Why I will not use self service checkouts.........food for thought.....

paulnb57

Bear with me here...

I was in the local Tesco Cathedral to Consumerism the other day, queueing at a manned checkout watching people using the Self Service jobbys........that got me thinking,,, it hurt....need a glass o red, but I digress...

Nowthen, for the sake of this bullshit lets assume a checkout operator is on £5 an hour and that the supermarket has 10 self service checkouts, then it keeps the maths easy......

10 unmanned checkouts a £5 and hour means a saving of £50 an hour for the Supermarket, open 10 hours a day, thats £500 a day the Supermarket saves, by allowing you to do the work.....canny that......do they offer you a discount for doing the work....er, no!

Assuming 10 hours a day, 52 weeks a year thats £26,000 they save! In one store!

OK so there is a bored employee overseeing things, that costs, but unmanned checkouts don't call in sick, take annual leave, contribute to a pension, take maternity/paternity leave, pop out for a fag break....you get the idea...the Supermarkets are raking it in and you are doing the work......

Every little helps!......

eSully

One of the best reasons not to use them is they're annoying as hell. If I had a penny for every time I heard "Please put the item in the bagging area" when the fecking item is in the bagging area I'd say I'd have at least an extra 30p, maybe more

breakstuff

Yeah but they do remove the embarrassment factor out of buying Anusol cream.

DulcetJones

What I've discovered is most of the stores I shop at keep the number of real people checkouts so low that they always have a huge line up.  This makes the self checkout look pretty good to anybody in a hurry(or that's just plain impatient).  I don't imagine any of the shops will be passing on the savings in the form of lower prices any time soon.  I go out of my way to shop at one of the few stores that doesn't have a self checkout but they are limited in selection and stock.  

CabbageCat

So we don't use self checkout because doing so would save someone money? Fair enough. I think I'll stop using bins and toilets as well.

vasselmeyer

It must be something to do with the big supermarkets. If they really saved costs then Aldi and Lidl would be using them. The people of the Aldi tills are checkout DEMONS!

stickyfiddle

As someone who did a fair bit of checkout time as a student I've never had a problem with self checkouts. I'm faster than most checkout muppets and hardly ever have any "bagging area" issues.

hobbio

Self service works fine for me.

p90fool

I work for Tesco and I refuse to use them for the same reason, even though company policy states that we're supposed to whenever possible.

Sassafras

I don't use them because they always seem to break down and you're left standing there like a lemon with the realization that it would have been quicker to go to a human operated till.

MtB

paulnb57 - so that assumes that the 10 self checkout machines were free to buy and install in the first place? Very unlikely. Plus, what about the spare parts and labour when they break down?

I understand the basis of your philosophy, but they're not saving the sums of money that you suggest.

More likely that it's something to do with getting (most) people that only have a few items to pay for through a checkout quicker and therefore not creating massive queues and frustration in that fraction of their client base (and which will encourage them to return to the big T for just a few items rather than going to the local corner store).

EricTheWeary

Something on the radio about how the supermarkets have got this all wrong. They have devoted resources to making life easier for people making £5 lunchtime purchases but those spending £100 on a big family shop end up queuing behind each other and having a miserable time. In effect they do nothing for their biggest customers.

EricTheWeary

paulnb57;63609" said:

Bear with me here...

I was in the local Tesco Cathedral to Consumerism the other day, queueing at a manned checkout watching people using the Self Service jobbys........that got me thinking,,, it hurt....need a glass o red, but I digress...

Nowthen, for the sake of this bullshit lets assume a checkout operator is on £5 an hour and that the supermarket has 10 self service checkouts, then it keeps the maths easy......

10 unmanned checkouts a £5 and hour means a saving of £50 an hour for the Supermarket, open 10 hours a day, thats £500 a day the Supermarket saves, by allowing you to do the work.....canny that......do they offer you a discount for doing the work....er, no!

Assuming 10 hours a day, 52 weeks a year thats £26,000 they save! In one store!

OK so there is a bored employee overseeing things, that costs, but unmanned checkouts don't call in sick, take annual leave, contribute to a pension, take maternity/paternity leave, pop out for a fag break....you get the idea...the Supermarkets are raking it in and you are doing the work......

Every little helps!......

Although they have the cost of the machine and the maintenance costs. The machines can't stock shelves in quiet moments or help little old ladies. Presumably the supermarkets do make a greater profit using self serve but I wonder how clear cut it is?

capo4th

Please scan your first item ! Will you use your own bag ?

Please swipe your loyalty card ! 

Unidentified item in the bagging area 

It's in the fucking bag move on ! Alcohol purchase are you over 25? 

Approval required fuck off ! 

 Have you swiped your loyalty card ? No I fuckin hate this place 

 Please wait for assistance ! 

 Please place your item in the bag ! 

Unexpected item in the bagging area! Everyone looks at the thief ..... 

 Please wait for assistance 

 Please select your payment type ! So I can give you 97 pennies change 

 How many bags did you use ? Thank you for shopping here ! Fuck off I am never coming back

TTony

If there's a big queue at the tills and I've just got a few bits, I'll use a self-service checkout.

Not in supermarkets so much, because I don't generally go into supermarkets that have them (Aldi all the way for me).

Put the first item through, then have an error and wait for the assistant to come along and put the rest through for me.  Far quicker than waiting in line.

I think of them more as my personal checkout assistant rather than my self-service till.

stickyfiddle

EricTheWeary said:

Something on the radio about how the supermarkets have got this all wrong. They have devoted resources to making life easier for people making £5 lunchtime purchases but those spending £100 on a big family shop end up queuing behind each other and having a miserable time. In effect they do nothing for their biggest customers.

I may be wrong, but £5 a day every single working day plus another 20 on groceries and ready meals twice a week probably works out just as much as a family who spends £100 a week but will often go to a different supermarket who has the best offers. 

Depending on the margins on each set of shopping that regular £5-a-day guy might actually be far more lucrative. Not to mention the steady reliability of the cash flow from those £5-a-day people 

bluechargeboy

I always use the manned checkouts because it's nice to talk to a human, it makes the supermarket experience a bit less soulless. And just maybe in a tiny way I am helping that person to keep their job by keeping up demand for thier services.

Drew_TNBD

Tesco currently has sleigh bells coming out of their checkout tills when you scan your clubcard - which the wife forces me to use... I am so cucked.... - and it's the most ANNOYING FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD!!

Teetonetal

If a self serve checkout is free and the manned checkout has queues then it's self service all the way. Life is too short to willingly stand a Q when you don't need to.

scrumhalf

The more items you are buying, the greater the chance of the self-service till throwing a strop. Given that this starts at about 50% for the purchase of just one item it's generally better to queue and deal with a human.

I often buy a newspaper at my local Sainsbury's metro/express/local/buzzword-of-the-week and the self-service tills regulalrly fail to register the weight of the newspaper when placed in the "bagging area". As ever, the idea is okay, it's the implementation of it that's rubbish.

ICBM

Me neither. I won't use them because they rarely work properly and they are an intentional means of putting people out of work.

I just have to walk away if I'm with my wife or kids and they insist on using one, because I know I will just get annoyed when it inevitably screws up and takes longer than using a proper checkout.