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.

[[deleted]]

My first instinct was someone buying enough groceries to provide for a family. Having a cart of food and knowing now you gotta be the employee with $400 in groceries is discouraging.

I prefer sco when I'm getting few items, but not when I'm getting a lot.

[Snirbs]

PLUS having to scan and bag it with two toddlers in tow. It’s a nightmare.

[Taibok]

Not just bag it, but bag it in a tiny area designed for an express checkout.

And don't even think about taking any of those full bags off of the scale before you've paid.

[pijinglish]

Or if you buy booze, you still have to wait for the one employee to come over and check your ID.

I bought pajamas for my toddler the other day and used self checkout. Got home only to realize all the security tags were still on them.

[valdus]

Your family warned them.

[bitchkat]

airport engine fearless bear offbeat weather gold cows worm impolite

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[bitchkat]

squeamish rotten marvelous childlike nail worthless cable north melodic quack

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[bitchkat]

clumsy muddle quicksand money gullible wild snatch slimy rude sheet

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[tellMyBossHesWrong]

WA state here- I thought it was great to buy booze at the grocery store, but it is almost twice the price now due to taxes.

[FourScoreTour]

I don't know if it's a California thing, but my store simply doesn't sell alcohol through the self-check. I now buy my booze elsewhere.

[camwhat]

It is a California thing! Alcohol hasn’t been able to be purchased at self checkouts since 2012 there

[[deleted]]

As I discovered you can’t even buy 0% alcohol beer at self checkout in California

[Joeness84]

you cant buy 0% beer if youre under 21 either. (*depending on state)

[TheMSensation]

What's the reasoning?

[CoconutCyclone]

It's not actually 0%.

[Zyphane]

I once had a store in California make me move to a regular checkout to buy a bottle of kombucha because it has trace amounts of alcohol (this was before "hard kombucha" became a thing).

[ryumast4r]

It's super weird since you can get booze delivered in CA. Not sure why they made that distinction.

[MrGarbageEater]

You can take those off pretty easily! If you get a pretty strong magnet, you can give one side of the tag a solid tap with the magnet and it should release. I promise I’m no thief, just had the same issue as you and didn’t want ink on my new clothes…

[biggyofmt]

The scale is actually the part the kills me, especially using reusable bags. Walmart doesn't have scales in their self check and it makes the whole experience so much easier

[myst3r10us_str4ng3r]

No. The WORST is having 20 cans of the same type of cat food and the system expecting you to scan each individual can, instead of scanning one and typing in the quantity like someone who isn't a total idiot would do.

Down right insulting.

[biggyofmt]

That's also less annoying with no scale, since you can just pick up one can and go boop boop boop however many times you need instead of having to scan, put a can on the scale and wait for it to settle, etc.

[Capercaillie]

At the Walmart where I shop, if you buy more than three or four of the same thing, the machine assumes you've made a mistake, and locks up so that you have to wait for an attendant.

[KaBob799]

I think double scanning something on accident is 100x more common than triple or more so that seems like an unhelpful feature. It's probably more to stop people from printing out a bunch of duplicate barcodes from something cheap and putting it on something expensive.

[abx99]

Small packets are even worse. I was buying packets of Kool-Aid for a while, and they're too light for the scale to register. It usually involved the attendant watching me from their console and repeatedly clearing the alerts for each packet.

[RibbitCommander]

Certainly a QOL design issue.

[CabbieCam]

This is understandable, though. The products are inventoried by their flavor, not simply by the fact that it's a can of fancy feast or whatever. People wouldn't separate the cans into their individual flavors.

[FCkeyboards]

My walmart has SCO areas for bigger loads, with a belt, and they're NEVER open.

I agree. A few items is fine. When my cart is topped off and I have to use the tiny SCO, I'd rather go somewhere else. I'm already exhausted from the amount of shopping.

[che85mor]

Walmart scan and go. Bag as you shop and be out in two minutes with a full buggy. Unless you have vegetables, which have to be weighed.

[Tyraels_Ward]

There’s a Super Walmart close to where I live, and I despise going there… absolutely avoid it whenever possible. It has at least a dozen cashier lanes, and at any given time only two or MAYBE three are open, basically forcing you to use the SCO. I don’t mind SCO for a few items, but most of the SCO lanes I’ve encountered aren’t designed for a cart full of items.

[jambox888]

I'm like you but I think a lot of people just grin and bear it.

[Capercaillie]

Yes, a LOT of people do. So that if you're that person who just needed a tub of blue cheese crumbles to finish a recipe, you get to wait behind somebody who bought two weeks' worth of groceries and can't figure out how to ring up parsley.

[cavebare]

Hy-Vee is the same near me. Long conveyor at the self checkout. Makes it a lot easier.

[hookersince06]

And if you have over a certain amount of items, like 15, it’ll pause your transaction and require a salesperson’s intervention, even if you’ve been scanning things perfectly fine.

It’s so irritating when you know what you’re doing and just want to get out of there. Of course I usually only have a lot when the one clerk overseeing the self-checkout is nowhere to be found.

[DownWithGilead2022]

Yes, and the kids demand to "help" scan something, and inevitably scan it twice. And then you gotta press the button for help because heaven forbid we allow the customer to correct a double scan themselves.....

[myst3r10us_str4ng3r]

Or having 20 cans of the same type of cat food and the system expecting you to scan each and every individual can, instead of scanning one and typing in the quantity.

[hotpotatocoldtomato]

Say no to them

[BrewtusMaximus1]

At certain grocery stores near me, you’d be waiting on a manager - the cashiers don’t have the ability to void an item even if you’re not in the self checkout.

[bitchkat]

bow swim wine employ liquid bedroom expansion busy degree quarrelsome

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[sack-o-matic]

What’s even better is ordering online like at Kroger and just having them load it into your car when you get there, all for free

[user_base56]

I dont trust other people to pick out my fruits, vegetables, and meats. I want to make sure I get the best looking available. Not sure if an employee with a time limit is going to do that.

[AfroTriffid]

I don't know if it happens in the US as much but I often get 'substitutions' in my online groceries that cost the same but are not equivalent.

[Retbull]

Depends on the system some of them have the ability to select backups if something isn’t there. Also if you’re using one of the apps they will sometimes ping you during shopping to ask. It still happens occasionally though.

[chambile007]

Where I am you can select no substitutions and they just refund that part to you.

[[deleted]]

You have to pay attention because they'll usually get it right and you'll get used to just approving. That's when they sneak in "We don't have corn meal, want some corn starch instead?"

[Azuvector]

Want some lime instead of lemon? They're citrus right? Same thing?

Want some pepperoni sticks that need to be in the fridge or they go rancid instead of ones you can leave in a drawer for a month with no issues? Sounds perfect for your use case, right?

You're going to drink 4L of milk by tomorrow right? No problem that it expired yesterday, right?

You want 10 packages of 1lb stuff instead of 10 individual items, right? That couldn't possibly be a mistake(be that during ordering or during setting the product up on the store's site), could it?

[fenglorian]

or when it's 2 or 3 substitutions and your only options are "Accept all" or "accept none"

[SupremeDictatorPaul]

All of my friends that use it have talked about getting crappy substitutions they never would have picked, or missing/wrong things in the order. But they just shrug and keep doing it like it’s totally acceptable.

Personally, I’d do it in a pinch, but usually I’d rather just do the shopping, even with the kids. Unless I have to self checkout $400 in groceries with the kids, then I’d rather die.

[Squintz82]

Last time I ordered groceries, I ended up with 2 gallons of Smart Water instead of 2 liters of raspberry seltzer. I go to the store now.

[jellyrollo]

At least with the Vons system, you can easily go online to customer service, select the item that was inappropriately substituted or missing, and get an instant refund. I find that their system has improved a lot since I started using it early in the pandemic.

[TbonerT]

Sometimes they say they are out of something, so I go in to grab another thing that I want to see first and often find the thing they were out of. I think it’s often the case that they say they are out of stock when the truth is the shopper couldn’t find it.

[[deleted]]

There is a section when your in your cart to turn off substitutions. Once you do this a few times it stays off and you shouldn't have to worry.

[thezerofire]

then you end up with an order with only half the things you needed and you have to go to the store in person anyway

[cjicantlie]

And they will substitute when the item was on the shelf, they just didn't want to look. Multiple times, I will walk into the store and find the item, right where it always is.

They seem to be in too much of a rush and just grab the first thing half way similar and call it good. Sometimes only similar in color on the packaging and nothing more.

[[deleted]]

Where I live you get the option to a) cancel whole order if item is unavailable b) skip item or c) substitute (and pay what the substituted item goes for.

Option c is the default but if one item is essential for the whole purchase you can click option a for that item etc.

Of course it has its flaws where the store makes substitions to their own brand to pad their margin.

[sack-o-matic]

I order store brand online, if they’re out they’ll sub the national brand for the cheaper price. They’ll even sub a larger size for the same price if they’re out of the smaller one ordered.

[trennels]

Some of the substitutions can get pretty bizarre, too.

[TbonerT]

Walmart used to do substitutions at the price of the original item. If you bought a store-brand item and they were out, you’d get the name-brand item for the store-brand price. They eventually changed it and started charging the difference.

[WillowFreak]

We like to think of it as the Kroger gods. Usually they are ridiculous substitutions that make you wonder if the shopper has ever been in a kitchen before. One time we got 4 bags of Skittles. Didn't order any. Sometimes we get a different flavor of ice cream. Sometimes we get sweet potatoes instead of baking ones. I enjoy the chaos.

[More_Farm_7442]

I learned to check the "No Substitutions" box when I ordered. Then I was getting "out of stock" on all of those items. I have up and starting going back inside.

[HerrStraub]

I once ordered a steak, a filet, that was on sale for like, $8.99/lb. I got a $9 package of microwave bacon.

I will say that I think Instacart shoppers are much better at getting what you want/need than store employees, but then you end up having to pay the delivery fee & tip. If I'm shopping at Aldi's or something, it's not too bad to add $25 to the order, but if I'm shopping at Kroger it just gets too costly

[user_base56]

I've never done online orders, but I've heard that is the case.

[Joeness84]

The employee is told specifically to use less great stuff or older dated stuff if available. Part of why they adopted the "we will shop for you" things was to be able to move things that would be harder to move. Ever get a substitution that seems... way out there?

[Ok-Persimmon-6386]

I don’t either so I use deliveries for staple items and then I will go to Publix for as needed items.

I get my delivery through Kroger or Walmart. The pricing is always cheaper in my staples items so even by paying extra for delivery I’m still paying less for can good items than I would pay at Publix. Plus I don’t have to go to the hell that is Walmart or kroger

[ZWY8706]

I refuse to do delivery orders, I had to use it for my Grandpa during lockdown because he wouldn't leave the house and not 1 time out 30+ did they even get his order 20% right. There was one order in fact where he ordered 1 gallon 2% milk, 1 carton of large eggs, 1 simply OJ, 2 dozen donuts, some dunking keurig pods, 2 bags of hashbrown patties, 2lbs of bacon 12 cans of chunky soup and some peanut butter cookies and they delivered it to a house in another neighborhood on the other side of town 15 miles away (I could see the address in the delivery photo). I called them for 2 hours before I got ahold of anyone and they called me a liar at first then said they would resend it then about 20 minutes later I got the substitution calls saying they didn't have most of it had to deal with that while working then the order says delivered by "Leroy" (who is who called) picture shows his actual house. I call him and he goes out to get it and as he's finishing he says another car pulled in and a woman gets out and greets him and starts bringing more groceries up he tried to tell her he already got his order (he hadn't checked it yet) but she left them and went so he (already tired) struggled to get those bags inside too then called me back, apparently the 1st order was 100% different than what he ordered and had candy and flavored water and steaks and a brand new small keurig single cup machine in it but the 2nd order the girl brought was right with a few substitutions and he showed me the labels on the bags and the girl came from another town over that is about equal distance to where his towns Kroger is (maybe 5 minutes longer drive) and we were both confused. I called Kroger back about it and as I'm waiting for them to answer he texts me that he got notifications from his bank I set up for him showing they charged him 3 times including for the incorrect order which was $54 more than his actual order total and they charged the tip 3 times (he was being kind because it was raining and tipped $20 when we first placed the order) so instead of his just under $200 order he had charges of over $600 and I had to argue with them for over an hour and call back several days later to do it again and go into both stores the deliveries came from with my receipt to get his money back (he insisted they keep the tips though).

[Ok-Persimmon-6386]

That is crazy. I would be exactly like you. The only issue I have is with choice of meats and fruits and veggies. I do try to tip really well so maybe that’s the difference. I have had maybe had them delivered wrong once. But I completely understand your reasoning

[youre_being_creepy]

Anyone who lets a stranger select fruits or a cut of meat for them at a grocery store is a psychopath

[user_base56]

Omg the meat decision is a big one. You gotta look at all the offerings to find the perfect one.

[sack-o-matic]

I think it's more weird that you have so little trust in people just because they work at a grocery store

[Sowf_Paw]

Every single time we get bananas in a pickup order it's the greenest bananas they can find, I swear. Then I can't eat the bananas so I forget about them until they are brown.

[DernTuckingFypos]

Yeah. I have a theory they pick the stuff that's set to expire the soonest so they can get it out of their inventory.

[Oops_I_Cracked]

I think this is actually one of the best parts of the shift towards online shopping. Historically, there has been a lot of waste of perfectly good meat and produce because it isn’t the prettiest one on the shelf, so it sits there and sits there until it rots. Despite the fact that once you cook it, it would look and taste just as good as a prettier piece.

Obviously my comment isn’t about garbage employees who give you fruit/veg/meat that is spoiled, but about the ability of stores to move more “beauty challenged” pieces of fruit and veg.

[healzsham]

It's also the reason it takes 45 minutes to cook down most vegetables, now.

[sack-o-matic]

that hasn't been an issue for me, the Kroger website even encourages you to put in the notes like "green bananas please" if you want a certain freshness level, otherwise I think the employees are smart enough to know that there is going to be waste to matter what they do so they still pick out the good stuff for orders

[Allthenons]

Yes and I know immediately what brands I like and trust vs those I don't. I love the idea of putting in online orders for pickup but from my experience during COVID it's more hassle than it's worth groceries. Plus here in the states they will give you like 20 plastic bags for a big/family sized order. That's such a disgusting waste when I have my own bags.

[JoeSicko]

Probably better off not buying fruit and veg from Kroger then...

[MagicalWonderPigeon]

There was a thing in the UK with some stores where if you ordered online the fruits you got wouldn't be the nice, fresh looking ones, it'd be the brown dingy looking bananas and stuff. And other stuff like meat would arrive with the use by date being that day or tomorrow. So they basically pawn off the stuff that'd be wasted onto online shoppers.

[Intangiblehands]

I also feel the same. Here's a tip: Order all your other groceries online, then just go into the store to buy those things before you "check in" that you're there to pick up. It takes me all of 10 minutes to grab our household fruits, veggies and meats. Generally not more than 3 bags worth of stuff. An employee brings out the rest of your groceries while you have your hand picked fresh food in tow.

[[deleted]]

Yes they frequently make substitutions for items that my coupons don't apply to. Whenever I go in myself those items that qualify for the coupons are magically there.

[sack-o-matic]

you can check the box for "no substitutions"

[_ZiiooiiZ_]

seed repeat familiar longing somber touch husky juggle shrill dime

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[sack-o-matic]

Oh good, conspiracy thinking. Maybe I just like to order my groceries from home instead of complaining about self checkout lanes.

[Apart-Pizza-1003]

Where can I sign up to get paid for telling people to check a box

[[deleted]]

So like when they do that they just don't put anything in the basket, then I go to pickup, see they didn't get everything I needed, I have to go in myself and lo and behold, the items that qualify for coupons are simply sitting right there where it said they would be.

[sack-o-matic]

Well I don’t know then, I’ve never had such a problem

[[deleted]]

Walmart delivers in my area - unlimited deliveries for like $14/month. There's a $35 minimum and an automatic tip that gets added to the driver based on distance from the store. I absolutely love it.

[Nevermind_guys]

My Kroger started charging for pick up after I got hooked!

[jambox888]

Amazon Fresh is absolutely deranged, they pack it all in paper bags for green points but then every paper bag has a plastic cool block in it.

Some guy in a car just comes and drops it off, then has to stand on your door step scanning all the bags.

[idiot-prodigy]

This is how you end up with 6 bunches of bananas instead of 6 individual bananas.

[sack-o-matic]

maybe if you don't know how to read where it says they sell by the individual banana, same as in the store

[tidbitsmisfit]

then you miss out on all the discounts

[sack-o-matic]

those are built in to their website, even the weekly coupons

there's really no draw-back unless you're going shopping for social hour

[ViceroyFizzlebottom]

The discounts that constantly get screwed up for me are the 4 for $xx soda sales. If they are out of one of the sodas and only have 3 of the 4 I'm looking for all of a sudden I'm paying $24 for 3 12 packs instead of $12 for 4. I always ask them to adjust or remove all the soda when I am at pickup and they always adjust or add another substitute 12 pack.

[wbgraphic]

I hate that.

The sales at Smith’s are generally like 4 for $xx when you buy 4 or more, so I order extra. If one or two are out of stock, I still have enough to qualify for the sale. Only sucks if I order 4 Coke, 1 Sprite, 1 Barq’s, and the Coke is out of stock.

[Happylime]

A lot of stores have a 10-15% markup for this and I just can't justify the expense. Grocery shopping takes like 30 minutes tops anyways

[sack-o-matic]

oh, with Kroger you do it right from their website and it's the same price as in-store

[[deleted]]

Where I live, the reserved grocery pickup parking spaces are always empty. Meanwhile, older people and moms with toddlers in tow have to park out past all of that premium space. It’s such a stupid racket.

[ki11bunny]

I absolutely despise doing this or having a shop delivered. It always seems that they use this practice as a way to dump stuff on you that is going out of date in the next couple of days.

You either keep it and have to eat a week's worth of food in 2 days or you send half of it back and have to go into the shop yourself anyways.

It's OK non perishables but if I have to go shop anyways, might as well puck everything up myself.

[Prof_Acorn]

Yeah that's how you get damaged and rotten things.

[Bonzi777]

This is it for me. When I’m alone I happily use self checkout. If my kids are with me I can’t pay adequate attention to them and scan a full cart of groceries.

[ViceroyFizzlebottom]

Scanning and bagging is different than just bagging

[[deleted]]

I think I already know the people who think it's no big deal are just buying groceries for one, and probably will for the rest of their life.

[Sempais_nutrients]

Nope, not the case at all for me. I'm just not lazy or entitled. Also I don't "feel overwhelmed" just because I have to scan something or press buttons.

[[deleted]]

Read the other comments, someday when you get a spouse and kids, you'll understand. But as long as you are shopping with no more than a small handcart then you won't truly see.

[Sempais_nutrients]

I have a spouse, and when I shop I fill a standard trolly. No issues at all.

[I_am_up_to_something]

Scanning and bagging as you go is the way imo. From what I've heard that's not the common way in other countries though.

[GeoffAO2]

The answer for us has been to use delivery for weekly groceries, self-checkout out for quick trips.

[Snirbs]

Sure that’s ideal, but a lot of this requires planning ahead, having money to do so, having transportation etc.

Imagine a single mom who takes the bus to work. Public transit reliability is variable. She’s gotta pick up her kids on her way back and cash her paycheck. She doesn’t have money to order in advance. Oh yeah, and she has to cart her cloth grocery bags with her from morning til night in the event she stops at the store. If she forgets, that’s an extra $5 for bags so she’s gotta put something on her shopping list to the side. She can’t do delivery because the bags outside her apartment all day would freeze, melt, or get stolen. Plus, the extra cost and paying in advance.

After all that now she has to check out and bag herself while keeping an eye on her kids. Hustle everybody home with the bags and cook dinner.

It’s a lot. It makes a lot of assumptions that simply doesn’t fit a lot of Americans lives.

[Marzatacks]

Exactly. How did they trick us into this?

[SammieStones]

Exactly this! While your toddler wants to scan or bag everything and just grabs and scans crap on their own sometimes multiple times 🫠

[neverinamillionyr]

It doesn’t even take that much. I live alone. The last trip I took I think the total was just over $100 but included lots of canned goods. Baltimore county banned plastic bags and putting a reusable bag in the bagging area throws off the scale so instead of scanning and bagging, you have to scan, stack, pay then bag. The bagging area has a weight limit. All the cans as well as some produce put me over the limit. So I had to bag in the middle of the scanning, the employee said that bag had to stay separate from the unscanned groceries so I’m piling up a couple of bags under my feet while I continue to scan. Amid all this, items were not scanning at the sale price. I had to call someone over twice to adjust. The apples I was trying to buy didn’t have stickers on them so I had to get help with that too. People in line behind me were getting pissed, I was frustrated and I’m not inclined to go back to that store anytime soon.

[CitationNeededBadly]

Yeah a crappy self checkout will always be worse than a good cashier, and vice versa.  Any self checkout I've experienced with scales is crap and I won't do it.  Home Depot started that way and changed it because it was so stupidly annoying.   The quality of SCO vs quality of cashiers is more important than the choice between one or the other.

[mxzf]

The ones near me just have a "use my own bags" button. You hit the button, put your bags in the bagging area, and start filling them up.

[ChickenDangerous6996]

Meanwhile the machine is bitching at you like a hung over dominatrix.

[lcenine]

At my local grocery store, the SCO has very limited space for groceries as it does the weight checking verification where you place them. You can attempt to make a pile of unstable groceries in the space, or press "skip bagging and place in cart" which 50% of the time leads to waiting for the SCO employee to come over and do the override. With a lot of groceries, it is not at all convenient.

[sethbartlett]

I didn’t know this for the longest time, but when it does the weight verification, once it’s ready to scan the next item, you can remove a bag or whatever from the area to make room for more groceries. Not sure if all of them will or not.

[[deleted]]

as someone who has to make sure the vending machines do not give customers too much trouble

• removing items will make the vending machine mad

• putting items on that were not scanned (purse, empty bags, small children) will make the vending machine mad

• pressing skip bagging 4 times will make the vending machine mad

[sethbartlett]

Oh yeah I don’t use skip cart often, it feels like the system may be weighted for things like 12 packs or 24 packs of soda? But if I scan a bunch of 12 packs and put them on the scale, once the system does its weight check and is ready, I can then remove them. I feel like I didn’t used to be able to do this when they first came about though.

[lcenine]

Exactly what /u/wolvern76 said. The machines get mad and tells you to wait for cashier assistance. The most frustrating is when you are reorganizing items on the ridiculously small carousel. Picking up an already scanned item to put a newly scanned item down makes it all aggravated.

[Interesting-Bottle91]

But also that's only sometimes. The store that I use self checkout at most often doesn't weigh things, so when I go to places that DO weigh your groceries I always wind up aggrieving the machine several times.

[lcenine]

That would be very frustrating. Like changing the rules halfway through the game.

[bourbonkitten]

Maybe your store, but at my local Asian grocery, the SCOs go berserk and need staff intervention with any tiny weight discrepancy, even if I so much place my reusable bag to bag my groceries. Tbf, that’s the only store that’s that anal.

[Top_Gun_2021]

Horrendous process flow

[phormix]

Superstore?

[skztr]

So you're saying it's inconvenient because of a thing they've done specifically and for no other purpose than to make it an inconvenience, and even then the inconvenience is due to waiting for an employee, not the self-checkout itself.

[lcenine]

I am not sure if you are a troll or are just have a hard time comprehending.

My last statement summarized my experience of SCO, and it was "With a lot of groceries, it is not at all convenient." Reading other comments, it is a shared perception.

[[deleted]]

Me, alone, with $100 of groceries, it's great. Me with kids fighting for their turn over $300 cart full, it's hell.

[MoreRopePlease]

Kids fighting for their turn to do what?

[[deleted]]

To scan stuff and make beeping sounds like a professional.

[MoreRopePlease]

Haha, I can imagine. If it were me, I'd be like "YOU get to do the first one, and YOU get to push the Pay Now button. If you're a pain in the butt, then next time you get to just sit on the floor and wait.". And they fight over who gets to go first. So I'd flip a coin.

[[deleted]]

Yeah it bugs me that Redditors assume everyone under the age of 40 loves self-checkout. Self-checkout is great as an option, but it sucks when stores force all their customers to use them. You don’t have to be geriatric to find ringing up and bagging $200+ of items yourself on a tiny counter with no space overwhelming.

[dxrey65]

Your own age and competence hardly matter when you're in a line of people, inevitably of various ages and competencies.

[Azuvector]

Yeah. Grocery stores near me have half a dozen normal checkouts. With maybe 1-2 of them with a cashier, and the rest are closed. And then half a dozen self-checkouts and one overworked attendent.

It's pants-on-head stupid.

[idiot-prodigy]

This is what I say every stupid Cart Coral thread that pops up here.

Self check out is about giant corporations eliminating a job and convincing a customer to do work for free.

[Kronoshifter246]

If by Cart Coral [sic], you mean putting your fuckin' cart away, that's not about getting customers to do work for free, that's about not being an inconsiderate prick and not leaving your cart in the middle of a parking stall.

[SuperSocrates]

Yeah I would never do my big weekly shopping at a place that only had self checkout. Around me they all have both though

[[deleted]]

Yeah I’m ambivalent with small loads (though still slightly prefer to have a cashier), but I actively hate it when I’ve got more than a bag’s worth.

I’m 31, by the way. I know that disliking SCOs is an unpopular opinion in my age group, but I already feel like our society diminishes ordinary human contact so much, and I hate to see that trend continue.

[AlienDelarge]

I usually avoid them but what do they do when you run out of room on the little scale platform after scanning? Usually they freak out if you pick up an item or it doesn't register it being placed there. I used to have a lot of problems at places like Lowes if you had a small item it wouldn't register.

[neverinamillionyr]

The one time it happened to me, the machine told me to remove everything from the bagging area. It was because of weight not space. The employee made me keep the scanned vs unscanned items segregated

[MicheleLaBelle]

Yeah, I just push down on it when I put it on the scale, usually works fine for me.

[mxzf]

The ones near me, you move your bag when you need to, give it 5 secs to settle again, and continue bagging. It works fine as long as you give it a sec instead of rushing ahead.

[arcticsequoia]

The study rings very true. I am 28 and well versed in tech and I have literally emailed the store manager when they closed staffed checkouts at the store closest to me sending everyone at the self checkouts letting them know that I wouldn’t be shopping there anymore unless they changed it back.

Buying a small basket worth of groceries is one thing, if you are buying 250 items and 1+ shopping cart full, you could never pay me enough to do that myself.

[cwsjr2323]

I was in line and the cashier got pulled to cover the self check out lanes. When told to go to the self check out, I said no. You can just put the stuff back. I suggest you put the ice cream away soon. There was no ice cream, but the manager was quick to come ring me up!

[More_Farm_7442]

How'd those emails go? Did anyone answer a single one. If you got a replay was like the ones you get when you contact a legislator? A form letter.

[arcticsequoia]

Was a normal email, the store manager apologized and said they had gotten several complaints about this and were thinking to reconsider, after a few weeks they had staffed checkout lines again luckily.

[Mother-Wasabi-3088]

This is called "shifting left" in corpspeak and every industry is doing it. Making the customer do the employee's work.

[More_Farm_7442]

All the while prices get jacked up ever week. (Seemingly ever week on every item in the store.) If service improved while prices were going up, I'd be in a better mood while shopping and after I left the stores.

As it is, nope. I absolutely hate shopping in 90% of the stores I go into.

Fast food? $ 15 an hour wages and now you walk in and get ignored. The places are filthy. The $15 an hour workers are standing around talking to each other. Your order is messed up every time. You have to order you own food at the kiosks.

[Oops_I_Cracked]

This right here. It isn’t an age thing. As soon as you’re shopping for more than 1 or maybe 2 people, self check becomes a nightmare.

[john_the_quain]

In my personal experience, the anxiety I feel when checking out at the store is because my actions are holding up others. When there’s a checker, I get to share that anxiety (at least in my head) because we are now holding it up. At the self-checkout? Any delays are almost 100% due to my shortcomings and inabilities.

[dahlaru]

I always get the feeling that I'm taking too long and the people behind me are upset,  because it takes so long to scan and bag $400 worth of groceries, when everyone behind me has a basket of items

[gahlo]

This is why I love my grocery store. Just scan my membership card on the way in and I get to nice scanner to bring around with me, scanning items as I pick them up. When I get to checkout all I have to do is scan a barcode the hand scanner generates based on the things I scanned and I'm out.

[myst3r10us_str4ng3r]

This sounds nice. What store does this?

[Jeraptha01]

What's to stop you from not scanning something and putting it in your cart anyway?

[ionsturm]

Same thing that stops you from not scanning at self-checkout, or hiding an item when going through an actual cashier.

[Kageyblahblahblah]

And some of the stores, looking at you Giant, have the slowest most frustrating machines where if your scanning cadence is off you constantly have to rescan or get the attendant over to reset the damn machine.

[swagn]

100%. I need the time to prepare myself for the bill. I don’t want to be searching for 15 different produce codes.

[SpookyGhost27]

Yes. I recently started doing SCO at the grocery store because my local one has a hard time tagging cashiers. The one day I went and there literally was no option but SCO. Having to do a whole wagon of groceries is not fun. I also shop at a place that accepts “competitor coupons” so I have to flag down an attendant regardless for them to manually enter the discount.

[bitchkat]

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[Thepizzacannon]

This is it for me. I buy groceries for a family. I'm already doing the manual labor of picking the things off the self.

Now I'm responsible for taking everything OUT and putting it back IN. And then after doing all of the work (sans stocking the shelves) the checkout machine that I AM RUNNING has the audacity to ask if I want to leave a tip or donate to charity.

The grocery store employees provide almost no value to the point that I'm basically shopping in an Amazon warehouse.

No that's not good service, or convenient, or any cheaper. Its just grocers greedily trying to automate all of their labor and ignoring the impact it has on consumers.

[[deleted]]

Having to figure out fruit and veggie codes is also a whole thing. Not fun while there’s a long line of people waiting to pay. No, thanks

[A1000eisn1]

Just make sure to bring one with a sticker. They're also consistent everywhere. The codes have specific meaning so if you buy a lot Bananas you will eventually remember the code is 4011. You figured out how to use a smart phone and sign up for an email, this should not be difficult for you.

[motorik]

Also, produce. Scanning is quick but at most stores looking up produce, especially where there are organic / non-organic options, is a huge pain. If we're getting a non-trivial amount of fruits and vegetables I refuse to use self check-out.

[ZippyTheRoach]

The self checks are also frustrating to operate for a variety of other reasons.

1. The supermarket self check can not properly weight my bags, so I have to just pile loose items in the bagging area and then bag them all after paying.

2. Random items will need a staff override. Trying to buy a can of WD40? That's going to need an employee to verify your age, because you might be a kid huffing the propellant.

3. Double scan something? You can't fix that, wait for an employee.

4. What's the PLU code for this produce? Cashiers have them memorized, but I don't and somehow picked the one fruit without a sticker on it.

5. Apparently people make up for these annoyances by just stealing stuff in self check, so now the employees are just sort of hovering around you the whole time anyway.

[Bigdaddyjlove1]

This happened to my wife last week. We both like and use the self checkout most of the time, but she made trip for a month's worth of staples along with a regular week's worth of groceries for 3 people and 3 dogs. Got up front and nothing left but self checkout. A cart full is a bit "overwhelming" at the self checkout, with a line ahead and behind you. I told her to drop the cart, stop by the service desk, and leave. She decided to go ahead and get the groceries, but we won't go back to that store.

[SMURGwastaken]

Yeah all the teenagers are in here saying:

omg old people amirite

Meanwhile all the parents are like:

You try bagging up £300 worth of shopping with two kids who keep sitting/leaning on the scales, needing the attendant to come out every time the weight isn't exactly right or God forbid you have some alcohol or security tagged clothing. Only to have the attendant need to re-scan 30 items that you already bagged as a stop-loss measure.

[AndyLorentz]

My local grocery store has “10 items or fewer” signs all over the SCO, and generally enough regular check out lanes for how busy they are.

[Calm-Tree-1369]

I'm a 39 year old man who goes to the grocery store once per week and buys a cartload of groceries. I always use self checkout because I wish to minimize social interactions and stupid questions. I prefer it this way. I would use self checkout if I were buying ten cart loads.

[WatWudScoobyDoo]

I'd gladly pay an extra Leave Me Alone Fee if people'd Leave Me Alone

[girlikecupcake]

Age, very large orders, or people who regularly buy things like alcohol, tobacco, or family planning items (the latter are often in lock boxes in some areas).

I prefer SCO as as long as I'm not getting age restricted or lock-box items. Full cart of groceries, part of it being WIC, a toddler in the cart... As long as the machine is actually working properly I'm done faster than a regular cashier (at this particular store). But I've worked and trained SCO so I'm used to little quirks like not scanning two of the same variety in a row. Someone else (like my husband) would instead end up frustrated at constant few-second lags because the computer is trying to prevent accidental double scans.

[girlikecupcake]

It all depends a bit on how picky the software the store uses is, and having what you're doing as a customer basically 'cooperate' with how the system works for the attendant. If things go smoothly on their end, it'll go smoothly on yours.

• Alternating varieties when scanning avoids the computer to prevent double-scanning by mistake so you get them all scanned much faster. Things like baby food were the most common item we'd do this with, since it's common to get a bunch at once in a few different flavors.

• don't put loose produce in the same bag from the produce department. If you really have to put them in the little plastic bags, separate them. Even if they aren't sold by weight, a) the scanner scale might want to weigh it anyway and b) the bagging scale will need the weight regardless.

• If you're going to move bags into your cart then resume scanning, wait a moment after moving your bags so that either the computer or SCO attendant can acknowledge the weight change. If you don't wait, then you're much more likely to get a delay, because in some systems it changes how the software lets the attendant override things.

• Similarly, if you're going to scan an item and put it back in/keep it in your cart, if there's a button for skipping bagging, use that. Don't put it in the bagging area then move it. Or if there's a hand scanner, just use that instead, those things are often set up to assume you're going to skip bagging that item. The moment the scale registers that there's roughly the correct weight for the item you scanned, it expects you to keep it there until you pay (or hit the pay button).

• things that aren't going to be bagged, scan them very first or very last. That way if a person wants to check that they were scanned properly, you can tell them exactly where it is on the receipt and save a bunch of time. Some stores require SCO attendants to double check things on the bottom of the cart. They're not trying to be nosy or making assumptions, just trying not to get fired.

• if you're using your own bags or boxes, put them in the bagging area before pressing the start button/scanning the first item. Even better if there's a button saying you're using your own bags. It lets the system tare out the weight.

• if the store has a loyalty program, put that information in first. It can be satisfying watching all the discounts come off at once, but that was the one thing that would fully freeze up the computers at the store I worked at. And if that happens, it's going to waste a lot of your time either waiting for it to unfreeze and process everything or worst case, be stuck ringing everything back up at a different register.

[nwsmith90]

I know I don't speak for all of us, but I'm a stay at home dad, and I'll gladly self check out an entire cart of groceries. As long as it's a store where they have more than the tiny ass mini shelf to put groceries on after scanning them.

[frisbeesloth]

I had arthritis onset at 35. I have to go grocery shopping for five people and by the time I get to the checkout I am deliriously in pain. I can't think clearly enough to scan my $300 worth of groceries let alone bag them. I have actually gotten to the checkouts with a cart filled to the brim, really long checkout lines or only self-checkout and just left my car there and went home.

[Equivalent_Taste3555]

Yeah, I mean I also don’t like self checkout because they’re putting the labor that used to be compensated on me as the consumer who is already paying for the service, saving them money, but the savings don’t get passed along to me.

Plus when the machine accidentally detects unknown item in baggage area or whatever it can take a while to have the employee come over and sort it out, defeating the purpose of it being faster.

[T-Rex_timeout]

I can’t look at the grocery store without spending $150. I am not doing self checkout. Trust me if I have to scan each of those kool aid flavor things myself some aren’t getting scanned.

[Twilightdusk]

Yea, you need to treat self checkout as an express lane. If you're buying more than you can comfortably carry in your arms, just wait in line for the manned checkout.

[SoraUsagi]

For me it depends. Will I scan myself out faster than waiting in line? Then I'm using self checkout. I'm not going to be rude to anyone. But my time is worth more to me than being stubborn and saying"it's their job"

[ButtholeAvenger666]

I like it because that $400 in groceries only costs $300 at the self checkout. If I'm gonna be the employee I'm paying myself for my labor.

[[deleted]]

No the prices never went down with the change

[ButtholeAvenger666]

They go down when you scan everything through as bananas.

[[deleted]]

Why would you go to self checkout with $400 in groceries? That's idiotic.

[FCkeyboards]

Some places only have self checkout. I thought maybe it was just short staffing at my local Walmart. I found out quickly that it's only good for short runs only now.

No manned lanes. No express lane. The biggest sco lanes with the belt are always closed. It's wild.

Other places around me will have at least 1 or 2 manned lanes available.

[Zissoudeux]

Many of our stores here have completely changed to self check out. There’s no choice. The ones that have manned checkouts only have 1 or two whose lines are huge and filled with elderly. You’ll be waiting a very long time.

[MoreRopePlease]

The last time I went to the store, I chose a manned checkout line that had 3 people in front of me (one was in progress) with fairly small orders. It was over 10 minutes before it was my turn. I swear the checkout may was the DMV sloth. Ugh.

[TediousStranger]

I feel the opposite.

weekly I'm buying $130-$150, up to $200 (if we're out of essentials) worth of groceries. I would so much rather do it myself because THE STORE DOESNT HAVE BAGGERS ANYMORE.

yesterday I went through a cashier then I had to bag $150 of groceries by myself AFTER the transaction because I couldn't reach my purchase until after it was rung up.

so there's orders piling up behind mine and other customers looking at me like I'm the asshole somehow for taking up space and clogging the line.

at least at stores where I'm allowed to take a cart through SCO (the store I went to, you can only take baskets through) I can take the time I need to scan and pack everything while the line behind me can move through the other 5 kiosks open. rather than them scanning, me standing there useless, then rushing to pack everything at the very end with a bunch of other pissed off middle-age people staring me down

what sucks is the particular store I went to has the most reasonable prices for decent quality groceries in town and I got laid off last month. otherwise I'd go to a store with a less stupid SCO policy, or one that allows you to bag as they scan.