Self service

[khiemtran]

On Tuesday, I was somewhat surprised to see that as part of its remodelling, my local Woolworth's had removed the "handbasket only" express lane and put in a bank of self service checkouts instead. I avoided them that day, but soon found the "old-fashioned" manned checkouts were now even slower than usual, possibly because they all seemed to be manned by trainees.

On Thursday, I had my first experience of trying the new machines. There were six machines in two banks of three. Each machine had a large lcd screen, a bagging area with an inbuilt scale, and a fully functional cash and card processing unit. To check out your groceries, you had to scan or weigh each item, choose an option from the touch screen for non-barcoded items, then place it in a plastic bag over the scale. You weren't allowed to take anything off the scale until you got a green light, so some careful planning was required if you didn't want certain items to end up in the same bag as others.

As might be expected for the first week, the process was tediously slow and error-prone. There was one assitant there for all six machines and she was constantly busy, either sorting out problems or telling people how to use the machines. In the end, I got my items processed in about twice the number time, although at potentially far less a cost in manpower to the supermarket. I did end up with a saving of around 98 cents because I didn't realise that lemon grass was charged "per item" and not by weight, and I weighed both my stalks at the same time.

All up, it's going to be interesting to see if this is the future or just a technological dead end. It was inconvenient the first time, but no doubt it will get easier with practice. Funnily enough, the one thing I thought I'd miss most, the human interaction, wasn't so much a factor. My last experience going through the normal checkout was extremely impersonal, while at least I got to share a laugh and a smile with the assistant on the "self-service" run while she authorised my credit card payment. I'd go out of my way for personal service, but if the service isn't any better than robotic in the first, I think I might actually favour the more efficient robot.

Comments

[karinfromnosund.livejournal.com]

We have had similar things in Sweden for some time, it turns up here and there, but it's not common. A partial success at best, I guess. (Admittedly, I haven't tried it)

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

We've had them, at least in Tesco (where I shop) in the UK, and apart from the fact the machines won't let you put your goods in your own bag (if your own bag weighs more than a plastic bag), I find them very convenient, largely because for some reason the queues are always shorter than for the manned checkouts.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I think most people are still a bit scared of the machines (plus a significant portion are probably opposed on moral grounds). As an engineer, I couldn't resist trying them out.

The plastic bags are a good point. Are they trying to discourage their use over there too?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Yes, though a little half-heartedly compared to the Republic of Ireland, which slapped a 15¢^* tax on them (now 22¢) and put an end to the problem overnight.

I mentioned the problem to the staff at Tesco, and they said they're looking into getting it fixed.

* Euro-cents, if it's not obvious

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

They're probably going to start taxing them here too at some point. At which point I'll have to start buying plastic binliners in order to throw out the rubbish, because that's what I use the supermarket bags for now.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

The only plastic bags I get at present are bin liners and the bags my bread comes in (which get reused for my lunch during the following week). But because I recycle as much as I can and try to avoid buying things with unnecessary packaging, I don't go through much in the way of bin bags. Besides, it's probably more efficient to fill a large bin bag than to fill multiple small carrier bags.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I think, with a bit of practice, I could get through the automatic checkout faster than a manual one. I'd still be worried about the error rate though. I saw a number of people have problems with their machines and I'm not sure it was all user error.