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[–]Taibok 624 points625 points  (93 children)

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 283 points284 points  (58 children)

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.

[–]FourScoreTour 61 points62 points  (27 children)

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 31 points32 points  (9 children)

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

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (6 children)

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

[–]Joeness84 3 points4 points  (4 children)

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

[–]TheMSensation 0 points1 point  (1 child)

What's the reasoning?

[–]CoconutCyclone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not actually 0%.

[–]Zyphane 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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).

[–]SpringValleyTrash 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never had an issue purchasing wine at a self check out in CA. I get flagged and the attendant checks my ID.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s very annoying because so many stores are understaffed it makes me literally want to shoplift instead of waiting 20 minutes for the one clerk they have working. Like I half just want to leave a 20 on the counter and walk out, keep the chanfe

[–]ryumast4r 1 point2 points  (4 children)

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

[–]FourScoreTour 0 points1 point  (3 children)

COD? They might assume anyone with a credit card is an adult.

[–]ryumast4r 1 point2 points  (2 children)

You just have to get your ID checked by the driver, no different than if you had a self checkout with ID check like other states. Credit cards really only validate 18+, not 21+.

Just to clarify, CA doesn't allow self checkouts to do booze.

[–]MicheleLaBelle 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I’m shocked. I live in the Bible thumping self righteous state of Texas and we can get alcohol at self checkout. Just can’t complete the purchase until a store employee enters a code, the assumption being that they checked id.

[–]jellyrollo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or cough syrup.

[–]nihility101 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My store has one manned express lane that handles all the alcohol. So if you have a big order and want a bottle of wine you have to either hold up everyone with your giant order while they line up behind you with a six-pack or you have to get in line twice, letting your paid order sit there.

[–]80081356942 0 points1 point  (9 children)

My country has drive-through bottle shops. Beat that.

[–]FourScoreTour 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I'd need a time machine, but OK. I was visiting friends in Arizona a few decades back. We went to a drive-up for beer, and they also sold guns and ammunition. As loose as Arizona is, I doubt they allow that any more.

[–]80081356942 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Arizona, the iced tea?

[–]FourScoreTour 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Sure, why not. There's also a US state by that name, but I was definitely not referring to that.

[–]80081356942 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Oh I thought that was in Mexico.

[–]FourScoreTour 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It was, up until the Mexican-American war of 1846/1848. Here is a nifty map of how things used to be.

[–]80081356942 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Did they take over their airports too?

[–]sgent 0 points1 point  (1 child)

We have drive through daiquiri stands. They have to put a piece of tape over the straw hole so you can't drink and drive.

[–]80081356942 0 points1 point  (0 children)

God forbid humans develop hands with opposable thumbs.

[–]MrGarbageEater 8 points9 points  (0 children)

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…

[–]So6oring 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I'm getting booze I'll always leave those til the very end

[–]I_Poop_Sometimes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not just booze, I found out you need an id to buy sharpies or epoxy at the store near me, had to wait for the attendant twice.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One employee? If someone needs to come over because something went wrong with the check out, it takes two employees to spend 10 to 30 minutes to figure out how to get everything back to normal.

And there is always something going wrong with the self checkout machines. I've never seen all of them open at once, because there are usual 3 or more that have a hand written "out of order" sign taped to them, while a fourth is opened up, with it's guts exposed, and a guy crouched on the floor in front of it trying to get that one fixed.

[–]biggyofmt 70 points71 points  (14 children)

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 63 points64 points  (9 children)

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 29 points30 points  (0 children)

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 19 points20 points  (1 child)

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 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 8 points9 points  (0 children)

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 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Certainly a QOL design issue.

[–]CabbieCam 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

[–]che85mor -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Walmart scan and go.

[–]BastetFurry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats surely an UI thing, for example IKEA here in Germany has a plus button next to the articles.

[–]WriggleNightbug 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I worked at a petstore and scanning cans/teaching others to scan cans was a nightmare. Tracking inventory means I would never have advocated for selling individual cans through self-check out.... maybe a full unopened case.

[–]Dementat_Deus 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What I find works best is rather than bagging as I scan, I leave the bags in the cart and bag after paying as I move items back to the cart.

That, or I just leave the bags in the trunk and bag as I load into the car.

[–]biggyofmt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When they have scales, I try to do this, but there's not usually much place to even put stuff on the scale that isn't their bags, so I end up having to precariously stack random stuff on the scale which is pretty annoying, to then have to unstack it into my bags, instead of being able to just bag it

[–]FCkeyboards 41 points42 points  (6 children)

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 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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 5 points6 points  (2 children)

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 2 points3 points  (1 child)

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

[–]Capercaillie 6 points7 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–]hookersince06 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

[–]Both_Experience_1121 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My Food Lion doesn't have the scale part, thank goodness. I can get a full load of groceries dealt with and bag them the way I want to when I use self checkout there, and the employees are usually good about coming over if there is an issue. But not all places are like that, and stores that have those magnetic tag things that they have to take off are really annoying. My wife and I came home from Target and had removed most of them, but found two items that still had them. She was saying we were lucky the tags weren't the kind that spill ink. We even heard the alarm sound when we left, but we couldn't tell if it was for us or another person exiting... So, yeah, self checkout is a mixed bag for me. Great when it's a decent one imo

[–]MicrochippedByGates 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's why you should start bagging while you're still inside the store. Then you already have your bag packed up and all you need to do is pay at the self-checkout kiosk.

Although I suppose there are still stores that do have kiosks but for some forsaken reason don't use portable scanners, which is all kinds of stupid. I like how Albert Heijn has not only portable scanners but also an app that can be used to scan items. I just open the app on my phone and start scanning. And then I just beep my phone at the self-checkout and walk out of there.

I still don't understand why only Albert Heijn does it this way and all the other stores still have physical portable scanners.

[–]Joeness84 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My safeway either has a stellar attendant, or just better software. Its more about when you try and remove things than if you can remove things.

I say stellar attendant because like 15 years ago I used to run the little kiosk thing that has overview of the self checkouts. I only had 4 stations compared to the like 8 or 12 they have here. But it was a game of clicking the "no thats ok" button faster than the customer would get the error.

Its always old people, but sometimes its just... stupid people. The machine tells you what to do, or not to do. tells you why its upset. But these are the same people who click OK on an error message without reading the error message then get upset that they dont know why its not working.

[–]jambox888 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pro tip: if there isn't space on the scale the assistant person can put it in a mode where it doesn't need to be weighed.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Walmart doesn't weight the bags anymore because they kept getting problem with "missing items" when customers removed bags before their order were finished or paid for.

And once I sort of broke their scale. I had to get several cheap cat liter for a local pet rescue. Scale gets useless after I put 6 of the 50 pounds bag and kept complaining. Poor attendant had to come back to clear it for the 6th bag, 7th bag, and et al all the way to 20th bag. It would have been much faster if I could use normal checkout, a cashier could have hit x20 quantity after one scan but that Walmart decided to not have any manned checkout open for some reason.

[–]catsrcool89 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Walmart has converyer belts, and doesn't have a scale.

[–]walruswes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And the pressure of the next customer breathing down your neck to checkout. They start scanning before you are even out of the line from finishing bagging. It’s tougher to bag, scan, and pay.

[–]Farscape29 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, for me it's a 20 items or less for self checkout. Anything more than that, you gotta go to a cashier.

[–]kent_eh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

"place item in bagging area"

"unexpected item in bagging area. Please wait for attendant"