Posted on 09/02/2012 7:13:16 AM PDT by KevinDavis
In Rogers Arkansas, Walmart recently asked employees and their friends with iPhones to test out a new self scan-and-go app. It's one of a few mobile initiatives Walmart is working on that could one day replace or aid its many cashiers.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I can never find an open register at my Wally World so they may already have.
Yep, twenty registers with only two open...it drives me crazy!
I have been to stores where they are no cashiers (the ones standing by the cash register), it is awful.
You run your own stuff over the scanner, bag (but if you don’t do it exactly correct the whole thing freezes).
So you have to get the attention of the person for ten scanners to come over, over ride, and start over again.
There is no customer service, because there are no people.
Even the clothing stores that these centralize check out stations, are awful.
The people don’t know anything about the products because they don’t work in the departments.
This app may save the store money, it is however devoid of customer service.
In Baton Rouge Walmart installed new self scan checkouts. Then hurricane Katrina came and a lot of people from New Orleans moved up to BR. Suddenly the self serve lanes went bye bye.
I actually lasted about 9 months at walmart. They post a ‘scanning accuracy’ report in the back room every week. It really means scanning speed. So yeah, this will probably happen.
I have talked to two managers of stores without enough cashiers, they told me they can’t hire enought despite $9+ a hour. Add to their problems, many fail the drug tests.
Makes me happy, I am out of retail management.
Today we zip through unmanned tollbooths with transponders, travel agents are extinct because with a few taps on our laptop or smartphone, we can plan an entire vacation and obtain our own travel arrangements, lodging and even book our own entertainment and dining. Many of our are pumping and paying for our own gas with RFID technology (Speedpass). I can go on and on.
Point being is that it sucks being a low-skill worker. People need to learn some skills!
Eliminate cashiers?
Wouldn’t that be catastrophic to the economy like ATM machines?
In Baraq’s second term, he plans to nationalize Wal-Mart and put a management team from the post office in place.
On e more reason to not go to walmart for anything. The place is a dump for odd looking people and idiots that do not value their worth in society.
They gave us self checkouts, which was wonderful because I;m tired of toxic stuff put in bags with my vegetables and other stuff being squashed to ‘save a bag’.
I could scan my stuff and be outta there so fast it wasn’t funny.
Then, they took them away.
I rarely go there now and when I have to, I check out in the gun department where hubby’s buddy works part time.
Oh...they also totally reversed the floor plan of the store so nobody can find anything and there’s nobody to ask where stuff is.
I used to love Walmart.
Stop And Shop supermarkets are nearly already there, with the exception that for now their software uses a scanner you pick up when you enter the store. But I doubt that turning into it an “App” will be very difficult.
Conversion of that process to a smart-phone App is fairly straight forward. I imagine it will become common practice.
That is true.. I feel for them, however, we can’t stop progress in the name of saving jobs..
Self-service checkout requires a customer base that is honest.
Sadly, with many areas of the country infested with thugs, hoodlums, gangsta wannabes, welfare queens, and democraps (but I repeat myself) self-checkout is an open invitation to fraud and theft.
I think we will be buying more and more ONLINE, also...
I agree.. Brick and mortar stores will be here, but not as much as it use to be.
...and someone else is already working on an app (or a mod to that app) that’ll let you shop for waaay below retail...;-)
..and someone else is already working on an app (or a mod to that app) that’ll let you shop for waaay below retail...;-)
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Heh. There’s that, isn’t there.
I was thinking along the lines of Walmart monitoring your purchases.
After observing this phenomenon for some time in the few retail establishments I still frequent (mainly grocery stores) I can only assume the MBA types have this down to a science: Just how long can you make a customer wait at checkout before they'll simply walk out in disgust? Then manage your cashier staffing to hew to that limit as closely as possible anytime day or night to reduce staffing costs to the absolute minimum.
What's particularly galling is that now that they've introduced self-scan checkout systems, they include them in the equations as well. For some mysterious reason one or more are always down for "maintenance" or some other excuse so that customers don't get an unexpected taste of swift service to skew the expectation level which must be carefully managed to keep checkout frustration at the just-below-boiling-point level.
I am not going to be forced to purchase & support a particular ‘phone’ to be able to purchase items at a store.
I use cash or credit card.
IF they don’t want my business, that is their loss.
On Soc Sec, my bug purchasing trip is about once a month. I hit Walmart & spend between $150.00 and $400.00. IF they don’t want my business, then that is their choice. I don’t mind waiting for the cashier. I refuse to use the ‘self-checkout’ lanes.
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