Self Service Checkouts Yay or Nay!

Nay- I am not employed or paid by the supermarket, so why should I do their work for them? And I have friends who work at the tills who need their job.

Like them …….but should be limited to 10-12 items as folk with shopping trolleys are at pain at self-service tills! Not meant for shopping trolleys the way they’re laid out!

Our local supermarkets have very few check out operators these days so many people tend to check their items out themselves. We prefer to use smartscan for our shopping because it's so much quicker and easier and saves loading and unloading at the check out. The only time I'm not keen on it is when they do a random check when I have ice cream or something frozen in the trolley.

I hate them.

I see self service or scan and shop as the way forward.

Businesses need to squeeze out all inefficiencies and excess labour cost to keep prices low. My husband is always looking to cut business costs - I assume everyone else attempts the same.

We don't ride in horse carriages any longer, it's 2023.

I don’t think I would put up with having my bag checked. How rude. I would never go there again.

Mixed feelings. If I've only got couple of things the self service basket tills are nice and quick. But one of our supermarkets now has quite a lot of self service trolley tills, but only a few manned ones. Usually judge which has biggest queue. Don't mind self service ones too much, but I'm driven to distraction by the speed, or lack of it, by some people. I am totally patient with elderly/disabled etc. But recently I was waiting in a queue. I watched one couple in around their 40s with huge trolleyful take each item out of trolley, scan it, then put it on the rubber shelf. They'd stop and have a conversation every few items. Eventually the shelf was so full they were piling things up. Once they had finished they then put bags in trolley and slowly loaded groceries into them. Some will say they are entitled to go at their own speed, but I find myself conscious of people waiting and try to be as efficient as possible. Sometimes 3 staff members standing in area to assist. Can't help thinking an extra manned till would be better. Another disadvantage of self service is that if another manned till opens up there's no chance of getting to it before one of the other manned till queuers jumps to it.

nanna8

I don’t think I would put up with having my bag checked. How rude. I would never go there again.

They rarely check the whole shop, just a certain number of random items. Of course if they come across unchecked items they check the whole shop. It’s a bit like saying you’ve declared no food at customs. If you’re found to have one undeclared food item, they check all your baggage.

We've had them for many years now, and in a busy supermarket they are a boon.

The only thing I do not like is that now you can only pay using a visa card or by paypal or the like, and I greatly prefer to withdraw my housekeeping money at the beginning of the month and pay in cash, which we still can do at the manned tills. So this new idea of not using cash defeats the purpose of the self-service till.

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.

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!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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!

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

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.

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😤.

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,

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!!!

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.