PLEASE PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG: Supermarket Self-Serve Checkout Poll

yeah you can steal stuff just don't let it near the bagging area until it's time!

> I'd generally rather employ someone.

At least the self-serve robot won't loudly whisper, DO YOU HAVE TO EAT ALL THOSE CANS OF ALPO?

I love the self-check line when I have, like, one item. Or even ten small items. Other shoppers respect this boundary; I don't see anyone pulling up a big-ass cart of family groceries and checking them out themselves, even according to the rules, they could do that if they wanted. The self-check line is always the "people buying just a couple of things and are in kind of hurry to get out of this godforsaken place" line.

even THOUGH according to the rules

I'd generally rather employ someone.

me too, but if these machines end up working faster/better than a checkout line, why not just have the machines + 15 paid grocery store employees in cheerleader outfits cheering us on??

In my market, there's always someone on duty nearby who does things like un-hangs the machine, checks ID for booze, etc. That person is feet away, always. Without that person, it would be a clusterfuck.

i liked the self-checkout that rang up a six pack as a single beer. it took the store a few months to realize

They realized? How? What did they do, call you up?

THE ITEM IN THE BAG DOES NOT MATCH THE WEIGHT OF THE SCANNED ITEM

See, I've never seen that. I get "Unexpected item in bagging area," and even then there's a button that says "I'm using my own bag" which overrides the error."

I like these in theory but there are always a couple of self-check lanes out of service at my Wal-Mart, usually because the scale's busted. The software used to hang up and force an override from a live checker a lot in the first year, but it seems more stable now.

great for buying potentially embarrassing items like douches and time magazines

cashiers at wal mart are well-oiled professionals

i don't mind human check-out (i was one in high school - shout out to the A & P). what i hate is the stores that don't let you bag your own stuff cuz i am A+ bagger.

If you need extra-embarrassing stuff like sex items the self-checkout is sadly useless. This is our concern, Dude.

Why the hell am I supposed to check myself out and bag my own groceries? If there was a discount for doing so, maybe. If you can believe it, the aspie rednecks in my area group around these things like they're Jesus Christ from Mars, giving me more opportunity to hang out with the cashier and have the bag boy and beeps talk about balloons.

I've tried 'em. Tried to buy cold medication and had to have the attendant come over. It wanted me to place a 20-lb bag of dog food into the plastic bag. And forget about it if you have a 12-pack of High Life and some kitty litter.

Love 'em at Home Depot. Let the guys with the pallets of plywood stand in line while I whiz right through with my box of furniture straps.

i hate these things; they never work right and i invariably have to get an employee to help out anyway.

i don't want to place the item in the bag. i don't need a bag!

Kinks are being worked out. I see how it can and will work efficiently.

why not just have the machines + 15 paid grocery store employees in cheerleader outfits cheering us on??

Hopefully the "well-oiled professionals" from wal mart....

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA

I like these 'cause I always get to skip past the half dozen people in front of me who don't want to use them. And they don't try to make me use half a dozen bags for my meagre haul of items.

Sainsbury's ones don't show any 2-for-1 type discounts on the bill until after you've elected to pay, which is confusing and daft.

^^^this, yeah. I always have to 'trust' that it's going to remember the discount at the end of the check out.

I use 'em, despite my misgivings about them leading to less people being employed, because a)I don't like waiting in lines, but also b)I don't like being rushed at check-out, where I'm usually throwing items into the bags and fumbling with my wallet while I can feel the person behind me breathing down my neck, which, to be fair, is what I do when I'm in line.

I always have to 'trust' that it's going to remember the discount at the end of the check out.

Yes, that is annoying.

Because these things just don't work very well, there always has to be one or two attendants around so I don't know if anyone is actually losing a job over this. Plus you actually have more in the way of human contact because you're constantly having to call them over to fix the confounded things.

GREAT way to get rid of change though! I always throw every bit of shrapnel in my pocket and let the machine chew it over.

I absolutely will not use these things.

But then again, I have stopped using chain supermarkets for Lent, so shopping has become an entirely different experience for me. I've become like a French housewife, gadding from the Pan Asian Grocery to the Turkish Shop to the Streatham Fruiterer for my bits and bobs. Most of these places don't even have scanners. And I've learned to kind of like chatting with the various shop people. You learn things about food, and also about your neighbourhood from the human contact.

I mean, the day that a mechanised self-serve machine tells me where I can get Turkish flatbread or Anatolian Breakfast or lets me know that there's a shop down by the station that does spices really cheap, and how to make my Sag Paneer so the spinach doesn't boil away to nothing...

As much of a misanthrope as I am, I *like* the human touch.

I've had far more contact with supermarket staff since I started using these machines than I ever did before!

charging a pound of steak as onions: classic

they tried it here, but i'm almost sure they stopped doing this. it was at delhaize and i stopped going there anyway.

At least the self-serve robot won't loudly whisper, DO YOU HAVE TO EAT ALL THOSE CANS OF ALPO?

are you serious? do you guys get remarks? wtf. i'd slap that woman silly. no, i think i'd probably answer: "no, i have wild kinky sex in it. do i look like i eat tons of alpo?"

these things hate me. i don't use them unless my wife forces me to. and the they're all like "YOU DIDN'T PAY FOR THAT WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP" and i just die inside.

xpost to Kate yes, but the difference being is that the people working at those places are more likely to be engaged in the art of interaction.

At Boots, for example, they are friendly, smiling people, who will bag yr stuff and not volunteer information about anything other than the Boots Advantage card. Often they will be interacting with the person working the till next to them. Which I don't mind at all.

I'd like these people to be doing something much more interesting.

I was confused one time and was propping my items in the bag cause I figured she had already scanned'em. It was as if I had commited a capital crime. Christ.

I like them in the UK because whenever I go through a cashier in grocery stores I feel like I have to dump everything into bags really quickly and get out of the way for the next person in line because there isn't enough room for two people's stuff on the end of the checkout. At least if I have the patience for the stupid machine telling me I've removed an item or to please take my items I can shuffle things around in the bags and take my time on the self-checkouts.

I would not use them in Canada though, because most grocery store checkouts I've used either there have the cashier bag groceries for you or enough room at the end of the checkout to take time bagging stuff.

Getting into an argument, a few months back, with two stupid women in the checkout line that was 10 miles long put me off having to queue with a bunch of morons

charging a pound of steak as onions: classic

genius, never even thought of that. is there any chance whatsoever of getting caught doing this? I am a reluctant thief.

the biggest problem with these machines is if you want to buy booze they won't let the transaction finish until someone verifies you're not a child, and there's fuck all people around to do this so you end up wandering the aisles.

the other thing is the cashiers in my local supermarket are all quite friendly and nice and I like chatting or whatever as I go through.

so I guess I usually go to a cashier but if they're busy I'll use the self service.

I like being rushed and feeling people breathing down my neck while i bag my groceries because it turns something mundane into a high-stakes feat of efficiency and skill - every misstep, no matter how small, is punished with ruthless haterage by your helpless onlookers

rush-hour self-bagging (with concomitant PIN-entering and receipt-grabbing) should be a g*ddamn olympic sport

When our local Asda is busy (which is most of the time) the line for the self-service is longer and slower than the basket lane, but sometimes I go there on Saturday nights if I'm not doing anything because it's empty, and then I will use the self-service. "Please place item in bagging area" when you already have is annoyingly common though.

People should be banned from using credit cards in supermarkets

Let's see the colour of yer money, ya mooks!

I shop at places where the interactions with cashiers are generally pretty good: organic grocery, Asian ingredient shop, M&S, Waitrose. In the case of the latter, it's abundantly clear from their attitude and general helpfulness that the John Lewis Partner thing is the way to go if you have to take such a job.

Waitrose staff are nice, it's the clientele that's the problem

One person's annoying clientele are another's rich vein of comedy eavesdropping.

I have stopped using chain supermarkets for Lent

As much as that's a luxury specific to urban life, I have to say that giving up chain supermarkets for Lent is pretty awesome. I'm guessing that at worst you spend the same amount of money, and at best you save a good chunk. I have an Asian market literally across the street from me, and I go in there maybe once a month. I ought to be ashamed of myself. There are so many cheap fruits and veggies, good meat, great seafood, etc etc. (There's a lot of scary crap in there too, bad meat, scary seafood, etc, but shopping is a skill, I guess.)

The self-check line is always the "people buying just a couple of things and are in kind of hurry to get out of this godforsaken place" line.

― kenan, Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:15 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^yes this, totally - it's obvious that's what they're there for. and i don't believe everyone saying they don't work - if EVEN I can work them, then they're fine.

I have an Asian market literally across the street from me, and I go in there maybe once a month. I ought to be ashamed of myself. There are so many cheap fruits and veggies, good meat, great seafood, etc etc. (There's a lot of scary crap in there too, bad meat, scary seafood, etc, but shopping is a skill, I guess.)

otm I have some of the best Indian supermarkets around near me but I seldom use except to stock up on spices/herbs etc. tho to be fair my big problem with not using chain supermarkets is that I'd have to go to a separate butcher, a separate fishmonger, etc etc etc.

I would spend way more money if I shopped in local stores rather than chain supermarkets, unless I lived exclusively off ramen noodles or something. That's presumably because I eat processed crap the whole time though, which is almost twice the price in the corner shops.

I like these and use them reasonably often in the two small-ish town centre stores that have them (Tesco Metro & Sainsburys Local in Exeter); however, I did notice on Sunday when I nipped in for bread,milk, and eggs on the way home from Bristol that, even though there was a queue of about 6 people to get to the self-service tills, people were still joining that rather than go up to an actual real till with a person, of which there were 3, with no queue. So I went to a real person and walked out WAY quicker than the self-service people. There's something quite poignant and sad about that.

Not.. really. You just know how to spot a queue full of morons.

there is absolutely nothing poignant about that nick

yeah, there is! Nick is totally poignant.

Poignancy fite!

My favorite thing to do in other countries is to hang out in grocery stores.

Same. Though the Australian grocery storing the eggs just right on the shelf like they were canned goods shook me a little.

My hosts in Mexico usually shopped at the corner market, but I hassled them into taking me to the supermarket. And that's where I saw the little kids bagging groceries for tips.

Good points, YMP. I guess I should feel the same about Outback Steakhouse offering takeout and even a parking spot right upfront for non-interior customers. But they can't sell them a Red Devil Margarita Swirl or whatever?

But by being accommodating when those customers want takeout, they increase the chances that the customer will come back another time when they feel like dining in.

Fostering loyal repeat customers is a more reliable revenue stream than maximizing the profit from every transaction.

I think there are only a couple of countries that put their eggs in the fridge. The US, UK?

...for sale in the store I mean.

never in the uk

sometimes in au they do, bodega/smaller stores don’t bother but Coles does. just extends shelf life rly

http://uk.businessinsider.com/why-europeans-dont-refrigerate-eggs-2014-12

I don't think shops exactly struggle to sell eggs, so I imagine they're not going to be sitting on shelves for too long.

Isn't it to do with the washing of the eggs? In the US they wash the eggs in something before they sell them, so the protective outer layer of the shell that stops them going bad is stripped away, and they have to be kept in the fridge.

Aldi and Lidl tried so hard to get people in our area to conform to the proper bagging protocol, but people in my area (can't speak for Ireland as a whole) were NOT HAVING IT, and everybody just lets their shopping pile up on those tiny ledges while they bag it there at the till, which takes ages, because the staff are actively discouraged from helping, and everyone is doing their big shop there.

Do other countries have the Lidl etiquette where people who only have one or two things get to go ahead of everyone in the queue? It's the only supermarket where that's a thing here, because there are no express lanes or self-checkout tills.

The only time I ever put eggs in the fridge is if I buy a ton and know I won't eat some of them for over a week or 2.

I never do the I've brought my own bag, because of above issues, just leave my bag on the floor and put the stuff in it when I'm waiting for the receipt.

This is the correct way to do it. Much faster in my opinion and also makes it much easier to organize your items in the bags (i.e. put all the cold stuff together, put eggs or other easily crushable items on top, etc.)

I usually do this - bag on the floor, for those same reasons. Of course this means bagging items after you've paid.

A couple of weeks ago I was putting my stuff away and a guy walked up to the machine and started scanning items. I was incredulous at first that someone would do this so I finished up and as I left said something sarcastic. He said "you were taking your time." !

Now, first of all crouching down, putting things in a bag (dir. Ang Lee) is kind of undignified and vulnerable in that hectic environment to begin with, and looming over someone like that is an invasion of personal space.

Secondly, I had six items in total (if it were fewer I'd have used the express till,) was clearly nearly done, and will have been ahead of the people on the other five machines who all must have started before I did.

So this makes less than no sense, it's pure cuntery, and in any case it takes as long as it takes (not very long at all, as it happens,) wait your fucking turn, arsewipe.

I'm over it now or the swears in this post would be more progigious, but how does it even enter someone's head to do that? He had to balance his stuff on the scales / scanner bit. You couldn't pull this shit in a cashier line so what the heck do you think you're playing at?

I like progigious, that's good.

This evening I bought a can of Red Bull in Sainsbury's and paid at a self service checkout. The operator came over to confirm that I was over 16, swiped their card over the barcode scanner, and without even a glance at me tapped 'Visibly Over 25'. I laughed.

wait... why would you be IDed for a soft drink!?

I'm extremely down with age-restricting something so full of powerful stimulants tbh

The one in my local Morrisons gives the shittiest combinations of change ever, lots of 2ps and 5ps and it NEVER gives out 50ps, and I mean literally never.

Things you were shockingly old when you learned - it doesn't give out 10ps either. There's no doubt an explanation for this online somewhere.

A mathematician explains it,

http://chalkdustmagazine.com/blog/self-service-machines-give-awful-change/

wait... why would you be IDed for a soft drink!?

Because that vacuous Mockney canker Jamie Oliver ran a campaign to have them age restricted to people over 16 and all the supermarkets fell into line. In terms of self promotion, he's the Elon Musk of UK TV chefs.

I thought it was because them machines were fishing for that Kew Gardens 50p coin

Sainsbury's have added a sarcastic and patronising voice asking "would you like a receipt?" that sounds like a care assistant asking an elderly person in a day care centre if they'd like another cup of tea.

Has the original question been used as source material for a 'funny' version of 'I will survive " yet?

It's one thing having a recording speak to you; another for it to ask a question unless you're able to verbally answer back. I'm assuming that without pressing a button you can't tell the Sainsbury's one you don't want a receipt, so this is shit UX imo.

Oh it says that when the prompt comes up on the screen that reads "do you want a printed receipt? yes / no".

OK so I've just been in Iceland (the shop) and used one of these fuckers which, for change of 75p, gave out three 20ps and FIFTEEN 1ps, ffs! So, thinking I would use up this unwanted shrapnel by buying a chocolate bar or something, I grabbed a box of kind of walnut whip things which were going for 50p only to find they had no barcode and you couldn't scan them! So I had to go to Morrisons - the only reason I'd gone to Iceland in the first place was because the queues in Morrisons looked enormous - and buy a special edition Easter Bunny KitKat (in February?) so I don't have to walk about like Mr Tambourine Man, jingle-jangling.

Did you really think somebody was going to come followin’ you?

i just used one and i did "lookup by name" to get to white potatoes. you type P O and the potato options come up. but it only had yukon gold potatoes and potatoes. i figured white potatoes must be the more generic potato so i touched the potato. it came up as russet potatoes in my list of purchases. those are 30 cents cheaper per pound. i got a potato discount.

Can't remember the last time I used self-checkout at the supermarket (usually I'm one of the disgusting savages who shops via the app/website and does the curbside pickup) (apropos of nothing, my personal favorite got ranked #1 in the nation in the most recent grocery store survey!) but the last time I did I remember there being a remarkable assortment of produce available for selection on the menu. Or you could always notate the PLU code for the fruit/vegetable that's usually right on the signage for said item and enter that into the system to save from having to navigate through that labyrinth. Also, since my neighborhood supermarket is usually extremely busy I've learned the fine art of packing my own groceries at that particular location, something that was of immense value when I visited a UK supermarket in December 2017.

If you're ever poor and find yourself needing to save on groceries, these things are a godsend.

yeah lol if you arent putting in your blood oranges as zucchini and bulk cashews as bulk oats

"sorry I misread 'peanuts' as 'pine nuts'!"

local tesco updated their software today and somehow onions feel through the gap. vegetables -> onions and garlic section was empty, only onion focaccia came up under search...

he scanned them as bananas in the end - same unit price

I don't categorically object to self-checkout. But I do protest those who try to take alcohol through these registers. (Go ahead and hold up the line even longer, while the one clerk monitoring multiple stations checks your ID.)