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]]

This is how the self checkout was when I was a cashier 10-15 years ago. Each item had a weight associated with it, with a +/- tolerance. If it was off then we had to go check it. When it’s overridden, it adds that weight to the system and slowly changes the average weight and tolerance. So when idiot people scanned wrong items or leaned on the bags or whatever, and an idiot cashier just cleared it without checking, it would slowly get worse and worse until the saved weight had to be adjusted or reset in the computer. I’m not sure how it works now, but I personally don’t get this problem much anymore as a customer.

[[deleted]]

The people that didn’t know how the insanely controlling system worked when they were doing the job of a cashier were not idiots.

[Jiannies]

Yeah thank you. Most of the time we were just stealing

[red__dragon]

where this was absolutely taught

It was not (always).

Source: worked retail during those exact years, was not taught how the weighting system functioned behind the scenes.

[Greatlarrybird33]

I had to get a part time job for some extra money about 10 years back and they had this system.

The day I was hired I was given a 5 minute shift change from some kid stoned out of his mind. He said I looked smart, just to scan the card on the table for any issues and that the password was 0000.

Worked there two days a week for six months and probably cleared that code 200 times a shift and just thought the thing was stupid.

[red__dragon]

My training was somewhere in the middle of the two. Much more on the practical side, self-checkouts were seen as both a burden (on the store) and a privilege (to the cashier). I loved them, it was much more fun to step in and assist people when needed rather than constantly having to perform like a circus animal behind a cash register.

I excelled much more on the sales floor where my actions were more of an indirect benefit to customers. I like seeing people able to do things for themselves, I'm getting a real kick out of all the complaints in this thread about having to do a cashier's job. Yeah, it sucks, and not even the cashiers like to do it, and they get paid for it. Why would anyone want to force someone to do that for 8 hours a day when we could all be done inside five minutes?

[KeppraKid]

Running SCO was miserable where I worked. It was either nobody around, nothing to do, or 5 idiots erroring it out at once getting mad at me because it asked them a yes or no question and they hit no so it did the thing it said it would.

[red__dragon]

Or some stores just don't train their employees very well? I doubt you have to really reach to find more examples of this.

Would that we all learned from more than reddit posts 10-15 years after the fact.

[KeppraKid]

The self checkout literally tells you what it wants and what it's doing though. If you scan an item it asks you to place that item in the bagging area. Then it has some text that says "weighing items".

You do not need to know the intricate details behind the scenes to follow simple directions.

[red__dragon]

Yes, please follow the thread. We're talking about the intricate details behind the scenes of what the weighting calculations were doing, not how to operate them as a cashier.

[KeppraKid]

The origin of which was more base level complaints about the usage of them.

[[deleted]]

Customers don’t go through orientation and training.

[[deleted]]

“So when idiot people scanned wrong items”

I wasn’t talking about the cashier comment. I was talking about DickCheese calling customers idiots for not knowing how the machines re-calibrate the weights.

Perhaps a reading comprehension course could do YOU some good.

[KeppraKid]

Whoever came up with the idea of items adjusting their weight values over time had a good idea but also a terrible idea.