Most of the checkout clerks are young, have tattoos, colored hair, and metal in their faces. I care not to socialize with them. What am I gonna say to them? "Hey nice nose bolt you got there."
It has gotten pitiful.
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."
Personally, I have no interest in striking up a conversation with the sullen, hostile teenager at the checkout counter. Ditto for bank tellers.
What sealed it for me was going to the Walmart and dropping $300 on assorted grocery and household items, and the clerk didn't say *one word* to me; wasn't the first time either.
You know why they don't say "thank you" anymore? Because they *aren't* grateful that you choose to shop there. And they *aren't* grateful for the job your patronage has given them. Which all says to me: the store management doesn't really want my business, otherwise they would have trained their staff better.
So it's hard to have any sympathy for the checkers, they've sealed their fate by their behavior. (I'm generalizing of course, there are some great supermarkets out there such as my beloved Langenstein's)
Automation such as a self-checkout and online banking have freed me to spend more time with my family and friends.
With things such as instant messenger and email, I'm much more involved with my far-flung family and friends than I ever was before.
Its not necessarily the technology, its how you put it to use.
/rant module unload
I like them, but don't understand why the K dropped them, or why they are often closed at the grocery store.
It's only a matter of time before they have us sweeping the floors and unloading the trucks.
self checkout is like faceless banking, it is a beancounters idea of how america ought to operate.I don't do drive through unless the doors are closed. Color me old, traditional, whatever, I like things face to face. More important jobs down the drain.
I love them. They are so much faster.
I tell them "Half and half" - it confuses them.
On to the general subject: I find it offensive that I have to go to the grocery store and work to get my groceries. The checkout lines were changed years ago so that checkers didn't have to take the items out of the basket. Ok. I understand. Strained muscles, bad backs. So now, it's up to the customer to 1) load the basket 2) unload the basket 3) scan each item and 4) bag the groceries.
[rhetorical question] Then will someone tell me why prices are going up instead of down???
This sucks for those of us that use the "Rule of the Cutest Checkout Girl."
:)
This type of attitude could be responsible for your screen name.
Most of the checkout clerks are young, have tattoos, colored hair, and metal in their faces. I care not to socialize with them. What am I gonna say to them? "Hey nice nose bolt you got there."
It has gotten pitiful.
Read my profile before making comments, my FRiend. Also, with all due respect, perhaps I should have added a humor tag.
>>Once you get the hang of self-checkout, its a great alternative when you have a few items you want to take out the doors with you in a hurry.
True, unless all the self-checkout stations are clogged with those who not only don't have the hang of it, but also don't seem to have a clue.
Just teasin'.
Oops. Terribly sorry for my post but moreso for your loss. I had assumed your screen name was a jest. Thanks for pointing it out to me in such a reasonable fashion.
We don't have them here yet (Northern NJ) in the supermarkets, but we do have them at Home Depot. As long as you have small items, it works well; but, big things drive that little lady in the computer crazy: "Remove item from area; place in bag." It's frustrating sometimes.
My local Giant has refused to install these atrocities and their customers are grateful.
BUMP
I kinda like the self-checkout, but the novelty wears off. The store I go to now resolved the shopping cart issue by eagerly offering drive up, "No tipping allowed, sir". I'm being won over quickly. ;-)
A thank you would be nice, but I wish the thing would just shut up. I find the voice prompts very annoying.
I can just see it now. After you scan a box of doughnuts the scanner voice says, "Hey fatso, how 'bout trying a salad?"
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