Posted on 06/06/2004 4:36:52 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
WASHINGTON (AP) - Supermarket checkout clerks are going the way of the bank teller - available if you want one, avoidable if you don't.
Self-checkout machines, which let customers scan, bag and pay for their own groceries, offer shoppers a chance to avoid the lines at the checkout stands.
"This is like an ATM for them. It's quicker and easier," said Jennifer Panetta, a spokeswoman for the six-state Harris Teeter chain, based in Matthews, N.C. "They are in pretty much all our stores."
About one-quarter of grocery chains are trying them now, with some 34,000 machines in use in stores in 2003, said market analyst Greg Buzek, president of IHL Consulting Group in Franklin, Tenn.
Buzek, who wrote a report on the equipment, predicts that by 2007 there will be 244,000 self-checkout machines in stores and that virtually every chain will at least some of them.
"The way we shop has changed quite a bit in the last 15 years," he said in an interview. "But the checkout lane hasn't changed all that much."
For example, shoppers have been shifting from grocery carts to plastic baskets, and adding short stops to the big weekly grocery purchase. More than half of supermarket customers bring fewer than 15 items to the register, and self-checkout is ideal for them, according to Buzek's report.
Express lanes were set up to speed these customers through, but self-checkout can be even faster, Buzek said. A space that could fit one or two lanes can handle four to six self-checkout machines, reducing the chance of getting stuck in a line. "There's usually nobody in line at self-checkout," Buzek said.
Customers take longer than a clerk to ring up and bag groceries, but the shoppers do not seem to notice that, the report said. Because the customer is keeping busy scanning and bagging instead of waiting while the clerk does the work, time seems to pass faster.
"I think this is faster if you know what you are doing," said Khatool Reha of Reston, Va., as she dropped a couple of cans of spaghetti into a plastic bag at a Harris Teeter store. "There is no need to wait in line."
When she buys more than 10 items, "I just go over there," said Reha, motioning toward the staffed lanes.
That is the way it is supposed to work, Buzek said. Getting more small purchasers into the self-checkout lanes frees cashiers in the staffed lanes to deal with big-ticket purchases that customers prefer to have someone else bag, he said.
For retailers, the use of self-checkout can reduce staffing at the front of the store. One staffer typically is the only employee needed to assist customers at the self-checkout lanes when shoppers cannot get a bar code to scan or do not know where to put their credit card.
Buzek said there also is less theft at a self-checkout counter.
Employees are responsible for most of the theft in a retail store, he said. One common form is "sweethearting," in which the clerk helps a friend by passing a cheaper item over the scanner but dropping a more expensive one into the bag.
That is hard to do on a self-checkout machine. The computer can identify the object, typically weighing each product-coded item. A customer drops the item into the bag after it is scanned, and if the weight of the bag doesn't change by the proper amount, the machine halts the transaction until things get straightened out.
Wal-Mart has self-checkout in about 840 of its more than 3,000 stores, and is putting the equipment into all of its new stores as they open, said Gus Whitcomb, a spokesman for the chain in Bentonville, Ark.
Whitcomb said Wal-Mart customers have put just about everything through the scanners - even ready-to-assemble desks in "a big gigantic box." Other stores, such as The Home Depot hardware chain, also have been using self-checkout.
Not every food store chain is leaping to the technology. Publix Super Markets, based in Lakeland, Fla., has about 800 stores, mostly in Florida, but only about a dozen have self-checkout, and seven of those were already in stores the chain purchased in Tennessee, said Brenda Reid, a Publix spokeswoman.
The corporate culture at Publix emphasizes having staffers do things for customers, Reid said. "Self-checkout would be very countercultural," she said.
Publix stores where the manager sees a demand for self-checkout can get it, she said, but "nobody is beating down our doors."
ROFL! Perfect.
Paper bags are better....bigger...and they won't sit in a landfill for centuries trying to decompose.
Unfortunately, you can't get paper bags anymore, even here in Kansas.
How lower? I'm skeptical either way.
In business, it's called "goodwill," and in larger transactions there are very real dollar amounts associated with it.
You don't have to like it, but in business you *do* have to pay it.
Of course, there are always those mules that will go belly-up because they *know* chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry are all the flavors anyone needs.
Just when you think you know a freeper, you find out something new...
That technology was tried in Milwaukee about 15 years ago, and abandoned. Nobody USED the lanes, although I thought it was the greatest idea since sliced bread.
There were some techno-glitches, which may have been the reason they were dropped. Nothing serious, but if the idea is "convenience" and you have to sit around waiting for the damn machine to get out of some endless loop routine, well...you get the idea.
I've gotten in line behind several of those types. I think the worst are those who go through self checkout and write a stupid check. The clerk then has to see their id and the check thereby slowing down the line.
Or head to your nearest topless bar, and start throwing around $50.00 bills.
How tragic.
Since my beloved works as a checker, there's another side to that story, too. You would be amazed and quite disheartened to learn of the number of people who treat checkers as though they were dirt.
Probably the same percentage as checkers who treat customers like dirt--but..
You know, checkers here are trained, forcefully, to greet EVERY customer. About 1/4 of the customers will not respond at all, in any way, shape or form, to a simple 'hello.'
I'm not all that sensitive; doesn't bother me at all--but it is definitely a two-way street.
So just send your scullery maid to do all the shopping chores for you...
Face it, you're *already* "working to get your groceries" by driving to the store, walking the aisles selecting things to put into your cart, etc. Checking them out yourself vs having someone check themout for you is a small difference compared to that.
And for those who really do prefer to not "work" to acquire their own groceries, there are always options available (for a price) whereby they can pay other people to relieve them of the "work".
Personally, I'd rather do it myself, I usually do it faster, better, and cheaper compared to letting someone else do it.
I was going to write that!
LOL
Ahem... that's petroleum transfer engineer's union you caveman ;-)
That's not how you say it!!! He was showing off his "piercings"...people don't have things pierced anymore!!! They have "piercings"! That is the "in" way of saying it.
You gotta learn the new way of talking! People don't keep a scrapebook anymore...they are "scrapebooking"...
People don't just disappear nowadays...no...they aren't missing. They gotta go somewhere to be missing now. They have to "Go missing". Or they "Went missing."
(You have my permission to spray me with a hose any time you see fit.)
Hey good idea, and after unloading those trucks, how about two dollars to park, and shopping cart rentals! Like luggage carts at the airport.
i love it.
no waiting for the bitch ahead of you to finish her gossiping with the checker.
no waiting for the bitch ahead of you to dig thru' her purse.
no problema.
You may not mind getting the bum's rush from vendors you give a couple of hundred dollars a week, but I do.
My money: my prerogative.
If there ever is a time to spray you with a hose,it would be now.And it won't be a garden hose,it'll be one those high pressure hoses used to stop rioters.
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