Crowded Supermarkets

[SS4]

A few years ago, I remember reading in the Telegraph about how different German supermarkets are to those over here. If you go shopping in Germany, you can use trolleys with inbuilt GPS systems that direct you to your items. You can insert your Visa card into the trolley to pay the bill and perform a whole other variety of rather interesting tasks merely by pressing a few buttons on the interface. I cannot remember how widely used these trolleys were used, but still, it sounded like quite a neat little gadget!

It would be better if they attached a hand to it that could grab the item in question for you . While I'm dreaming make it remote controlled too so I can sit in the cafe having a bacon sandwich and a cuppa while doing my shopping

I imagine they work just fine in Germany, but I'll bet if they tried to import them over here they'd have to perform a whole load of ridiculous tasks thus making the system symbolic of British technology...unhelpful, annoying and extremely irritating!

Agreed, we'd ask it to do too much and then complain that the technology is awful when it doesn't do it. Plus we have an enormous amount of technophobia as though the self-service machine is going to stab you in the heart if you don't put your item in the bagging area

 

[HST Power]

It would be better if they attached a hand to it that could grab the item in question for you . While I'm dreaming make it remote controlled too so I can sit in the cafe having a bacon sandwich and a cuppa while doing my shopping

Now that would be technology!

Plus we have an enormous amount of technophobia as though the self-service machine is going to stab you in the heart if you don't put your item in the bagging area

The self service machines are excellent. For one, they save you time. No need to stand in a queue waiting for the person in front to offload items, pack them, pay bill, scramble with change, run after kids to put them in pram, shout at kids for not getting into pram, struggle to lock them into pram, place bags into trolley, take hold of the pram, take hold of trolley, leave supermarket! Instead, just go to a self service machine and do it yourself. Simples!

 

[Hydro]

I've just returned from a quick trip to Asda to pick up some bits and pieces for a train journey tonight. Observations thus:

The end of an aisle isn't the ideal place for two families, with family sized trollies, to have a catching up conversation whilst the kids run around in circles.

The self service checkouts are only suitable for small trollies if you are capable of using the machines and know whether you have too many items to fit in the bagging area.

Please realise that if you are walking blindly with your trolley and kids against the general flow of people and trollies, causing annoyance and slaloming, then you are in fact the dog turd on the bowling green; please adjust your direction to avoid rising tempers. I don't say this just for me, but for those stressed out people who are in fact managing to keep the kids and trolley under control, they look like they could be dangerous if they snap.

I absolutely agree with the self service checkouts being a godsend. For a start, I don't have to resist the temptation to explode with "Of course I want bags, I'm not going to carry £89.82 worth of shopping home in my bloody pockets", and once you get the knack of the barcodes, and that "unexpected item in bagging area" actually means "move your handbag/wallet etc you dozy git" you can be out and binning that receipt within seconds.

 

[strange6]

I've just returned from a quick trip to Asda to pick up some bits and pieces for a train journey tonight. Observations thus:

The end of an aisle isn't the ideal place for two families, with family sized trollies, to have a catching up conversation whilst the kids run around in circles.

The self service checkouts are only suitable for small trollies if you are capable of using the machines and know whether you have too many items to fit in the bagging area.

Please realise that if you are walking blindly with your trolley and kids against the general flow of people and trollies, causing annoyance and slaloming, then you are in fact the dog turd on the bowling green; please adjust your direction to avoid rising tempers. I don't say this just for me, but for those stressed out people who are in fact managing to keep the kids and trolley under control, they look like they could be dangerous if they snap.

I absolutely agree with the self service checkouts being a godsend. For a start, I don't have to resist the temptation to explode with "Of course I want bags, I'm not going to carry £89.82 worth of shopping home in my bloody pockets", and once you get the knack of the barcodes, and that "unexpected item in bagging area" actually means "move your handbag/wallet etc you dozy git" you can be out and binning that receipt within seconds.

hahaha nice one! I'm glad to see we all share the same pet hates. I don't know what it is with people (especially women) but their brains seem to shut down when walking around a supermarket and they'll all go into a world of their own with no sense of spatial awareness whatsoever. I don't believe for one second that women are better than men at multi-tasking because on Supermarket evidence, that is simply not the case

 

[SS4]

The self service machines are excellent. For one, they save you time. No need to stand in a queue waiting for the person in front to offload items, pack them, pay bill, scramble with change, run after kids to put them in pram, shout at kids for not getting into pram, struggle to lock them into pram, place bags into trolley, take hold of the pram, take hold of trolley, leave supermarket! Instead, just go to a self service machine and do it yourself. Simples!

I'll second that. The self-service machines are excellent when used properly. Many times I have grabbed a pint of milk and went through self-service and not having to stop for more than 10 seconds.
What is frustrating is when they're misused such as people using it for weighed produce, age-restricted items or simply trying to force three weeks of shopping in.

 

[GB]

What is frustrating is when they're misused such as people using it for weighed produce, age-restricted items or simply trying to force three weeks of shopping in.

Thats not really them being misused tho, its just an inconvenience of that type of system.

 

[HST Power]

I'll second that. The self-service machines are excellent when used properly.

There's normally staff on hand to help out, like when the system wouldn't release my Visa card from the pay point (don't ask me why!)

 

[Pete2210]

Well we shop weekly now, but on one occasion when doing a months shop we were on the big self service checkout at Hayes Sainsbury's with just two items to go through when it had a silly moment and we had to call the assistant to get it to go again, well the assistant came over in a bit of a flap waved the card at it, pressed the touchscreen and promptly shut the whole bloody thing down....guess what, we had to start all over again, wonderful, but seriously most of the time the self service check-outs are OK Oh1 and I should add that I am not allowed to go around the aisles as I distract my wife, but it's sheer hell sitting in the restaurant reading which ever railway or model railway mags I can find

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

One annoying thing that seems to happen very regularly these days, is that you can be the next one to be served when the till assistant dealing with the people in front of you, suddenly stops everything and presses a buzzer, waving a "query" item over their head, waiting for a supervisor to come to sort out a price query.

 

[me123]

Thats not really them being misused tho, its just an inconvenience of that type of system.

In itself, that's not misusing them. But many customers try and exploit the weaknesses in the system. For example, they'll not put the items on the scale correctly or (the more clever ones) put on some expensive fruit like a bag of cherries and weigh them as something a lot cheaper like potatoes or something - because the system works on weight alone it can't distinguish between the two (that's why the operator's there). Other notable scams is to put a barcode for 9p on a bottle of whiskey or vodka... strangely enough, a 9p reduced to clear loaf of bread is slightly less heavy than a bottle of £20 booze, and it calls someone over... And, of course, I refused more alcohol on the self scanners than I did on any other till - I think some people thought that they were an easy way past the law, but in reality I think the operators are more wary on the self scanners.

The £100 shops were a right pain as well. I always tried to advise customers that they can do it if they like, but they will have problems - the things simply aren't designed for 100 items (whereas our tills obviously were: up to 300 items IIRC).

The reason that they are very sensitive for these things is because there are known scams operating with them.

 

[90019]

It would be better if they attached a hand to it that could grab the item in question for you . While I'm dreaming make it remote controlled too so I can sit in the cafe having a bacon sandwich and a cuppa while doing my shopping

You could even go one better

 

[HST Power]

You could even go one better

Ocado! Their vans are constantly wizzing along on the A1(M) at break neck speeds of 58mph!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ocado have a strong presence in the Home Delivery market in Cheshire East, as the number of people who now use the on-line service offered to make their purchases are increasing on a year by year basis. The large supermarket chains see this as a growing trend in retailing. Of course, in America, this has been the norm for very many years.