chicken are moving in slow motion.

[ghaff]

Charging self-checkout shoppers will go over really well I'm sure. Let us know how it goes.

[8note]

You make it look like a discount for going fast

[rcme]

Order groceries online. It's much more convenient for large orders.

[function_seven]

I used to to this when my Vons operated it’s own fleet. Then they switched to instacart and it went dramatically downhill. Cold items sitting in their hot trunk, 4-hour delivery windows, and an order that just never arrived.

The Teamsters did a good job. The underpaid gig workers don’t. (And frankly, I’m not sure I blame them.)

[bombcar]

I split the difference and order for pickup - the local store holds them in the proper equipment until I arrive (at least at Walmart).

The convenience store, however, puts milk on a shelf so you better be there when they say it's ready (ordering when I leave from home works perfectly, and they throw free Doritos in for some reason).

[rcme]

Yea I definitely wouldn’t use Instacart. The incentives aren’t aligned between the store, picker, and customer.

[ghaff]

I don't have great options where I live and both my nearby grocery stores are pretty good with cashier checkout. I have a car so shopping for larger orders isn't really an issue.

[rcme]

Do you have a Whole Foods? For basically the same amount of time it takes to make your grocery list, you can have your groceries delivered. This saves the shopping time and the driving time.

[ghaff]

I don't think close enough to deliver unless it's changed--about 40 minutes away. And I can't/wouldn't want to do a complete grocery shopping at Whole Foods anyway.

Used Peapod once upon a time when I was on crutches for months and dropped it as soon as I could walk again.

[klyrs]

I got a cake delivered upside down. So convenient.

[bombcar]

Free upside down cake! Sounds like a winner.

(I only trust grocery delivery for things in impervious packaging or impossible to screw up).

[klyrs]

It wasn't free! And yeah, it wasn't my idea to put a cake into the grocery order. I also don't trust anybody else to pick out fresh fruit & veg for me.

[bombcar]

It should have been free after rotation, but often the hassle of complaining to get a refund is too much for me to bother.

Unless I’m filled with rage.

[neilv]

Most self-checkouts here are surprisingly bad, but Whole Food Markets ones work well enough. However, WFM recently managed to ruin that in a different way...

The WFM self-checkouts here recently started displaying dead-on video camera closeup views of the customer's face, on-screen, during checkout.

They're doing this in neighborhoods with upscale customers, so I'm thinking maybe it's not a rough part of town "you are being watched" security thing. (That would seem incongruous with the premium WFM brand, and how historically they've seemed to want customers to feel about shopping there.)

Maybe the live view of the camera in the customer's face is actually trying to lay foundation for a legal defense that that they weren't secretly recording people, for the inevitable scandal over a data breach/mishandling/misuse.

(Lawmakers and state AGs should be all over this, because history is clear that very few companies take data capture and handling responsibility seriously, unless it's heavily regulated, with teeth that hurt, and maybe not even then.)

[smt88]

So far, I've never seen a Publix with even a single self-checkout. I'm not saying they don't exist, but they're rolling them out much more slowly than the other stores.

This is likely because Publix is 80% employee-owned[1].

1. https://fourweekmba.com/who-owns-publix/#:~:text=Key%20takea....

[TheCleric]

I've seen one, in Wesley Chapel, FL. The vast majority do not.

[silisili]

The newer ones seem to have them. Which to me is like a breach of the unspoken contract.

Publix has always been more expensive, but gave you great people experience, a cashier, and usually a bag boy asking if you wanted help out to the car.

Now that they're moving to self checkout, what the hell are we paying more for?

[smt88]

> Publix has always been more expensive

It's still far cheaper than Whole Foods.

> what the hell are we paying more for?

In my (major) city, Publix has by far the best bakery and prepared foods of any of the grocery stores.

They also reliably have the freshest produce. Does that mean they're more wasteful and take things off the shelves if they're just slightly overripe? I have no idea. I just know that I end up spending more money at, say, Kroger because a lot of the fresh items go bad before I can use them.

I'm personally also willing to pay more to a business that takes care of its employees, but other people might not care that much.

[silisili]

I lived in a city with a Publix, Walmart, and Kroger. While I agree re: the deli, most of my family's grocery bill came from things other than that.

In a routine week, where I'd buy the typicals(dairy, meat, bread, canned good, etc), Kroger would be about $90, Publix would often be ~$120. (If you couldn't tell, this was a few years ago, before massive inflation).

I want them to take care of their employees too, and part of doing that is not replacing them with machines.

[coev]

Palm Beach, Florida. The stores in the nearby less affluent neighborhoods don't have it.

[jacquesm]

I boycott the self checkout, and always go through the cashier, even if that means waiting a bit longer. The way I look at it that's at least a token towards keeping people employed that make substantially less money than I do and even if my time is valuable it isn't nearly as valuable to me as their employment is to them.

I hoped more people would join me this but it looks like it is a losing battle.

[bombcar]

You're fighting the wrong battle. The real galaxy brain move is to use a self-checkout and fuck up horribly so they have to send the staffer over anyway, and take ten times as long.

Then it appears on the balance sheet as a negative.

[anticensor]

Some stores might forcibly evict you by the power of guard (before finishing your purchases) if you do that.

[jacquesm]

I like your thinking.

[dheera]

> Freaking "unintended item in baggage area".

When that happens I usually just pick up my stuff and start over at another machine. It's usually faster than waiting for them to come over and enter their password. Sometimes by the time I'm done there are 3 machines "waiting for assistance". (I just hope their UX researchers are watching from a corner, but that's their problem.)

Self checkout is supposed to be faster than non-self checkout, if it doesn't meet that bar it is useless.

[radicalbyte]

Here in The Netherlands we don't have that thing where they weigh your bag to make sure you haven't stolen something. They instead have two people for 8-10 checkouts and do random inspections where they scan your bags.

Works great and also gave me a huge shock when I went back to the UK and Sainsbury's treated me like a criminal.

[ghshephard]

Nice thing about whole foods - there is person there to help you with the self-checkout (in case something doesn't scan, price isn't right - rare) - but there isn't any scan or check of bags/receipts. It's close, fast, and convenient enough that I just do my shopping every day for most stuff, with a few exceptions like Milk that I might buy a weeks worth of stuff. The Palm Scan Instapay thing is awesome too.

[phpisthebest]

I resisted using online ordering at Kroger for a long time, then in 2021 I started using the mobile app, and just picking up my groceries... now I have not be inside a Kroger in almost 2 years and have no plans on going back in.

The Kroger App is great, and having them bring the stuff out, load me up, and I drive away... even if they actually go back to charging $5 for the service I am paying.

>>I don't know what humanity plans is

I dont know about humanity, but consumers demand low prices on food, one of the biggest complaints people have today is high cost of food, even if over history we still have some of the lowest costs of food as a percentage of expanded ever...

Grocery is also one of, if not the lowest profit retail businesses to be in, it is not surprising they will look to lower their #1 cost... people.

[jonwest]

I feel like the lowest earning employees on the totem pole is a bit of an easy scapegoat for high costs when executives make an exponential amount in comparison. I understand that if they weren’t in grocery they could be making similar amounts in another industry—my argument is more that the disparity between employee and executive is too great, regardless of industry.

[phpisthebest]

the lowest earning employees are the lowest earning because those are the jobs for which the widest number of people in society can fill,

this often makes them very "easy" not maybe in physical effort but in their repeatability, and their formulaic process making them a prime target for automation.

this is completely separate discussion and disconnected completely from the increase in executive pay. Which is largely driven by the increasing size of companies. I may have the time frame wrong but something like 50 years ago the top 5 companies of any market segment controlled 20% of the market, today the top 5 companies of any market segment control's 80% of the market. This consolidation of markets is a few very large companies has driven executive pay. The other big component of that is the Institutional Investor, if you look at the raise of investment from Funds like 401K's and IRA's etc where most companies are owned by funds of funds of funds instead of people, founders, etc you also see the extreme raise of executive pay

[bombcar]

> Walmart Inc.'s chief executive earned $24.1 million in fiscal 2023, according to a government filing.

Even if we assume only 3 cashiers (x3 for daily shifts) at the 4,630 Walmarts in the USA, and they make only $10 an hour, that's still $150 million a year.

Automating the CEO would save more money per person replaced, but the cashiers still are a total larger dollar group.

[jonwest]

That may be true, but you're talking about the livelihood of 14,000 people versus a single person. That's an accurate, but misleading comparison.

[alluro2]

I'm yet to see prices going down, or at least not going up at the same pace as everywhere else, because a supermarket chain implemented self-checkout.

I don't think anyone buys (pun intended) the argument of self-checkout being there to enable lower prices for consumers.

[ghaff]

Around where I live, Market Basket AFAIK has no self-checkout and probably the cheapest prices of any of the local chains.

[phpisthebest]

Given the extreme inflation, most likely it means priced did not increase as fast as they otherwise would have.

If consumers did not like them, they would not use them and the companies would get rid of them. Unfortunately for you many consumers not only are willing to use them some even prefer them because they in fact do not want to interact with a cashier

[canucker2016]

Plus there are some customers who misscan stuff to pay less (they buy a lot of "bananas").

also the discretionary purchases that occurred while waiting in line disappear - no gum/chocolate bar or celebrity/gossip magazine sales

[raverbashing]

The discretionary purchases still exist as the line to the self-checkouts go thought shelves with check-out merchandise

[bombcar]

You used to be standing around bored watching the cashier swipe items, now you're busy swiping items yourself; I suspect the number of gum purchases drop on the self-checkout line (but the longer winding path may grab a few more drinks, but only if it's backed up).

[Modified3019]

I’ve found it heavily depends on the system the store uses and if improvements are actively made.

Walmart’s self-checkouts are great, and I’ve noticed distinct improvements over the years, reducing or removing common sources of issues.

WinCo’s on the other hand have been and continue to be prone to becoming a pain in the ass requiring multiple employee interventions.

I personally hate interaction at grocery stores, I want to get in and gtfo and not hold up the people behind me.

[grepfru_it]

>Walmart's self-checkout

Look up next time you use your credit card :|

[fy20]

I feel the opposite. I much prefer the self-service experience. Staff are miserable, they usually scan stuff faster than you can pack, and I have to wait in a large line for that. I'd much rather do it myself.

Even with a large cart (family of 3 weekly shop) I have no issues, you just need to be good at stacking items so they don't fall off.

Where I live stores are slowly adopting scan-as-you-shop which is even better.

[el_benhameen]

I just bought some snacks at an airport store that was “fully” self-directed—swipe your card, walk through the gate, grab your stuff, and walk out. Except it required _more_ human assistants than a typical airport convenience store in order to handle the volume of confused and suspicious shoppers. “Wait, how does this work?”, “How do I get a receipt?”, “How do I know it won’t over charge me?”, etc.

[barbazoo]

I don't like self checkout because sometimes I'm clumsy and forget to scan an item or two, oopsie.

[bombcar]

My wife scanned an item, used Apple Pay, the phone dinged, but the stupid self checkout was still bitching about something, so the payment never actually cleared.

And she didn't notice and walked out.

I came back a few days later and it took me nearly half an hour to explain that I wanted to pay for something without buying it. Finally a manager figured it out heh.

[IshKebab]

I think the automation trend can be annoying when it fails, but self checkout is a weird thing to pick on. In the UK at least they always have a staff member on hand to override the scales. They're soooo much better than waiting in a queue for a human.