Does anybody know of a store with a decent self check-out? For example I shop at Fresh & Easy (mini-grocery store with fresh produce) and they only offer self check-out, and their check-out machines talk you through the complexities of scanning, bagging and paying for one's slop. Neat eh? Yeah so when you and your fellow shoppers check-out it's a chorus of - "Press if you do not want to bag item" "Do you want to continue with this purchase?" "Approval required" "Did you scan your coupons?" "Please remove item from bagging area" All in a wonderfully artificial, monotone voice. Then once you get to paying a whole new adventure awaits! Paying with cash? Heh... Ever put a dollar in a vending machine only to have it rejected over and over despite your best unwrinkling techniques? Yeah it's like that. Paying by card? Well that's a bit more user friendly except for the touch screen, you can't touch it, you hafta use a tethered stylus, and then after requests for donations, and offers for cash back, you're finally asked "Do you want to continue with your PIN?" Now put down the stylus and use the keypad to complete your transaction. Same goes for the Home Depot (home improvement/hardware type store) except they have check-out lanes with cashiers but they're never open. Instead they station one cashier amidst a cluster of scan and bag it yourself machines. And what does that one cashier do? Override errors and authorize purchases. I'm all for the self check-out if only somebody could get it right. So again, my question is - Does anybody know of a store with a decent self check-out?
And how about using a debit card for gas at the pump? You go through: Do you have any Kroger/Bilo store coupons? No - and you wait because the computer is running slow this morning. Would you like a car wash? No - and you wait because the computer is running slow this morning. Just give my damn gas I paid for!
Around here some stations ask if you have a Vons (supermarket chain) card before dispensing gas. Worse are the gas pump commercials, bad enough I hafta struggle to give you my money but I hafta watch a commercial while I'm doing it too? Yeah my fist was so excited to punch you in the neck one of my fingers got a hard-on.
Pretty much every store with a self-checkout I have found it incredibly easy to use. Raleys, Safeway/Vons, ShopRite, Superfresh, Home Depot, Target, and CVS to name a few. I don't know what to say, except I'm sorry that you find it so difficult. High school kids do this for minimum wage...
Then I guess they're underpaid. But minimum wage increases are Red Room type thread, So I'll not continue complaining.
What Chad said pretty much. Some self checkout machines/registers can "freeze up" or become stubborn on you if put things down too quickly or don't bag it right away after ringing it up. Then if no cashiers are there you have to hunt down the front end manager &/or customer service people to get the machine/register back to normal again
And if you are buying booze, someobody has to come over to verify your age. HELLO! If I'm befuddled by the technology, then I must by default be an old codger!
The ones at Meijer are pretty good. Never even had a problem entering produce numbers or getting them to take cash.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Safeway grocery stores have self check-out. When they first put them in they worked really, really well. I loved it. I could dash in, hardly ever wait in a line, and get out quick with what I needed. And then... Some local ordnance passed that banned plastic bags. Worse than that, it allowed stores to provide paper bags if they charged a nominal price--ten cents--for each one. I guess they want us all to bring shopping bags to the store like we're European villagers in 1950. Not going to happen for me. I *refuse* to bring bags to the store; they've been providing them all the years I've been in existence, so they will continue to provide them for me. This, of course, ruined the self check-out. Oh, they still have it. But the plastic bags that were integral to the system--they hung conveniently on a rack that allowed you to pull one out as you checked out your items--are banished, so now you need to have a person bring you paper bags and key in the code to charge you for them. And, of course, you have to request a specific number of bags even before you know how many you'll actually need. The self check-out is now an assisted check-out. And, of course, it's slow and cumbersome because you often have to wait for a clerk to be available.
The local grocery store I frequent has several self-checkout stations. I almost always use them - they rarely have a line and on the occasion some weird thing I purchase doesn't scan right, there's a human attendant who swiftly remedies the situation. They have both plastic and paper bags available, so if I wish I can have both without having to discuss with a halfwit bagger what things I want in what kinds of bags. I've noticed that machines that take cash have way better scanners now than they did in the early 90s - I don't remember the last time one rejected a bill. Plus I like the fact that you can choose Spanish to practice your language skills without embarrassing yourself in front of another human.
Only for those too stupid/lazy/stubborn to bring their own bags. For me it's faster as I brought my bags anyway and sometimes before the ban the machines would bitch about the extra weight.
Have you ever met a regulation you didn't like? Or is it only limited to the ones that piss other people off while allowing you to get on your moral high horse? Anyway, I refuse to do it. I want to add as much cost and difficulty as possible to the store's maintenance of that self check-out line so that maybe there will be some pushback on stupid laws like this. If you want to be a shopping bag lady, be my guest.
Sounds like you should start getting your groceries delivered if you hate going to the store so much. Especially if they refuse to carry you around on a float in a big parade up and down the aisles, all because it violates a local ordinance.
Hmm... Seems self-checkout is more common where you're living than around here. The local CVS hasn't the self-checkout option, neither does RiteAid, or Walgreens or many other stores. Mind if I ask, generally speaking, where you're living? No worries! Unless, of course, you're to blame for the crappy self-checkouts around here! What! High school kids get paid to scan and bag their slop?! No I get your angle, and humor aside, I agree "operator-error" is the root of many a problem.
We don't have Safeway grocery stores but that's what I'm talking about. Get in, get out and don't make paying for my slop a hassle. Charging for bags does seem a bit off. Bags, paper or plastic, have been traditionally included in all manner of stores. It'd be like McDonald's charging for burger wrappers and packets of ketchup. Sure they are legally entitled to do what they want but it would annoy more than a few patrons.
oh, is that just a Midwest store? it's kinda like a kmart. cheap, but not as crowded and hellish as walmart.
Actually I wasn't looking for that. I was just looking for the same good good service they used to have until the government intervened. The store put in an expensive set of self-checkout lanes that RELY on plastic bags as part of the system. The store wanted me to use them. I liked using them. But the local garbage utility--you know, the one whose rates have gone up 200% in the last 10 years?--apparently doesn't like plastic bags. So, the self-checkout system is now an assisted checkout system. Oh, and non-grocery stores? They can still use all the plastic bags they want.
The discussion of this is for the Red Room, but I can't help but wonder how MUCH money companies are saving with these self checkouts? I'm sure it's an adequate amount, otherwise they wouldn't have them. The Unions must LUV'em to death! 'Nuff said, bordering on Red Room turf!
The title sounds as if the topic may be about the OP dancing in front of a mirror in the buff to this song. [YT="This"]wv-34w8kGPM[/YT]
Just about every grocery store has self check out these days at least around here. I'm still waiting for one which makes using my grocery shopping app Out of Milk work easier though it seems grocery stores really don't want to encourage apps which help consumers get lower prices. Some of them even whine about my electronic coupons are local managers bulk at doing the price matches which the company's corporate websites claim they will actually do. In fact, not one of them has yet to offer a painless and easy way to use these apps. And yet they're so great and so many people now have smart phones I see shopping apps as the wave of the future. You just scan the items before you put it in the basket then when you check out it automatically finds the lowest prices in your area so you can price match for the lowest price and it displays electronic coupons so you always get the coupon without having to spend hours clipping them. After a while the app figures out the sort of stuff you buy regularly and it even starts telling you about deals and coupons in that sort of stuff in your area automatically. The problem is still execution at the check out phase as stores really don't like it when customers get great deals at the expense of their profit margins. Ideally, I'd like something like Samsungs bump list sharing where S4 owners can share data wirelessly just by bumping their phones together. If someone would allow that to happen automatically (so the checker doesn't have to manually adjust all the prices) then that would greatly speed things up for me. Some how I don't see grocery stores making it easy for customers to force their prices lower though.
I was grocery shopping the other day and I went through a normal checkout line because it was for weekly groceries. I only tend to use self-checkout if I have a basket's-worth of items (vs. a cart's-worth). As the cashier was scanning my items, he had to go help some baby boomer who couldn't figure out how to work the self-checkout. I went along with it, but I was dumbfounded that 1) there is still someone out there who can't work the self-checkout and 2) that the store would stop helping a customer going through the regular checkout line for someone who chose to self-checkout--don't they usually have someone monitoring the self-checkout area?
