However, there is less excitement in the air now. Self-scanners are everywhere, accounting for roughly 80pc of sales in a typical supermarket, yet nobody seems to love them.
As customers grow frustrated and shoplifters fill their boots, bosses of grocery giants are finally asking themselves the question customers are asked at self-checkout kiosks every day. Do you wish to continue?
Not really, as it turns out. Having ruthlessly replaced cashier staff with self-checkout terminals to speed up purchases and save on wages, boardrooms now want the humans back.
Economics is about the margin. Economics is about the margin.
Booths is scrapping self-checkoout entirely. The M&S at Bristol Airport has only self-checkout. In between we’ve varyig different levels ofhuman aided tills and self-checkout. The robots might not be expnding, that’s true, but they’re also not all – all, given Booths – being scrapped either.
You know, markets. Try this, see if it works, if it does, do some morre, if that doesn’t then a step back and so on.
This is the usual idiocy of business coverage. The journo tries to shoehorn in an all or nothing idea. When the correct answer is near always some but how much?
Who is this ‘Booths’? Do you mean ‘Boots’?
@decnine: Think northern Waitrose.
I prefer the self checkouts. There are often lines at the manned checkouts and I can confirm that the self checkout is quicker by observing that people queuing for the manned ones are still there when I leave. I also find that packing my bags the way that I want them is much easier as I scan stuff in the order that I want to pack it. I rarely run into problems and I think that other people are gradually becoming less inept as I don’t hear as many error messages as I used to.
I don’t use self-checkouts. I might if they gave you a discount on the basis that I’m not being paid to do the work of a checkout operator, so why do it otherwise?
Some customers want to get out as soon as possible. Others want to chat. I’m in the former category.
My nightmare is being stuck behind an elderly person who wants to hear the checkout girls life story and appears to have removed all the bar codes so each item needs the supervisor to be summoned to determine the correct code. After which they reach out a sheath of coupons, where about 50% are out of date or for a different shop. Finally they slowly pack their bags only to discover that their wallet was in the bottom of the first bag they packed.
If the self service isn’t available or staffed by someone efficient I will choose the till operated by the pimply faced youth. Not the fastest scanner but compensated for by no attempt at eye contact let alone conversation.
I don’t use self-checkouts because I’m too lazy to train myself to do so.
No doubt the last of us neanderthals will die off soon, and the brave new mechanised world of the future will come another step closer.
@Baron Jackfield
The discount is in the competitive price of the goods that you are buying from a supermarket that has fewer wages to pay.
Eventually they’ll make you stack the shelves. Mark my words!
I use the self checkouts because I can then swear at the machine with a clear conscience.
The screen at the top showing me loading my shopping is annoying and I always turn it round.
Fewer error messages are the result of better software and better designed scales. Most of the stores are getting there with decent self checkouts.
I prefer to use the self checkouts as they come with a free bag and two for one on pastries and rolls.
We use the ‘scan as you shop’ method now. I used to get really frustrated with the self-checkout as it always seemed to be calling for the operator because I never seemed to run the process exactly as the system decrees. Payment is easy except for the occasional bag check, and needing the operator to check that I’m old enough to buy booze, painkillers, knives, glue, etc.
However it’s something of an irritation that Tesco changed their software a few months ago and the scan now takes several seconds per item, even for repeat items! Contrast with Sainsbury’s where the scan is unmeasurably fast. I’m sure Tesco got a good deal from their subcontinent software supplier…
I’m with Stonyground
At my local supermarket, the self-checkout lanes say “Self Checkout Express”, which really ought to be subject to the same “14 items or less” that the lights of the manned lanes say when one of them is being used as an express lane.
But so many people here want to use them for a full week’s worth of groceries, and save all the bagging for the end, and buy things that need to be weighed, and on and on.
Possibly related, last week when I went shopping, the section of the lot to the side of the store where I normally park had four shopping carts left there haphazardly, three of them taking up multiple spots.
I remember the Netto in Bradford in the early 90’s was so lean on staff that there was usually only one person in there. This staffer would drive the forklift from the back onto the shop floor and drop the pallet, leaving customers to open the cardboard boxes and get out a block of cheese or whatever it was. Then he/she/it would wander to the checkout to serve the line of 4/5 people waiting to pay. Cash only. This was minimising overheads in extremis, and it did make them the cheapest place by a mile, but it didn’t work in terms of volumes and Netto was gone from the UK in very short order. There is always a balance.
I find the whole business of queueing fascinating. Because it tells you so much about the establishments you’re using.
The purpose of a queue is smooth the input to the establishment’s personnel & thus make the establishment more efficient. So your time contributes to their profit. So it also tells about how much the customers value their time & how much the establishment cares.
Country with the shortest queues in supermarkets seems to be France. There’s rarely more than one person in front of you. E-LeClerk at Toulouse has about a half a kilometre stretch of checkouts all of them manned. I remember the States being pretty good. Both countries also have packers. Spain you can queue in a mostly empty store. It’ll rarely have more than half of its checkouts manned. It also has the longest tillside conversations. There was a Youtube video encapsulated the experience. The clock at the top of the screen advancing in quarter hour segments as the shopper approached the counter until after 3½ hours to be told the shop was now closed for siesta. I suppose the UK is somewhere in the middle between the two.
Lidl & Aldi are interesting. In both, if queues shorten to less than half a dozen customers they close a till. Apparently queueing for a quarter of an hour is an essential part of the shopping experience.
NHS A&E of course takes the top award & platinum cup. It achieves the impossible. Theoretically, with anywhere, queueing time time can vary between zero & infinity. Depending on customer:staff ratios & varying inputs of customers. What is impossible is the regular 7 hour wait. They carefully manage staff numbers to achieve that. Somewhere there must be someone watching the waiting area like a hawk. Poised to drag a nurse away if they see empty seats appearing.
The current model seems to be
Arrive at car park and park in the next county because anywhere within 100 yards of the entrance is reserved for mother and children, disabled, EVs, trolley parks, random concessions, advertising signs and the obligatory skip
Find a trolley that actually goes in the direction you want to push it, doesn’t have a wobbly wheel or is full of litter, discarded sweets and flyers
Select my shopping, place in trolley
Walk slowly around store with trolley avoiding other shoppers and ‘promotions’ and pallets/cages being used to restock, trying to do the frozen last
Get my stuff pout of trolley and put it through checkout
Put it back in trolley in bags
Return to car parking space to find a BMW has parked 3 inches from my car and I cannot open the door, but that’s OK because another one has parked 3 inches from my tailgate
Its a horrid experience and I have to pay for it!!
Online shopping is no good as it arrives in a great lump, the best time-slots are never available, items have short dates because they have been selected by a spotty teenager and the inevitable substitutions are asinine plus they carefully place the soft stuff under the heavy stuff
I cannot see how self service saves them any money – the system is so unreliable it requires humans to sort the errors out, and permit us to buy 18+ goods. They are good for the person who popped in for one or two thins and is in a hurry
The only genuine innovation I have seen is Tesco’s scanners which are linked to your clubcard and enable you to scan as you shop, watch the total and ensure money off is actually delivered, and also pack your bags as you go…….once. I suppose that is open to fraud though
As you can tell I don’t shop much and avoid the large supermarkets whenever possible
I like self-checkout & never understood the people who get upset that they’re “doing all the work”. FFS – instead of putting your groceries on the conveyor belt you swipe them across the scanner & drop them in the bag. Whew, that must be exhausting.
Although, in my neck of the woods the self-checkout gradually moved along from people with a few items to most shoppers & the space isn’t good for a full cart. On occasion it’s painfully slow.
If it doesn’t work better from an overall perspective businesses will refine or drop it.
I’m with TG. I use scan as you shop nearly all the time. The extra fraction of a second it takes per item to scan and place in the bag more than makes up for the interminable wait at a check out. At my local Tesco, they have manned checkouts and three varieties of unmanned – trolley, basket and scan as you shop. The latter can be used at all the unmanned checkouts, so always gives the most options.
BiS
Lidl & Aldi are interesting. In both, if queues shorten to less than half a dozen customers they close a till. Apparently queueing for a quarter of an hour is an essential part of the shopping experience.
Largely given up on Lidl for this reason. I have been known to put my basket down and walk out when they close a checkout.
I am old enough to remember the days before petrol filling stations, when the pumps were on garage forecourts and you had to wait for the mechanic to finish what he was doing and come out to operate the pump and take your money. Then there were few cars on the roads.
In the US ‘gas stations’ had attendants who operated the pump, checked your oil, wiped the windscreen, took your money. Fewer cars on the roads then.
As the number of cars on the roads increased after the 1970s and filling stations got bigger, along came ‘self-service’ amid much grumbling from people who didn’t want to get out of their cars to operate the pump themselves. Now of course they are routine and nobody knows any different.
“ Baron Jackfield
August 12, 2024 at 7:50 am
I don’t use self-checkouts. I might if they gave you a discount on the basis that I’m not being paid to do the work of a checkout operator, so why do it otherwise?”
Do you get a discount at self-serve petrol filling stations for the same reason? Would you be prepared to pay much higher petrol prices to cover labour costs and put up with waiting times if petrol filling stations were staffed and not self-serve?
When self-serve filling stations took over, petrol prices didn’t go down, but they didn’t go up as otherwise the would if petrol station had become labour intensive instead of self-serve.
Maybe the same is true of supermarket prices.
People who cannot use self-check out can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
As Esteban says, the self-checkouts aren’t very good for using a trolley, their configuration is best for a basket. With a trolley you need a “push through” process, where you can also get your empty trolley ready at the other end to fill up while your goods are being scanned.
@John B
In New Jersey self-service gas stations are illegal!
To quote an earlier article from The Guardian:
“Booth’s definitely is more expensive than rivals: their basic chicken is £3.30 a kg, as against £3.19 at Tesco and Asda; they charge £3 a kilo for their basic pork as against £2.50 at Asda and their Bowland milk is 99p for two pints, as against 89p at the majors.”
They’re also into various sorts of being nice to farmers, localism, sustainability goals.
It’s a higher value offering than Aldi. Same as your tea getting served in bone china at the Ritz vs a paper cup in McDonalds.
I despise shopping in the German discounters. The ones in the UK, however, are often light years better than their continental counterparts, except for my local Lidl which is dreadful – the one in the next town is excellent in comparison.
Annoyingly they sometimes have good stuff in there, but the dates are often very short.
My cat, bizarrely, likes their food, so I dash in grab 18 tins of Pussy Nosh, couple pints of milk and a quick blitz along the produce aisle to see if there is anything I fancy for my tea.
The checkouts are designed to infuriate everyone. No room to pack, long queues, too fast conveyor belts and so on, so I use the self-checkouts. That is rather tedious when laden with loads of cat food.
Provided there is no lunacy, I am in and out in a few minutes.
Shoplifting is the big problem. The M&S at the airport has a filtered subset of the populace – those paying for a flight – so shoplifting isn’t a big problem there.
If only there were some way of sequestering shoplifters from the general population, preferably in a secure building.
«18 tins of Pussy Nosh»
That reminds me of the BBC bod who used to think that Catamite was a type of pet food before he joined the National Broadcaster.
I use the self-service till (on the rare occasion I actually go into a shop) when my jam jar of small change fills up. The tills don’t skim 10% off the top like the old coin-counting machines did.
I’m also interested in the psychology behind queueing. It seems to depend on the sense of self entitlement of the actor imposing the queue. The more self entitlement they feel the longer you will queue.
Spain has to be the leading country in Europe for self entitlement. Take retail lettings. I’ve rented retail premises in the UK. You want to open a shop, you do a deal with the owner of the premises & pay them. If your business fails, that’s it. You may have a debt situation with the leaser but you don’t expecting anybody be paying you to leave. Here they have the trepasa system. A continuing lease passes from one renter to another. So you have to buy a trepasa. Why? It is a failed business. That’s why it’s closed & it’s an empty premises. It’s worth precisely zero. But they will expect you to pay for it.
I was interested in buying a bar a while ago. I knew the history of the bar. Rent was 1200€/month. It was open for a year, but couldn’t produce enough income to cover staffing costs etc so shut. He had another try at it 6 months later & it was open for about another 6 months, but failed again. I knew at the time he owed about 10k so offered to take it off of him including debt. He could just walk away from it. But he insisted I pay him 25k for it. It’s now sat there empty empty with him running up debt at 1200/month + plus property taxes etc. The entire 15k he wanted has been eaten & he still has debt.
But self entitlement. Why he went bust. Thinking he could open a bar exactly like every other bar in the street & profit from it. Don’t suppose it helped that half of his working capital went in buying a bust bar off of the previous failure.
So back to NHS queueing. You could not get a more self entitled organisation than the NHS. And self service checkouts. The store thinks you should do their work for them, So instead of working by standing in the queue you work by doing your own till check.
What is it with women and shopping by the way? We keep hearing how great they are at multi-tasking. I usually shop in my local deli which is manned service only.
Me, rock up at till with basket. Fill shopping bag with each item as it is scanned by assistant. Ready to pay immediately when totalled up. Leave shop.
Woman, rocks up at till with basket. Fiddles around with shopping bag while items are scanned and piling up on counter. Waits until total displayed. Then, and ONLY THEN, finds separate (hand) bag which contains purse with card or phone. Opens handbag, rummages around to find purse, opens purse, pays, then puts card back in purse, purse back in handbag. Closes handbag. Then, and ONLY THEN starts to pack shopping bag. Infuriating.
And it’s all women, older woman being even worse as inevitably they are distracted by chatting or they’ve forgotten something.
‘I use the self-service till (on the rare occasion I actually go into a shop) when my jam jar of small change fills up. The tills don’t skim 10% off the top like the old coin-counting machines did’
Most of them now have an insert so only one coin can be put in at a time. I presume to stop these machines filling up with pennies.
I used a self-service checkout once. I found I had a choice. I could stand up straight and then I couldn’t read the screen. Or I could bend over and then my back hurt. I have not repeated the experiment.
I find the self-service checkouts don’t really give much benefit to me (except perhaps prices lower than they would otherwise be in the long run); it’s still much the same process.
What does make a difference is the hand-held scanners that you use as you shop. Scan and pack the bags as you go round, it saves that whole hassle of getting the shopping out of your trolley only to put it back in again once it’s been through the checkout.
It removes a whole process that otherwise I’d have to do (even if it’s a staffed checkout I’d still have to get the shopping out of the trolley, onto the conveyor belt, and put it back in again).
Interestingly it’s also meant I no longer mind so much the eco-bullies pushing me to re-use my carrier bags. Because ‘scan as you shop’ means I’m packing the stuff into the carrier bags as I go round, I need the bags in the trolley from the beginning, so it doesn’t seem as much of an imposition to bring them in from the car as it did when I didn’t need them until checkout.
You’re right about the performance, BF. To all of them, the idea they’ll be required to pay for their purchases comes as an unexpected shock.
I have this ability to do arithmetic in my head. So I know the total before I get to the till & can proffer the correct money. This often results in a dispute over the till total. You can’t easily win with women.
I topped using bags for big shops ages ago, RT. I keep plastic folding crates in the back of the car. So the stuff goes straight from the trolley into the crates. Also have a folding wheelabout. So the crates stack on that & there’s no multi-trips of carrying bags into the house. On the other hand, my supermarket shopping’s on an industrial scale. Bills run to hundreds.
Our local Waitrose has had self-scanning for, I dunno, more than 20 years. (A google finds that the chain started self-scanning in 1998.)
Why did it take the others so long to catch up?
P.S. Supermarket milk: we did an experiment about a decade ago – by far the best-tasting was the Co-op’s. I asked somebody why. “They probably get it from different cows” he suggested.
BF: When we (rarely) need to use a manned checkout, my wife can pack as they come through and chat to the checkout lady and has her card ready too. Multitasking – she’s very good at that.
We had an interesting problem once with scan as you shop at Sainsbury’s. We were visiting daughter & went into her local Sainso’s to do a big shop for her on the scanner – about 3 times what we normally do in Sainsbury’s. So at the payment, it said it wanted a bag check. That’s normally 5 or 10 items, depending. This one was a full bag check. It ended up with them finding a closed conveyor and putting everything on there & scanning it through!
“You know, markets. Try this, see if it works, if it does, do some morre, if that doesn’t then a step back and so on.”
The people most opposed to markets and in favor of more government control will argue that all this trial and error is wasteful when there are people (them, for example) who already know what people should have and who should be allowed to impose it.
Burying the lede:
Crime-ridden grocery giants forget that speaking to a human is all customers want
Retailers are blaming this on “middle class crime” (middle class people frequently steal coffee from the Co-Op, apparently) but I don’t believe them.
Supermarkets have saved on wages, but the costs elsewhere have been huge. The rapid rise in self-scanners has coincided with a spike in shoplifting, with shoppers using tactics such as the so-called “banana trick” to pass cheap items like fruit through the tills before slinking out with a far more expensive prize.
As usual, the technological utopia our betters wanted is ruined by the hordes of 70 IQ people they also wanted.
See also: German industrialists who couldn’t hoover up Green subsidies fast enough while they were signalling their virtue on Net Zero, now discovering that it’s impossible to profitably operate industry in Germany.
I always try to visit Booths when I’m up in the homeland – I wish they’d open some branches south of Knutsford.
Asked one of the staff why most of their self-scan spaces were offline and was told they have a ratio of 1 staff per 3 self scanners so they have to shut the scanners if they don’t have enough staff. Said it’s shoplifting is the key driver, though staff constantly having to intervene at the self scanners due to issues was also a factor, double scanning or weight issues or people wanting to put something back being the main culprits
This staffer would drive the forklift from the back onto the shop floor and drop the pallet, leaving customers to open the cardboard boxes and get out a block of cheese or whatever it was. Then he/she/it would wander to the checkout to serve the line of 4/5 people waiting to pay.
This was the German discount model in the early ’80s. Obviously Aldi and Lidl learned from that mistake when they came here.
Although we use Lidl here for some things we don’t use it when in Germany, but from what I’ve seen the discounters there no longer use that that model.
I prefer to self scan, ideally using a scanner, but gave up in the new Lidl in Blandford when it opened as it was too sensitive and it took longer to scan than queue for the few remaining tills they kept open.
Bloke in North Dorset said:
“I prefer to self scan … but gave up in the new Lidl in Blandford”
Yes, that one was dreadful. I once walked out leaving a whole trolley-full of stuff part scanned, because it was constantly going wrong and there were no staff around.
Haven’t been to that branch for a while though, so it may have improved; the technology does seem to be getting better.
99p for two pints of milk? Don’t you mean four pints of milk?
(looks at receipt) Boddly heel! £1.49 for four pints? When did that happen? It was about one pound just a moment ago.
Re: shoplifting…
Our local branches of Aldi have taken to putting RF security tags on joints of beef and lamb, but, for some unaccountable reason, not on joints of pork.