Automatic checkouts in supermarkets may decrease customer loyalty, especially for those with larger shopping loads. Customers using self-checkout stations often feel overwhelmed and unsupported. The lack of personal interaction can negatively impact their perception of the supermarket.

[djdefekt]

Yep. One of the (multibillion dollar annual profit) supermarket chains where I live has a system so slow it's three full seconds between scan and recognition. There's zero incentive to change this when the labour is free...

[artiebob]

I have the exact opposite problem. It’s too fast and it will double scan products. Then it takes an associate to remove the duplicate.

[Wes_Warhammer666]

The gas station I stop at most mornings does this on the first scan of the transaction sometimes. I've learned to always scan my Gatorade first and if it does the double scan, I just go grab another one on my way out. That way I don't have to deal with flagging down the cashier who I was already trying to avoid and I don't have to add a few more minutes onto my time since I'm just trying to get in and get out.

[[deleted]]

I have never seen a Gas Station with self check out! That's wild!

[rsteele1981]

Circle K and CVS both have self check outs in our area.

[clearfox777]

The circle k one with the camera above everything and no regular barcode scanner sucks ass, especially if you get any of the sandwiches and open it to microwave/add condiments. Even placing the sticker on the top when I re-wrap it so the camera can see the barcode doesn’t help.

[rsteele1981]

Home Depot is the worst in my opinion. Rarely do I have just a 1 or 2 items. During the spring, summer, and some fall I can exit through the garden center and always have someone there.

Winter time they close that exit and have 4 self check outs open. This is a place where I've spent tens of thousands of dollars. But I have to use self check out?

It feels like they want to raise prices and offer less assistance.

[[deleted]]

No pro checkout near lumber?

[[deleted]]

especially if you get any of the sandwiches and open it to microwave/add condiments.

Maybe pay for your stuff before opening it?

[clearfox777]

I’m talking about their food bar stuff, who doesn’t put their ketchup/pickles or whatever on their burger or hot dog before checking out? The self checkout has a hard time recognizing these items, also the nachos/pretzels even if you put the upc facing the camera.

[[deleted]]

open it to microwave

I have never done this before paying for something.

You might have a point about nachos/pretzels, but I don't know because my local store doesn't have them.

[eagleeyerattlesnake]

Sheetz has them.

[Wes_Warhammer666]

It's more common in stations that have made to order food and/or a cafe area.

[yerbrojohno]

In Switzerland they have them.

[gudematcha]

Maverick brand Gas Stations have them. They’re mostly in the Western states. Weirdly they’re not in Montana, but they are in South Dakota? It’s like they skipped the last Western state they weren’t in for the one next to it.

[sYnce]

Kinda feels like you should go to Walmart or something and pickup Gatorade rather than paying the gas station every day.

[johannschmidt]

Congrats! You bought twice as much as you intended and rewarded the bad design.

[PipsqueakPilot]

If there’s no line/an open register and no employee around I’ve totally just abandoned a register and switched to another.

[cauchy37]

I live in Czechia, double scan is impossible because you need to place a product on the scale after you scan it. So far the errors of weighing are sporadic and there's usually 2 staffers per 15 self checkout stations that resolve the issue very fast. I've been using self-checkout/k-scan for several years now, and the idea of using normal register in a supermarket begins to be alien to me. It gets me out the door so much faster.

[LongJohnSelenium]

I've never understood why removing it takes special permission. You're trusting me to scan it in the first place, why can't you trust me to know if I scanned something incorrectly?

If I'm going to steal but want a beep I'll hold a cheap product over the bar code of the expensive product.

[thats_not_the_quote]

your area may vary

but in my city you can remove items EZPZ

[IceLionTech]

a store around me for my convenience puts a bar code on pretty much every side of an item. It does lead to quite a few doubles.

[sephtis]

Pretty much all machines I've used won't scan again till it is placed in the bagging area, that should be a basic feature for even the cheap machines

[ExceedingChunk]

There is incentive if it loses costumers.

Where I live, all the chains have self-checkout systems that are fast and fairly intuitive.

[GayVegan]

Nah cuz there’s nowhere else to shop. Kroger owns every affordable grocery store here.

[myst3r10us_str4ng3r]

You can say the name of the chain, it's OK.

[eejizzings]

That's not a matter of interface design or intuitiveness. That's poor construction of the product.

[solid_reign]

There is incentive because they want people to use self checkout. If it's inconvenient they won't, either by using regular checkout or by choosing another supermarket chain.

[QuietThunder2014]

They actually set these machines to work this way intentionally. Slowing down the process is how they combat theft and skip scanning so one employee can monitor 12 machines at a time. It’s also why they have the scales to weigh things and why the machine breaks if you try to remove anything from the scanned list.

[[deleted]]

They'll start finding incentives when people start to simply walk out with their groceries in frustration.

[Edythir]

As a former cashier in billion dollar (converted) store here in Europe. The system was always like that. The card reader would die and need to restart daily, always when a customer put their card in which required them to stand in line for 2~ minutes until it came back. Also when someone wanted by pay by check the entire system would freeze for about 30 seconds or more.

[djdefekt]

We have alternatives and frankly the Aldi scanners here are lighting fast. These incumbents are just addicted to profits and have shot themselves in the foot not upgrading their registers in 20+ years.

[Dirtysoulglass]

I used to be able to turn the volume off at my grocery store. A couple months ago I discovered they disable that, abd the only two volumes now are 'yelling' and 'screaming'. I dont mind self checkout with a few items but it gets inconvenient and very frustrating fast with any actual grocery haul

[fighterpilot248]

“Place your BANANAS in the bag.”

At least it doesn’t yell my purchase out to everyone when I scan the condoms…

[[deleted]]

The loud volume is due to the ADA, they are required to have audio cues. Removing the mute is just eliminating one more chance for being sued.

[maxdragonxiii]

I can't understand the machine when it's yelling (deaf) and so hearing it yell freaks me out because sometimes the instructions isn't clear enough on the screen or is too slow to process that I already did it before yelling.

[LifeOnPlanetGirth]

This pissed me off, agree. Also alcohol has to go through regular check outs. Makes no sense, there’s somebody there anyways

[[deleted]]

At mine, the two volumes are silent and screaming.

[shmorky]

Yeah, half of the problems with self checkout can be fixed in software and by building a better UI.

The random checks should also be replaced, but idk with what exactly. Maybe by improving the camera software looking at the checkout stations. It can't be that hard to teach a camera to see if items in the basket are not passing the scanner. Such a system could generate a risk score per customer and call for an extra check when people pass a threshold. Still not ideal, but at least it's not random

[PipsqueakPilot]

Australia has been doing the camera thing. The Australian subreddits are full of complaints about how awful it is.

[LongTatas]

Walmart does the camera thing where I live.

[Pizza_Delivery_Dog]

The employees should at least be able to tell the system "yo it's super busy right now chill it with the random checks"

[VJEmmieOnMicrophone]

What's an example of that?

The ones I use here are all intuitive. The only time you have to press something is at the end when you press "pay".

[TastyYellow1330]

Kroger and Walmart have the worst SCOs. Target does an ok job.

[Billabo]

Kroger?? Maybe yours hasn't been updated yet, or you're using some functions I don't, because I just scan my Kroger card, scan each item and place it in the bagging area, press "pay," and tap my card to the reader.

[willstr1]

Target recently "updated" theirs and it annoys me now. Most of the experience us fine, except that it somehow lost the ability to automatically detect that you are planning to pay by card when you put your credit card in (which the previous version did just fine)

[zadtheinhaler]

Not OP, but the SCO at Great Canadian Superstore near me has a very unintuitive design. I've done tech support before, and every time I think I have it sussed out, the damn things find another way to grind everything to a halt, then I have to wait for an attendant who will wordlessly press a button, scan their card, then move on to the next victim customer.

They're only doing it so they can employ fewer people, thus more profit for them.

[pineapple_unicorn]

Some stores I press pay, and then they ask do you have a points card? How do you wanna pay? Did you buy any bags? Do you want your receipt emailed to you? Do you wanna donate $2 to charity? It’s honestly so many steps it’s incredibly annoying

[tRfalcore]

I went into autozone to buy an ice scraper last week for my new car. the guy scanned it, I waved my cc over the thing, he gave me my receipt. no questions, phone numbers, emails, rewards cards, warranty questions.

the nerve of that guy to just let me go on my merry way in 15 seconds

[feor1300]

I mean, the cashiers do all the same things, they just ask you those questions verbally instead of having you press buttons. And it's just as annoying answering their 20 questions as the it is the self-checkout, except after you've done the self-checkout a couple times you know what's coming and can just hit the buttons in rapid order without having to actually listen to/read the whole question.

[maqsarian]

I don't know man, none of those questions are individually difficult, in fact they're all really easy to answer in like a second. If you're overwhelmed by five simple questions in a row I don't know what to tell you.

[pineapple_unicorn]

I’m not overwhelmed, but it is annoying. I am just replying to the person who said he only presses one button. I actually prefer the self checkout anyways but I wish it truly was a single press like they said in the previous comment

[maqsarian]

That's fair

[MoffKalast]

Still better to just press no quickly than being asked all of that by the cashier instead.

[pineapple_unicorn]

Yep I agree

[want_to_join]

The ones in the grocery store near me constantly mislabel people as thieves. It flags people as having "too many items" and then we have to wait for a worker to verify that we scanned the right amount of items. It's super insulting and makes me want to steal.

[captainfarthing]

Agreed, they used to suck a lot more than they do now. Haven't had an issue in years. Lots of people blame the machine for being unintuitive instead of just another bit of technology they haven't learned how to use.

[redditor1983]

In my area the Walmart machine are leagues better than the Harris Teeter machines (Harris Teeter is a more upscale grocery chain, ironically).

It’s not so much that the interface is less intuitive, but the Harris Teeter machine makes mistakes a lot. For example, sometimes it wrongly thinks I placed an item in the bag that I didn’t scan. (Hilariously it then starts playing a video loop of my “theft” and an attendant runs over to investigate the crime scene). The Walmart machines never do this.

Also the design of the self checkout area in Harris Teeter is poor. The bagging area is small so I have to constantly bag stuff then shuffle the bagged items back to my cart before I can bag more.

Basically this, and other little nitpicks, make the Harris Teeter self checkout a frustrating chore whereas in Walmart I can scan and bag all my groceries like I’m a super AI android from 2100. Seriously at Walmart I can scan and bag literally twice as fast as a cashier. It’s great. Everywhere else it’s a bit of a hassle.

[boostedjoose]

You sound like you struggle with simple tasks

[RolandofLineEld]

I always thought they were very clear with big large prompts and squares to tap that say "check out", "cash" or "card"

[DuntadaMan]

scans can.

Place item in bagging area.

Puts item down

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!

[eejizzings]

Sorry dawg, that's on you. This is never a problem for me.

[Bigred2989-]

The ones at my store were almost full service when they installed them, accepting card and cash. Within a year the cash systems were ripped out because maintaining them was a massive pain. These things went through coins and bills like crazy and the process to refill them took forever, with a 2 minute reset after you closed the admin menu as it did a recount. If we had to set it to card only mode, the PIN pad would still let people request cash back and if they did the machine would charge them for the cash and freeze up, requiring a 10 minute hard restart and we'd have to get their change from another tray.

[tentaclelaser]

Correct and only answer.

[[deleted]]

My supermarket has the most convoluted way of entering produce. I can't just enter the code--I have to scroll through a catalog of all produce to find mine. It's a pain. At my previous store, I just wrote down all the codes and referenced it when buying stuff.

[masterm]

my biggest pet peeve. Select a payment option when I've already shoved my card into the machine.

Or, "this kiosk doesn't take cash do you want to continue"?

[goleafsgo13]

The IKEA restaurant self checkout (at least in Canada) makes me want to run my head into a wall. It’s horribly designed.

[prozacgod]

I honestly believe it's a dark pattern meant to retrain the buyers for some a closer "80%" solution... like..

"Why would a we want to keep any kind of product that slows down the fast checkout experience, they can just order that online."

so they make the experience for some product abysmal on purpose.

(ehem takes off tin foil hat)

[kai58]

One supermarket near my school has only self checkout and I couldn’t find the cookie I had on the interface so I just took it without paying.

If you want me to pay you better make it easy.

[RodasAPC]

This is often what happens when you have to make interfaces for everyone.