Self checkout

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  • #1736408
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Self checkout is the term that means that you will be checking out your goods, at the store, by yourself (rather than have a cashier scan your items or “ring them up” and check you out).

    Do you think that self checkout will take over completely like self getting gasoline did in every U.S. state besides NJ (AFAIK)?

    Thanks for pondering…

    #1736541
    Joseph
    Participant

    Yes.

    #1736580
    klugeryid
    Participant

    Probably by now most transactions in the United States are self check out
    It’s called amazon
    And he won’t rest till he dies or gets it all

    #1736602
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    NO….
    In CT and MA Big Y supermarket chain removed all self checkouts 4 years ago.
    I will not use a self-checkout if the store also has cashiers. I will not help the store eliminate jobs and they do not give me a discount for doing their labor.

    The closest gas station to my home (s blocks) is FULL service. It is consistently the same price at self serve stations in the neighborhood. We use the full service gas.

    #1736612
    ☕️coffee addict
    Participant

    No unless they keep on hiking up the minimum wage

    #1736613
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Once they improve the technology so that people can use it smoothly.

    #1736627
    Meno
    Participant

    In stores where it actually works well I almost always use it.

    Same goes for gas. I just find it easier and quicker to do it myself than to wait for the attendant.

    If that means fewer jobs for humans, I don’t have a problem with that. Why should a store hire a human to do something a machine can do?

    #1736629
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Almost all technology is labor-saving, and to oppose something for that reason seems silly.

    #1736641
    DovidBT
    Participant

    They should add a gambling feature to the self-checkout stations. At random intervals, a display popup would let you bet “double or nothing” on a particular item.

    #1736659
    lakewhut
    Participant

    Cashiers are slow. I’d rather use a machine.

    #1736673
    Neville ChaimBerlin
    Participant

    They couldn’t use them in an area with a shoplifting problem. It’s basically the honor system.

    #1736679
    Joseph
    Participant

    “They couldn’t use them in an area with a shoplifting problem. It’s basically the honor system.”

    The extra losses from shoplifting is much more than offset by the reduced labor costs.

    #1736763
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    There will be a demand for different jobs…

    -Self-Checkout Assistant (e.g. the person who comes to help you when the machine doesn’t believe that you bagged an item and now its top light is blinking red)

    -Receipt Checkers (now more common in certain non-membership based stores where I live; they especially note whether unbagged items are listed on the receipts)

    -Loss Prevention employees (reviewing video footage that self checkout machines alert them on, based on the behavior of the self checkout person)

    #1736767
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Sometimes choosing self checkout is for self preservation.

    Example:

    When the world is overwhelming and you really need groceries, using self checkout can be a way to meet your needs while mitigating stressors.

    Before self checkout, you wouldn’t have gone to the grocery store when super stressed.

    Even the minimal eye contact or “thank you how are you?” that occurs between a cashier and a customer might be enough to keep you at home.

    With self checkout now available, you are able to be more independent.

    #1736783
    Neville ChaimBerlin
    Participant

    “The extra losses from shoplifting is much more than offset by the reduced labor costs.”

    That’s a baseless claim. In ghetto areas where it’s a real concern, I’m not sure this would hold true. Each self checkout aisle frees them of having to compensate 1 cashier at minimum wage with no benefits. There wouldn’t have to be a lot of theft to offset this.

    #1736790
    Amil Zola
    Participant

    It seems to me that stores save on labor with their self checkouts, but they don’t pass that savings along to the consumer. I’ve never used one and most of the stores I shop in don’t have them. My preference is for checkers to have living wage jobs, and in some cases (like my town) they are organized and negotiate, wages, hours, benefits and conditions.

    #1736921
    Little Froggie
    Participant

    To quote RY: “Almost all technology is labor-saving, and to oppose something for that reason seems silly.”

    In the olden times it wasn’t easy to down a plane… With today’s computerized technology….

    #1736924
    yehudayona
    Participant

    Neville, many years ago I knew of a pharmacy that had two stores, one in an inner city area and one in a suburb. Guess which one had the bigger shoplifting problem?

    Lakewhut, I find cashiers are usually faster at scanning than are self-checkout customers. It just makes sense, since they’re doing it several hours a day as opposed to a few minutes a week.

    There are some items that you generally can’t buy in self-checkout lanes, e.g. gift cards.

    #1736932
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    LF, it was always easy.

    #1736970
    Captain™
    Participant

    Same goes for gas. I just find it easier and quicker to do it myself than to wait for the attendant.

    That’s only for cars. For planes its the opposite.

    At airports with a fuel truck available, I always call the fuel truck. It saves a lot of time, and I can preflight or tie down the plane without taking time to refuel by myself. Many airports do not have a fuel truck available, so then I have to refuel the plane myself from a self serve.

    Captain™

    #1739231
    Rebbe Yid
    Participant

    I like self-checkout because many people seem to be afraid of it, especially seniors, so the lines are much shorter.

    In a similar vein, can YWN implement AI so that the coffee room can automatically generate its own posts and comments, and we can just sit back and watch the computers do all the work?

    #1739262

    In a similar vein, can YWN implement AI so that the coffee room can automatically generate its own posts and comments, and we can just sit back and watch the computers do all the work?

    We already do. As of now, we still allow manually input posts, but we find the AI ones are much better.

    On any give day, there are anywhere from 65%-85% AI posts and 15%-35% manually input posts.

    #1739266

    A bit of a crisis ensued when the AI posts seemed to be taking a modern orthodox approach but we tightened a few screws and the problem was solved.

    😁

    #1739233
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Captain: Thanks, I had no clue about the airplane refueling options until your post.

    #1739294
    Amil Zola
    Participant

    Litebrite did you really think a plane just taxied up to a fuel pump?

    #1739548
    Captain™
    Participant

    @Amil-Zola At airports with no fuel trucks they do taxi up to the fuel pump. We just face the pump (not too close) instead of pulling up alongside it (like a car).
    Then you attach a grounding cable to the exhaust pipe (tailpipe of a plane, located at he front of the plane).
    After the plane is safely grounded, you can begin fueling the same way you do to a car. The only differences are that by a plane you can actually see the fuel coming out of the nozzle and it does not stop coming out automatically like by a car.

    Captain™

    #1739587
    apushatayid
    Participant

    The scanning, might be faster. The bagging on the other hand could back up the self check out lanes to the point where the lines with a cashier actually move faster. Now, if they could get the machine to efficiently bag the groceries too….

    With the cost to install and maintain the self checkout machines, coupled with the long lines and the resulting frustrated customers is it really worth it?

    #1741259
    Nechomah
    Participant

    In EY the newest thing in the big supermarkets, like Osher Ad, Shaarei Revacha and Yeish, are the handheld barcode scanners. Basically you get a cart that has a scanner holder next to the bar to push the cart, and as you go through the store you take your items, scan them with your scanner, and when you’re finished you put the information from your scanner into a checkout computer, pay, and go home. Bagging is up to you. Some people bag it all at the end, but a very smart woman I saw had the large heavy duty shopping bags all open in her cart, and as she scanned her items, she put them straight into the bags, making her job super fast at the end.

    Now I have one issue, in Osher Ad, there is one catch. You have to take your cart to a special station and weigh it when you’re finished. There is a bar code on the cart, which records the weight of the empty cart, and the difference is the weight of the products you purchased. I imagine that this is their way of trying to prevent people from taking things that they did not scan (hopefully unintentionally), but I found that due to the fact that there is only one of these scales (maybe 2) in the whole giant store, the line for this process is longer than the lines for having a regular clerk ring up your order. This defeats the whole purpose of using the scanner. I also found it a little insulting that they seem to be not willing to trust that people are honest and will scan everything they put into their carts. Oh well, I just did not use a scanner when I shopped in that store, but everywhere else, I’m happy to use them when they’re available as they simply save a lot of time.

    #1741358
    Captain™
    Participant

    Stop n Shop in America works the same way with the scanners. The difference is that you do not have to go to a special station after paying. Instead, randomly people will get picked and they will check any number of items in your cart to make sure that you paid. Most of the time, you pay and leave without any hassle.

    Captain™

    #1741394
    Uncle Ben
    Participant

    Captain; I’m surprised Stop’n Shop hasn’t been accused of racial profiling yet!

    #1741559
    Captain™
    Participant

    The workers are not the ones doing the choosing. The machine randomly selects people by itself (probably an algorithm or something) and calls the attendant over.

    Captain™

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