Supermarkets discussion

[Cambrian359]

Long may it continue. I don't mind self-service tills being provided for those who are able and willing to use them, but I absolutely object to the removal of choice. I'm not awfully convinced that removal of staffed checkouts is that cost-effective, either.

A good checkout operator is able to process far more items in a given period of time than a bunch of amateur numpties trying to process their own shopping. Checkout operators can scan items one after the other without having to worry about the weight on the bagging area; they can sell age-restricted products there and then without having to wait for someone to turn up to authorise it*. A decent checkout operator will also be able to assist you with packing your bags without calling for additional assistance and still get you through the till in a fraction of the time that it would take you to do it yourself.

A good checkout operator knows their customers well enough to determine if additional assistance is required and will call for someone to assist the customer to their car/taxi/bus stop without the customer having to ask.

It's utter madness that we've gone from the situation where customers were previously offered bag-packing help, assistance to the car park etc., to the stage where they have to fend for themselves.

My dad, sadly no longer with us, had a stroke and went from being someone who was completely independent and able to use self-checkouts to someone who struggled with technology that he'd previously had no issue with. I'm not convinced that the drive towards self-service is such a good thing.

Anyone who believes the nonsense that such measures are saving money and that those savings will ultimately be passed on to the customer is living in cloud-cuckoo-land; there will be savings, but it'll be the shareholder who will benefit.

* Staff who are under 18 will always require authorisation

Here here! An experienced team of till staff will clear a rush far quicker than a bank of self service. I dont agree with forcing self service on people, as much as I love technology it’s not always a good thing .

 

[jon0844]

I am all for self scanning (ideally on an app so I can pack my bags as I shop) but accept (and have always accepted) that the scope for fraud is immense.

If it became a criminal offence and the police arrested and jailed offenders then perhaps a lot of opportunists would not risk it, and habitual thieves would be inside, but as long as staff can't get involved and the police don't care, we need to look at other ways to reduce risk.

So many seemingly law abiding people are breaking laws because they see others do it and wonder why they're wasting time doing things by the book, and seeing that there are no repercussions in most cases (hence people defrauding the railway through short ticketing etc). At least the railway is now clamping down on this, but what about the supermarkets until now?

Plus, I doubt Tesco and others are in a rush to hire new staff to open manned checkouts anytime soon. They'll continue to take the hit and make us pay for the losses.

 

[jon81uk]

Long may it continue. I don't mind self-service tills being provided for those who are able and willing to use them, but I absolutely object to the removal of choice. I'm not awfully convinced that removal of staffed checkouts is that cost-effective, either.

A good checkout operator is able to process far more items in a given period of time than a bunch of amateur numpties trying to process their own shopping. Checkout operators can scan items one after the other without having to worry about the weight on the bagging area; they can sell age-restricted products there and then without having to wait for someone to turn up to authorise it*. A decent checkout operator will also be able to assist you with packing your bags without calling for additional assistance and still get you through the till in a fraction of the time that it would take you to do it yourself.

A good checkout operator knows their customers well enough to determine if additional assistance is required and will call for someone to assist the customer to their car/taxi/bus stop without the customer having to ask.

It's utter madness that we've gone from the situation where customers were previously offered bag-packing help, assistance to the car park etc., to the stage where they have to fend for themselves.

My dad, sadly no longer with us, had a stroke and went from being someone who was completely independent and able to use self-checkouts to someone who struggled with technology that he'd previously had no issue with. I'm not convinced that the drive towards self-service is such a good thing.

Anyone who believes the nonsense that such measures are saving money and that those savings will ultimately be passed on to the customer is living in cloud-cuckoo-land; there will be savings, but it'll be the shareholder who will benefit.

* Staff who are under 18 will always require authorisation

Not sure where all these good checkout operators are. But then we pack our own reusable boxes and bags so I guess its obvious we don't need assistance but I don't think most checkout operators are as good as you make out. My favourite method is the scan as you go round, only need to put things into the trolley once then, straight into the bags and boxes and done.

In city centre stores though I've noticed they are basically all self-checkout now, with the kiosk (for spirits and cigerettes) the only staffed tills. But in a smaller city centre store most people are only getting 3-5 items, so the slowest part is the payment which is the same whether assisted or self-checkout. Also with everyone using their own bags now, the asisstant having to scan it and then hand it back to me slows things down a lot. Generally I think the larger quantity of self-checkouts is far better for those city centre stores where people only need a few items.
Once over 10 items (ie more than one bag) then scan as you go round is best, followed by staffed till I think. Putting a large amount on a standard self checkout isn't always that quick.

 

[GusB]

Not sure where all these good checkout operators are. But then we pack our own reusable boxes and bags so I guess its obvious we don't need assistance but I don't think most checkout operators are as good as you make out. My favourite method is the scan as you go round, only need to put things into the trolley once then, straight into the bags and boxes and done.

That is your preferred method of doing things and it's absolutely fine with me. What isn't acceptable to me is when you remove that choice from others who may not be quite so comfortable with the use of self-service methods.

 

[takno]

In general I like there to be self service checkouts and don't mind using them. The problem is when Tesco decides that you should be forced onto the one (part time since they also have to stock shelves) operator to do anything out of the ordinary. If "out of the ordinary" includes scanning a barcode clubcard, paying cash, buying lottery tickets, cigarettes batteries or spirits then you end up with a pretty big queue.

Overall the problem isn't really with the self service tills though - it's more with the staff cuts which mean the people who are still supposed to be working tills are actually nowhere near them, and when they do go on them they haven't had the training so they themselves can't figure out items which won't scan or calculate change.

The self service tills are just a sticking plaster that let them get away with it for some customers some proportion of the time.

 

[DelW]

Looks like one supermarket chain has finally realised that trying to browbeat their (predominately elderly)
customers into using self-checkouts is actually counter productive to their bottom line...?

Self-service: Booths supermarket puts staff back behind its tills

Booths says removing its self-service checkouts is the right thing to do and what customers want.

www.bbc.co.uk

MARK

I applaud Booth's for this, and I hope that it succeeds for them; if so, it might just cause their competitors to consider slowing or pausing their rush towards automated tills being the only choice.

I can see there's an argument for offering self-scan tills where customers are only buying a small number of items, and they are all barcoded. Neither of those apply to my weekly food shop, and I much prefer to use a staffed checkout (and usually have a pleasant chat with the operator while doing so). I don't want to be forced into self-scanning by the progressive removal of staffed tills, as has been happening recently.

I wonder whether Booth's also found that the saving in staff cost was outweighed by an increase in losses due to deliberate mis-scanning or non-scanning by (some) customers of self-scan tills?

 

[Lucan]

Like many new ideas* the self-service checkouts remain advantageous to the user only as long as they are used by a minority of first adopters

When my Tesco first opened a couple of them, I used them if I was only buying a few items (still do - to me they are the equivalent of the old "six item" fast checkouts). It was great, because I was usually the only one using them and I had the undivided attention of the attendant to authorise a booze purchase** and sort out the non-responding touch screen (they need a special type of tap). This is why first adopters tend to enthuse over new ways of doing things. But now that more people use the self-service, and the shop has eight of them, having reduced its staffed checkouts to two or three, the self-service area now has its own queues and it about equal waiting time for either. The two options are kind of self-levelling, and there is no longer any clear advantage to the self-serve in terms of time - which would be the quicker one varies constantly.

I also suspect that most customers who like self-sevice checkouts are single people who pop round the corner to the shop several times a week, buying in small amounts. We do one grocery shop per week and fill a medium size trolley (this week the bill was £130). To get this through a self-service checkout would require the use of two trolleys because the provided shelf is no-where near big enough for it all. I have never actually seen anyone with two trolleys in the area, and you would need to go out halfway across the car park to fetch a second trolley at that point.

Once you reach the front of the queue at either the self-service or staffed checkout, the staffed one is much much faster - after all the cashier is scanning while you are loading the trolley in parallel, two people working on it instead of one, and the cashier does the scan itself faster than I do because they usually know what facet of the item has the bar code on it without having to turn it round and round like I usually need to.

* I could give numerous other examples but don't want to go off-topic.
** When I am buying two or three things, it is usuallly booze. Mrs L refuses to include it in the main shopping list.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not another cash vs card debate, but one thing that slightly grinds my gears is when someone decides to self scan a week's worth of groceries, at the only self service checkout till that still takes cash, and then elects to pay instead by a debit or credit card, taking an eternity to do just that because the contactless reader initially declines the transaction and requires a PIN number to be entered.

 

[jon81uk]

That is your preferred method of doing things and it's absolutely fine with me. What isn't acceptable to me is when you remove that choice from others who may not be quite so comfortable with the use of self-service methods.

Except for the city centre stores where the only staffed till is the kiosk, I've not come across any full size supermarket during normal hours (ie not at midnight) where there isn't the option of a staffed checkout. Generally if its the size of store where you will have a trolley load, a standard till with a conveyor has been available. I don't think they are removing the choice from full size supermarkets. Also generally in the city centre stores where it is all self-service (except kiosk) they are more metropolitan shoppers who are happy using technology.

 

[al78]

Here here! An experienced team of till staff will clear a rush far quicker than a bank of self service. I dont agree with forcing self service on people, as much as I love technology it’s not always a good thing .

I agree with not removing choice from people but my experience of self service checkouts is they are almost always faster than a manned checkout. If a self service checkout has one queue for six machines, if the length of the queues are equal, the manned checkout would have to be six times faster per person to compete on speed. It is analogous to computer programming in comparing single vs multi-threaded code. If there are only two people waiting at a manned checkout and 15 people waiting at the self service, the former will likely be faster and on such an occasion I use it, but in general, even though I live in an area which at times seems to be home to some of the world's slowest people, the self service checkout wins almost every time for speed.

 

[takno]

I agree with not removing choice from people but my experience of self service checkouts is they are almost always faster than a manned checkout. If a self service checkout has one queue for six machines, if the length of the queues are equal, the manned checkout would have to be six times faster per person to compete on speed. It is analogous to computer programming in comparing single vs multi-threaded code. If there are only two people waiting at a manned checkout and 15 people waiting at the self service, the former will likely be faster and on such an occasion I use it, but in general, even though I live in an area which at times seems to be home to some of the world's slowest people, the self service checkout wins almost every time for speed.

The manned checkout will often have attracted the more time-consuming transactions. There will be people who want (or more realistically in our atomised society need) to chat, people who have enormous trolley-loads and no real idea how to pack their own bags, people who lack the dexterity to pack as quickly as other people can scan and pack, or who struggle to use cards or the slippery new banknotes.

One thing I find is that I feel much less under pressure when I'm at one of half-a-dozen self-service machines. When I know there is queue behind me at a manned checkout I always suspect that everybody in the queue is as angry with me as I was with the person in front of me.

Overall though, the key thing is that you can't sling all the slightly more complex customers off onto a single queue and make them suffer because "most customers got through self-service quickly". It's just not fair, and sooner or later virtually everybody ends up stuck in that queue for one reason or another, and they tend not to forget the experience

 

[ChrisC]

Except for the city centre stores where the only staffed till is the kiosk, I've not come across any full size supermarket during normal hours (ie not at midnight) where there isn't the option of a staffed checkout. Generally if its the size of store where you will have a trolley load, a standard till with a conveyor has been available. I don't think they are removing the choice from full size supermarkets. Also generally in the city centre stores where it is all self-service (except kiosk) they are more metropolitan shoppers who are happy using technology.

The type of store, it’s location and the type of customers who shop there probably almost certainly determines the balance of needs between staffed checkouts and self service. I almost always prefer to use staffed checkouts, but then I very rarely shop in city centre stores or even huge out of town superstores. Most of my regular shopping is in small stores like the Co-op or Sainsbury’s Local in a large village location with occasional larger shops in mid sized town centre stores belonging to more upmarket retailers like Waitrose or M&S. Unfortunately, I don’t live in the region where Booths have stores, but having shopped there in the past, it is a shop that I would use instead of Waitrose and M&S if I lived in their area

Many people who live very busy lives want to be quickly in and out of the shop and especially the more metropolitan shoppers would now be lost without self service checkouts. I’m rarely in a great hurry, value the personal touch of a staffed checkout, hopefully with a friendly smile and occasional short chat. Just like I don’t really like self service checkouts, I also don’t like places like huge busy superstores, where often seemingly mute robotic staff scan your items so quickly and then almost throw them into the packing area without allowing you time to pack your bags. My experience of using stores like Waitrose and M&S have been friendly and considerate staff who will actually allow you time to pack and will sometimes even assist you. Quite often in smaller convenience stores in quieter village location the staff will actually pack your bag for you. Sainsbury’s Local shop staff are often very helpful in this respect.

I might be getting old and be a bit old fashioned, but that’s the choice I like to have. It is also important that the busy city worker, often in a hurry, also have their preferred choice.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Looks like Booths are going back to staffed tills only. A bad move, as most medium and large supermarkets need a mixture. Who's going to shop at a supermarket that only has one staffed till and a mile-long queue, when it's their nearest (or one of them) and there are others nearby that have a mixture so you can be in and out within literally seconds? I have rarely seen tills fully staffed for ages now.

 

[High Dyke]

Looks like Booths are going back to staffed tills only. A bad move, as most medium and large supermarkets need a mixture. Who's going to shop at a supermarket that only has one staffed till and a mile-long queue, when it's their nearest (or one of them) and there are others nearby that have a mixture so you can be in and out within literally seconds? I have rarely seen tills fully staffed for ages now.

Link to BBC news story here.

Supermarket chain Booths is axing almost all self-service tills in its stores in what it says is a response to customer demand.

All but two of the 28 stores run by the company, which trades in northern England, will have staffed checkouts.

 

[Kite159]

Self scan is good if you only have a few items with 'scan as you go' for larger shops.
Only so you can keep an eye on any discounts not applying (ie my local Tesco had put out some of the 'non meal deal' barcoded packets of fruit instead of the meal deal barcoded packs (only difference being the barcode)

Using a staffed till that could have been easily overlooked, especially with other products being purchased.

 

[weepingwillowb]

Booths supermarket chain (Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire) to remove the self-service tills from most of its stores.

Supermarket chain Booths is axing almost all self-service tills in its stores in what it says is a response to customer demand.
All but two of the 28 stores run by the company, which trades in northern England, will have staffed checkouts.
The exceptions are Keswick and Windermere, two of its Cumbria shops.
The firm, which has 16 stores in Lancashire as well as outlets in Yorkshire and Cheshire, said the policy was driven by customer feedback.
Booths is believed to be the first UK supermarket to move away from using self-service tills, which have become increasingly common in recent years.

Self-service: Booths supermarket puts staff back behind its tills

Booths says removing its self-service checkouts is the right thing to do and what customers want.

www.bbc.com

** Just seen that this has already been posted in the "Supermarkets Discussion" thread. Sorry.

 

[edwin_m]

Booths supermarket chain (Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire) to remove the self-service tills from most of its stores.

...."Supermarket chain Booths is axing almost all self-service tills in its stores in what it says is a response to customer demand.
....All but two of the 28 stores run by the company, which trades in northern England, will have staffed checkouts.
....The exceptions are Keswick and Windermere, two of its Cumbria shops.
....The firm, which has 16 stores in Lancashire as well as outlets in Yorkshire and Cheshire, said the policy was driven by customer feedback.
....Booths is believed to be the first UK supermarket to move away from using self-service tills, which have become increasingly common in recent years."

Self-service: Booths supermarket puts staff back behind its tills

Booths says removing its self-service checkouts is the right thing to do and what customers want.

www.bbc.com

** Just seen that this has already been posted in the "Supermarkets Discussion" thread. Sorry.

Well, that's an unexpected item (in the bagging area).

 

[Baxenden Bank]

A good checkout operator is able to process far more items in a given period of time than a bunch of amateur numpties trying to process their own shopping. Checkout operators can scan items one after the other without having to worry about the weight on the bagging area; they can sell age-restricted products there and then without having to wait for someone to turn up to authorise it*. A decent checkout operator will also be able to assist you with packing your bags without calling for additional assistance and still get you through the till in a fraction of the time that it would take you to do it yourself.

Amateur numpties who don't have to be paid.

 

[Hadders]

I wonder whether Booth's also found that the saving in staff cost was outweighed by an increase in losses due to deliberate mis-scanning or non-scanning by (some) customers of self-scan tills?

Stock loss (or shrinkage as it is called in the retail industry) does increase when self checkouts are installed but the labour saving is greater. It's also worth pointing out that filling checkout operator (and other general shop work jobs) has become very difficult across the whole industry in many parts of the country.

This is certainly an interesting move by Booths. I do wonder what the cost of the additional staffing required will be and how this will be paid for. Booths has struggled for both sales (down on a like for like basis in the year ending April 2023 despite huge food price inflation) and pre-tax profit at £3 million does not seem great to me.

I also suspect that most customers who like self-sevice checkouts are single people who pop round the corner to the shop several times a week, buying in small amounts. We do one grocery shop per week and fill a medium size trolley (this week the bill was £130). To get this through a self-service checkout would require the use of two trolleys because the provided shelf is no-where near big enough for it all. I have never actually seen anyone with two trolleys in the area, and you would need to go out halfway across the car park to fetch a second trolley at that point.

I'm afraid you're wrong. Go and observe the checkout area in a typical large supermarket and you'll see the opposite. Anyone nuying a trolley full of shopping will find it far faster to use a 'scan and go' handset - pack your bags as you go round the shop, know how much it's going to cost before you reach the till and no need to pack anything at all at the checkouts. Supermarkets are also installing larger self checkouts suitable for trolley shops.

Once you reach the front of the queue at either the self-service or staffed checkout, the staffed one is much much faster - after all the cashier is scanning while you are loading the trolley in parallel, two people working on it instead of one, and the cashier does the scan itself faster than I do because they usually know what facet of the item has the bar code on it without having to turn it round and round like I usually need to.

I made the mistake of using a staffed checkout in my local supermarket last week. Never again. The queue wasn't long but the excessive faff from both customer and checkout operatorwas unbelievable and frustrating.

 

[Lucan]

I'm afraid you're wrong. .... Anyone nuying a trolley full of shopping will find it far faster to use a 'scan and go' handset - pack your bags as you go round the shop, know how much it's going to cost before you reach the till and no need to pack anything at all at the checkouts.

I was comparing cashier checkouts versus self-service checkouts. I was not comparing with self-scanning at the shelf, which is the third option and the one you mention.

 

[Hadders]

I was comparing cashier checkouts versus self-service checkouts. I was not comparing with self-scanning at the shelf, which is the third option and the one you mention.

Fair enough, but I'd still that my observations show it is generally faster to use a self checkout even for a trolley load of shopping, as long as the self checkout is one of the larger trolley ones.

 

[Busaholic]

Fair enough, but I'd still that my observations show it is generally faster to use a self checkout even for a trolley load of shopping, as long as the self checkout is one of the larger trolley ones.

I think it rather depends on the profile of the customer: if I am at a manned checkout, I'm placing my items on the belt before the fun begins, then usually managing to bag them all or put them back into my trolley ready to settle up, present loyalty card, relevant coupons etc, about a minute later. It's much easier for me to place objects on the belt than mess around at the self-service till, locating which sides barcodes are on (not always obvious). scanning then depositing my newspaper coupons (at Sainsbury's they often won't register in the slot provided, in Tesco it's another problem), calling for authorisation for alcohol etc etc.

Of course, it does all depend on Gary, Olwen or whoever ahead of you in the queue not being a professional narcissist determined that his/her presence is going to be noticed by everyone by the time they leave the store. I have to admit I look in advance at my fellow queuers to try and guess whether they might display anti-social tendencies when it's time to pay.

 

[AM9]

By far the fastest is to use scan and go. The only delay there is for the occasional rescan and then it is only for a few items proportional to the total scanned value.

 

[Magdalia]

The Booth's story did cheer me up.

I always use a staffed checkout at the supermarket, for 3 main reasons.

Scanning shopping is a skilled task and I pay for a professional to do it, so that I don't have to do a rubbish DIY job myself. Economically that's no different from, for example, paying a professional plumber or painter instead of trying DIY and making a mess.

I shop by cycle, and packing panniers is like a 3 dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Scan and go does not work for this, I would be zigzagging all round the store in order to pick up items in the order that they need to go in the panniers. Self checkout does not work either, because packing the panniers needs space. The traditional staffed checkout with a conveyor works brilliantly, I can go round the shop in my preferred order, loading up the trolley as I go, arrange my purchases into the order that they go into the panniers as I transfer them onto the conveyor, then pack each item after it has been scanned by the skilled professional.

As someone who lives alone, I value the human contact, and during the pandemic it helped to keep me sane. When I choose which till to use who is sitting on the chair is an important consideration! I'm fortunate that I usually do my weekly shop mid-morning, when the supermarket tills are mainly operated by women in their 50s and 60s. There are about half a dozen of those who know me as a regular customer, they like to see me, I like to see them, and as a result both of us have a better day. For those of you who drink in a traditional "local" pub, its like the chats you get there with the bar staff. For me, the supermarket, and the people who work there, are part of my local community.

I don't know much about Booths, they don't have supermarkets here in the Fens, but I get the impression that Booths recognise two of these. But Booths probably don't have many cycling customers.

 

[Gloster]

But Booths probably don't have many cycling customers.

Only young lads buying Hovis.

 

[AM9]

Only young lads buying Hovis.

Why, - have hey just opened a branch in Shaftesbury?

 

[dgl]

Why, - have hey just opened a branch in Shaftesbury?

The closest thing is Waitrose in Gillingham. The advert was shot about as North as you can get, well as North in Dorset as you can get!

In a cost of living crisis anything that can save money for the consumer must be a good thing, and self-checkouts do just that. Also now any supermarket that does click and collect/deliveries will need staff for that and given the struggles of finding people now there probably isn't the staff to go back to all manned tills.
Self-checkouts have also got better and as such problems are much rarer I have found, also in some supermarkets they can now clear issues from their screens and can do things like age verification without needing to got to the offending checkout, saving a decent amount of time.

Personally as a kid I always wanted to do the scanning myself and was pleased when self-checkouts were first installed and if nothing goes wrong (which is 99% of the time) I reckon I am just as quick as a normal cashier, I reckon I could even work in Aldi/Lidl!

 

[edwin_m]

Fair enough, but I'd still that my observations show it is generally faster to use a self checkout even for a trolley load of shopping, as long as the self checkout is one of the larger trolley ones.

Not my experience. I always have to get assistance at least once. When I rearrange the bags to start filling the next one, the system thinks I'm taking something off the part that weighs the goods.

By far the fastest is to use scan and go. The only delay there is for the occasional rescan and then it is only for a few items proportional to the total scanned value.

Problem there is the delay to others while people block the aisles or shelves while scanning. It would be quicker when there's a long queue, but at other times the act of self-scanning is slower than someone on a checkout doing the same scan, so while it may appear quicker it actually isn't.

 

[takno]

Not my experience. I always have to get assistance at least once. When I rearrange the bags to start filling the next one, the system thinks I'm taking something off the part that weighs the goods.

I never attempt to pack as I go. Just get it all through and onto the scale, and then pack it once you've paid. Something will still go wrong occasionally but it's not that common. The other upside is that you can just concentrate on one thing at a time, so you aren't dumping heavy stuff on top of light stuff etc.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Nov 2023 ==

Personally as a kid I always wanted to do the scanning myself and was pleased when self-checkouts were first installed and if nothing goes wrong (which is 99% of the time) I reckon I am just as quick as a normal cashier, I reckon I could even work in Aldi/Lidl!

They never had fancy stuff like barcodes or conveyor belts when I was a kid - just had to pull all the shopping towards them with a wooden frame and type in the prices, so that's what I wanted to do. It's lucky because working at Iceland and M&S it was usually easier to memorise and type in the product codes rather than messing around with the barcodes anyway.

 

[route101]

My local Aldi has just installed self checkouts which is ideal if you are nipping in for a few things.