[lamasery]

Please explain to me which part they are automating.

A person scans the goods. A person handles keying in codes when necessary. A person tells the system the scanning is done and to accept payment. A person bags the groceries.

I guess if you’re paying cash it automates taking the money slightly more than the standard cash register does.

Mine have lower wait times because people with lots of stuff can’t fit that shit on the tiny scale-tables, and likely don’t feel like doing all that work themselves, so they go to the regular checkout line (there is usually only one, maybe two if it’s busy), plus the five or six stations share a line so it feels faster.

[yreg]

The difference is that where I live stores that used to have, say, 10 counters out of which maybe 6 were open on average now have 4 human counters and 20 self-checkout counters.

So for me it is in effect automating the part where I need to wait in a queue. We should surely keep some human counters for accessibility reasons, but I as a person able to scan my groceries in the 3 minutes it takes I'm perfectly happy to do just that.

By the way there are also RFID counters where you just dump your goods in a bin and it scans everything automatically. Wouldn't solve the problem with items priced by weight, but makes the rest significantly easier.

[kennywinker]

They understaffed, and it sucked. Now you do all the work and are apparently happy about it. Go figure.

[Telaneo]

Given that every store (and damn near every establishment for that matter) has been understaffed for the past 20-ish years, can you blame them?

[kennywinker]

Yeah, actually I can. Understaffed just means you’re not paying well enough.

Look what happened recently in new york. $30/hour to shovel snow got them a lineup out the door of people wanting to work.

Those companies made the choice to prioritize profit margins above staffing.

[lotsofpulp]

Retail business profit margins have always been low single digit percentages. More staff can only mean higher prices. I'll gladly scan my own stuff to have lower prices and be able to get out quicker.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KR/kroger/profit-m...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ACI/albertsons/net...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/profit...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/profit...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TGT/target/profit-...

[kennywinker]

> Retail business profit margins have always been low single digit percentages.

And yet overall profits remain high - they’re high-volume low margin businesses.

> More staff can only mean higher prices.

When you’re talking about massive chains that are prioritizing profits, usually on behalf of shareholders, that is true. For smaller businesses, coops, or even gov run grocery stores - things that aren’t as focussed on rates of return for investors - it can just mean less profits for the owners.

> I'll gladly scan my own stuff to have lower prices and be able to get out quicker.

It hasn’t matched my experience that prices fell as self checkouts were installed. I think profits went up, prices didn’t come down. Maybe the “quicker” bit… except only if I have just a handful of items.

[Telaneo]

You're blaming the store, which I agree with. My question was whether you could blame the GP, or the consumer in general. They have little control over how much the staff of their grocery store is being paid.

[kennywinker]

Ah, yes i did misunderstand. No i don’t blame them, but i am confused about their preference because it doesn’t match my own.

[yreg]

No they did not understaff. It is normal to wait if you want an unscheduled 1on1. It was always like that and it was always normal.

[kennywinker]

I tried pre-booking my checkout session, but the safeway never returned my calls.

[Marsymars]

Some places have more automated steps - Uniqlo has bins where you just toss in all your clothes and it detects it via RFID tags in the price tags and rings up a total.