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."
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.
To the AP writer I say, Yes, and your point is . . . ?
Even an old guy like me has learned to use self checkout.
Now, if they can get the computer to say, "Thank you!"
(many clerks have forgotten how)
Too bad in the small towns I live and in the one I grew up in...the checkout people were friends family and neighbors and it was always a chance for a little quick socializing and 'catching up'
Hi tech low touch alien nation
It's fast if there isn't a technically challenged customer ahead of you.
joesnuffy wrote: "Too bad in the small towns I live and in the one I grew up in...the checkout people were friends family and neighbors and it was always a chance for a little quick socializing and 'catching up' "
Even if you aren't in a small town, it's nice to see a human at the checkout. Personally, I don't care for self checkout. It's OK for a single item or two, but this is similar to answering machines. There was a time when you could call a company and reach a human who would put you through to the appropriate party without a wait.
Well, when your not in a cozy little town, the checkout kids are just nasty and offensive. I could pay one of their salaries for the week with what I spend there, but can't even get a "hello."
I kinda liked going thru one particular line (prior to the future Mrs. rrrod) just to check out the check out lady...oh well progress I guess!
Yep.
I'll thank you to leave me out of this. :)
I'm pretty tech-savvy and I hate those things.
The ones in my area malfunction routinely and actually take MORE time than the "human" checkout line.
I hate self checkout! I always put the item in the bag or forget to put the item in the bag and it messes up and then I have to back out but then that's confusing, too. The interfaces aren't well designed yet.
I like being waited on by real people. I don't want to have to learn how to run a checkout machine! RANT!!!! Why do the companies have to make me part of their workforce without pay?!?!? Why do they always try to up their profits on the backs of the lowest paid folks, cashiers and customer help?!?!? If an item scans in at the wrong price (and one always does), can I override the price??? Hmmm???? RANT!!!!
The only socializing the checkout clerks do around here is with other clerks while they're handling your order. (at least during the recent grocery strike, the replacement clerks were attentive and weren't always discussing what time their breaks were with the grocery sacker).
As we move more towards being an economic opportunity zone and away from being a nation, the conversion of many aspects of life to technology makes perfect sense. When they ask 100 years from now "What happened to the greatest country on Earth?", perhaps this will be a small but important footnote.
I like interacting with another human being, at the register. (My wife and I regularly use the same cashier, every time we go grocery shopping. We know her name; she knows both of ours). And those self-checkout devices always, always, ALWAYS freeze up or otherwise malfunction, every single time I (foolishly) attempt to use one.
I'll gladly wait another five minutes or so, for the sheer, simple pleasure of a smiling face and a friendly "hi, there!"... and if that makes me a fogey: then I hereby fully and publicly embrace old codger-dom! :)
The first thing to go, in NJ, was the bagger. Why should the Supermarket pay to have someone to bag groceries when the Customer can do it? Did they cut the prices in the market, when they don't have to pay baggers?
Of course not.
Now the checkout clerk is going. Why should the Supermarket pay to have someone to check you out, when the Customer can do it? Did they cut the prices in the market, when they don't have to pay check out clerks?
Of course not.
My first job was bagging groceries in a Stop and Shop in Paramus. I was glad to get the job. it didn't pay all that well, but it was a job. It kept me in gas and Drum Corps for the summer of 1970.
I never bag my own groceries, nor do I use the check myself out. There is a job waiting for someone.
When I have a choice between the Shoprite (Baggers and no self-service lanes), or Stop and Shop, (no baggers and self-service lanes), I chose Shoprite. Not only do I get in and out quicker, but it's cheaper.
bill From Nutley
No complaints from the unions because they still need a warm body to take cash from those without credit cards.
BTW, another pet-peeve of mine concerning baggers. They always ask you "paper or plastic" and almost everytime I say paper, they put it in those infernal plastic bags anyway. This is because they are all set up with plastic bags and they consider moving to paper a major inconvenience for some odd reason. When I was a supermarket bagger back in 1978, I was a master at bagging with the paper bags. I was able to see the purchases as they came down the belt and was able to mentally bag the groceries in the most efficient manner before even starting. Those plastic bags are terrible. Nothing fits in them right.
Anyway, I am a big fan of "do it yourself." I prefer to pump my own gasoline and during a recent trip through New Jersey, I was chagrined to find out that it is against the law to pump your own gas there. I hate having somebody else put gas in my car. Now I am going to hate having somebody else ring up and bag my groceries. I now have gotten accustomed to doing it myself and that is the way that I like it.
I would like to see this kind of "self-service" continue. We Americans need the exercise. I think we have become too lazy and complacent by having all these things done for us. We need to start doing things for ourselves again.
That's a big 'if.'
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.