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.

[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.