Checkouts in supermarket

I absolutely refuse to self checkout Id rather leave my shopping behind

Same here with M&S and Waitrose. Even on a busy Sat am there was only 1 manned check out and a very long queue in my local M&S food hall.
I did read online yesterday that some supermarkets are introducing new self service points with more space to stop people grumbling that there's not enough space if buying more than half a dozen items.

I can't bear these do it yourself tills. My husband is o.k. with them. When I shop alone, if I am steered towards the self-service tills, I very politely ask one of the staff who are there to help to actually come and guide me through the whole system as I live in fear of making a mistake. They are always very good about it, but, I much prefer having a proper check out with a proper person on it.
In M&S some months ago, a young male assistant looked at our overflowing trolley and said come over to these self service tills. I said "We'd rather not thank you." He was quite insistent in a polite way and assured us that he would watch us. By now I had gone just beyond my patience level, I said "You will not watch me, you will check my shopping through for me. We do not spend this amount of money to do your job for you". He checked it through for me.

I was in my local Asda yesterday the queue for each of the two staffed check-outs was horrendous and backing up down the narrow aisles making it difficult to get anything off the shelves. I decided to used the self check-out and the queue to get on one was also pretty awful. At one stage there were five people with loaded trollies waiting ahead of me and another five queuing behind. It gave me the chance to observe the people using the tills - one man was scanning at snail"s pace as he was busy talking on his phone, others were waiting patiently for a staff member to verify their purchases etc. Nobody seemed to have their card ready for payment and also had to find their phone in order to scan a barcode to top up their Asda Cashpot. It made me want to scream!
Knowing that there was a large queue of people waiting after I'd paid l shoved everything back into the trolley and wheeled it to a quiet corner to load into bags. I wondered why others didn't think to do the same knowing so many others were waiting to get on a till
Rant over.

My granddaughter took me shopping with her and showed me how to use the self service. Well! What a palaver. I hadn't realised my handbag was getting in the way so kept getting beeped. I usually do big shops on line - no problem AND I get it unpacked for me too. However I do like going to the little Coop shop for bits and bobs and there's no problem there except for a pleasant natter.

I like scan and go personally, but I’m totally with you on having choice Cambia.
Sadly, so many things we do now have taken jobs from people e.g.
ATMs,
conductors on buses,
guards on trains,
paying by card instead of going to a cashier in the bank to draw money out.

Even the home delivery of groceries, which has created a few jobs for pickers, is only practicable because they use scan and go to load up the boxes.

But if I didn’t use those things, my life would be difficult.

My particular battle, despite the fact that I mostly pay by card, is to maintain our choice to use cash. That’s one of the rare reasons for choosing a manned till, so the cashier can save me going to the bank-which in its turn leads to the loss of banking jobs.

Shopping in Marks in a hurry this week, I was unhappy that the one manned till had a long queue. I went to the lad on the self service tills and just told him to do the scanning for me as I did not know how and there was nowhere to park my walking stick! The easiest shop yet, I might try it again.

Sorry but I am just not using self scan tills on principle! Push comes to shop, I leave the goods behind in the basket. The least I expect in a shop is to be served! Until I am offered holiday pay and tea breaks I am not having it.
I do understand that the cost of wages keeps increasing and this is one way of cutting back on staff but with the amount of shoplifting through items not scanned, I can’t see that it will save money and it puts customers backs up. I have already vetoed Sainsbury and use Booths and Aldi. Although Aldi do have self scan, you always have a choice and they open up a till for you.
I did have a retail business for over forty years and customer service is the most important thing as far as I am concerned.

I’m happy to do self checkout at Waitrose. I’ve got it down to a fine art and I can pack as I go along.

Are Waitrose going to pay you for doing the checkout assistant's job? I stood in a queue the other day to pay for four items, was approached by an assistant who suggested I go to the self- checkout. I told him "No I am not paid for that". He was not amused.

I’m happy to use self scan too rather than queue at a manned checkout, until you get a check which is random apparently.

All these self checkouts, online banking etc doing people out of jobs
No job security its just such a shame.

I hate self check out for lots of reasons. As with many, I will continue to use manned checkouts ( am I 'allowed' to say that!) We need to be more sociable and interactive. I don't like the alternative.

I seem to be very much in the minority here, but I almost always use the self-checkout whenever I can.

not only choice of checkouts, choice of shop! I won`t use self scan! or whatever it is called... many of us at our local Morrisons, a smallish supermarket... we just queue! and complain,, not too badly complaining, we laugh about it.. choice!

* superfluous 'as' in my comment before Rosie'sMaw2 feels the need for a grammatical correction

My wife works in Waitrose, multitasking Checkout, Cafe, Replen, they are very tight staffed she is doing 2 extra shifts this week. There also seems to be supply issues, some items are in short supply especially Mondays.

Customers have the choice of scanned, self checkout or tills, the self checkouts are very popular and always busy, there is also an express till for a few items.

When I’ve been there if there is a long queue an extra till is opened, my own grumble is the discount offers, to get them you have scroll through your phone app to redeem them, a slower system would be impossible to devise, that slows down checkout a lot

RosiesMaw2

Mt61

I like Lidl , served 5 by the time Sainsbury’s have served first customer- I asked the girl serving was she on peace work- she no idea what I talking about 🤣

I’m not surprised - I wondered
(Give piece a chance?)

I assume as this was a verbal comment not written down on a piece of paper and handed over. The two differently spelled words sound the same.

In order to correct somebody's spelling you have to have understood what was intended, so correction is entirely unnecessary.

It's pretty grim trying to shop "behind" several people with hand held scanners - especially if they have children with them or don'thave any "buying autonomy".

I spent an extra long time trying to shop behind three men and two women with these gadgets one Sunday morning.
One man spoke loudly into his phone as he shopped - describing the items he was selecting or reading ingredients or comparing things down the phone - (I have never shopped before with so many people using scanners before)
I only went in for maybe ten things as usually I shop online - but I couldn't get past them as they all blocked the aisles with the trolley (and those with children allowed the children to do the scanning and then they always seemed to check it too).

I'm pretty sure I would have let my children enjoy the scanning if it had been around in "my day"- but if they are getting a lot of log-jams because of it then they do need wider aisles!

*Note to self - never shop on Sunday mornings!

I'm another who occasionally shops in Waitrose.
They opend a new till when a few of us just queued across the aisle waiting (last Wednesday).

A couple of weeks earlier a staff member "led" my husband to the self check out and did it all for him including packing it carefully into his bags.

ferry23, I fully agree with you! I'm a leftie, however, over the years I've been lucky to be able to teach myself to do most thing right-handed - including writing - in case for any reason I can't use the left but I'm a leftie by nature and most right-handed things are useless for us! I use an electric tin opener as I find manual right-handed utterly impossible!

I think we have to accept change, adapt, learn how to do things, but fight fight fight against patronising attitudes.

I am not very skilled at anything, but if I had been a female pilot flying Spitfires and delivering them to airfields in WW2 with just a handbook for a guide, I would have fought against being patronised in my later years.

I rarely use self-scanners- what's wrong with service from a person?

If I'm forced to use one, as in a certain M&S I have to use at a train station, I pretend to be daft and ask for help, as I always seem to break them anyway and a person has to come and sort me out!

Booths in kendal were absolutely the best when I lived there in the 70s, never had to queue long at a checkout and there was an experienced bag packer at each checkout, who used to pack all the shopping into free large and strong paper bags

I used to use waitrose in wells, now am a lapsed customer, due to wokeness and only one manned till. In fact I don`t use any supermarket, I can get everything via my organic deliveries and extras from the local artisan shops

My cart was checked once at a self-serve checkout. It increased my shopping time plus was embarrassing . Old ladies are easier targets for checking quotas, easier than younger with potentially loud mouths

Ziggy62

I've been using self scan in Tesco for years now, I think it took me about an hour the first time lol. I can see how much I'm spending as I'm going along. No standing in queues at the checkout, bags are already packed, no false chats with young girls who have no interest in whether I'm having "a nice day" or not. I also use self checkout in smaller stores while others are standing in a long queue waiting to pay for a paper and refusing to use this system.
Times are changing. Do we want to go back to the days of Arkwright type corner shops?
I love self check out and self scan

Queues are just as long at our self serve till- not everything scans, so have to call the assistant- now they have put barriers up, so have to scan your receipt to exit. 😩 ( “these shop lifters have a lot to answer for”what a palava! I much prefer going through the tills, all the staff are really friendly at our Tesco’s