Self Service Checkouts Yay or Nay!

Maxine16

I use the self scan smart shop in Sainsbury's. Love it, so quick!

Ditto!

I use the self scan smart shop in Sainsbury's. Love it, so quick!

I try to use them and mostly use the scan as you go app. I don't pack as I go as I like to count my items when I get to the checkout to make sure I haven't missed anything. I also hated them rummaging in my bags when the till said I needed a re-scan! I do find it quicker and I mostly do relatively frequent small shops. It might be different if I had a big trolley load.

I use self service checkouts all the time.
I prefer it and on the whole find it quicker.
Having said that I do understand a lot of people prefer to be served by someone.

Strongly dislike and can't use them properly as I'm sight impaired. There's never enough room for the amount of shopping we do either.

Only for a few items or I get really flustered.
Don’t really agree with them as they are there to get rid of jobs

I really object to them. These are people’s jobs.

Dislike them, too.

Where is one's handbag supposed to go? Not on the 'shopping' side, not on the 'shopped' side and there is rarely room on the top. Really annoying and designed for men, or at least, men without handbags!

I can rarely use one without assistance.

I hate them. The tills that were for small baskets are now gone. They've forced us into self service.

Its a yes from me. Rarely any queue and very quick once you get into the swing of them - every shop is slightly different. I can't imagine why anyone would queue for ages when there are self service checkouts free.

Fine if only have a few items but try to avoid if I have a lot. Wouldn't mind if they gave enough room. Baskets are packed with heavy items at bottom and that's the way I want to pack my shopping bags. A real struggle to take heavy things out of bottom of basket and scan and then place in shopping bag which has to be held by hand as no space to put it down. Items fall out of basket on to floor, machine beeps to ask if you're finished etc etc. Hate them. If M&S want me to do their cashiers' job for them then they should give me enough space to unpack basket and pack bags properly and then no problem!!!

If they were all they're cracked up to be there'd be no need for an assistant to hang about to help the bewildered, would there? There's often a problem with an 'unexpected item in the bagging area' - such as a bag which weighs more than a postage stamp? Or something which needs verification like a knife or alcohol? I'm not sure that every possible scenario was thought through. It simply saves money on paying a wage to a worker.

I sometimes use self-service if I've bought something simple but prefer the human touch of an actual assistant,

My local big Sainsbury’s has recently installed trolly self service for bigger shops, & reduced the number of manned checkouts. I was forced to use the new checkout the other day when there was no one manning the normal tills. It was chaos, the tills did not recognise the weight of my bags for life, could not read the reduced items tags, needed authorisation for alcoholic drinks. Each time I had to call & wait for assistance. I was there ages😤.

Sukie44 I understand that frustration re the assistants chatting, but I really object to queueing 5-6 deep, which we used to do at ASDA when they had the full range of manned tills, before self-service started. Especially when the queueing was exacerbated by customer/staff chats at the tills. Waiting in one such queue, whilst moving from 5th to second place, I was once able to discover that the man I was standing behind, had lived one road away from us before we moved; had moved up North 2 years ago; how many children he had; where they were going on holiday that year; and the fact that his wife was in remission from breast cancer.
Social interaction is good for us. Frustration at queueing for so long is not.

We like them, we use the self scan system at Sainsburys and the self service tills at Aldi, both save so much time.

Nay from me- I really dislike the automatic self service things- have been known to leave my full shopping trolley and walk out when they’ve been the only things available.

We’ve got an enormous new Sainsburys. Love it EXCEPT they.only have a couple of manned tills open and an enormous bank of self service tills . I really object to queuing 3/4 deep when a couple of staff are gossiping on the empty self service tills! I complain and the answer is ‘ we hate them too’. Useless!

No, I don’t use them. They don’t work efficiently, jobs have been lost, we don’t get a discount for doing an employee’s job and it is an AI takeover, whilst the Govt. steers the population into different kind of work. It’s all very controlling which I don’t like

I’m all for progress, but I do think that people should have a choice, and there are still plenty who prefer a manned till, for whatever reason - indeed GNers have given some very valid reasons on here.

Whatever the business - parking, banks, retail - the same principles should apply imo. We are the customers after all!

This business about people losing jobs because of the auto-tills is a non-starter. Nobody chose to train as a checkout operator as a career path - if the supermarket is not actively trying to reduce staffing, they will be redeployed in the same place. Many employees divide their time between checkout, customer services, stock control, shelf staking etc.

And if the supermarket IS actively trying to reduce staff, it's a way of balancing the books. Say they need to lose ten staff members - it's just as likelihood that they will operate, say, a last-in-first-out policy, rather than saying " we'll cut ten checkout operators because we can't use those people for any other work"

You have to remember that a supermarket, like any other business, is notes a charity. If a business doesn't make a profit (which some people think is a dirty word) it goes out of business, simple as that. No business is going to keep staff out of the goodness of its heart.

As to whether we like the auto-tills, that's a separate issue. I'm quite happy with them whenever there's a long queue for the manned checkouts. I'll use whichever is quickest. And some places have one supervisor on hand to deal quickly with problems at the machines.

It's a "Nay" from me!

In common with another poster, I am partially sighted, use a stick and have a trolley.
I really struggle with SSC's, despite many having staff available.

At Asda for instance, I also have their app, and this too needs to be scanned.
While ever real people are available - they will be my first choice.

I've never seen one here in Germany. The only time I've used them is to buy a packet of sweets or a magazine at the airport when I land in the UK. I can't imagine what it's like having to do a trolley full of shopping.

The cashiers don't chat or dither at the check out so queues are never very long and self service can't possibly be any quicker.

Kim19

I appreciate tbem. Only ever have a few items nowadays. Find staff always available to attend to glitches. A yes from me.

I agree, though I wouldn't put a big shop through as they are slow.

Hate them, but yes occasionally use them if there's a queue at the checkout and I'm in a hurry with only a couple of items.
They always play up for me.
And to be honest I enjoy being served by a human, enjoy a chat and a friendly face. I like to think I'm keeping them in a job. For many elderly folk, these people are very often the only people they might talk to for days. Our social interaction and ability to converse with people is slowly being taken and eroded!!!

I find it convenient, but a staff member reminded me "Do you realise you are putting someone out of a job?". hate the queues that build up, living in a holiday town, we get some with 2 baskets filled.