Self Check Out

[veteran+]

I thought I posted this but it disappeared:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/business ... index.html



Note the comments about which is faster, regular lane or self checkout amongst other interesting comments.

[ClownLoach]

They do somewhat discuss the correlation between self checkout and expanded services (curbside pickup, etc.) but don't expand on the topic.

There seem to be four schools of thought on this; one is the Target, Walmart, Sam's Club, Kroger, Albertsons and others model where they're mostly shifting labor from checkout stands to order pullers. I think Walmart goes further than they'll admit but the SMs I know said that it was about a 1:1 shift where their stores established e-commerce order teams that work at 4am - after the overnight trucks are basically stocked they are responsible for pulling the scheduled curbside pickup, delivery, and e-commerce shipment orders. They said many cashiers were happy to move to this job because it came with a stable and fixed work schedule versus cashiering which changed every week. We all have to remember that an efficient cashier on a conveyor belt checkstand can ring up 20 full baskets in the time it takes an order picker to pull one average customer order from the shelves. Basically these stores are adding e-commerce capabilities without adding payroll by shifting the checkout to the customer since the cost of curbside pickup and other services is so wildly expensive and the work is inefficient even with technology that helps them pull multiple orders at once on sorting carts and such. Many customers don't understand however that they more they choose to use curbside the less the full service checkstands will be staffed. The stores are being asked to do more work (basically shopping for the customer) on the same payroll, and the customers expect the service to be free and prices be the same as in store. So they get pissed off thinking the store is cheap and making them do the checkout so they steal using it, when the reality is their fellow customers have created a three class system (first class gets curbside, second class is the one that waits for a full service checkstand, and third class is self checkout).

The second group is the cheapskate retailers who use the same excuse as above yet nobody really does e-commerce there. My favorite example is CVS who will usually fail to staff the store at all and has a stocker down aisle 7 putting away freight but nobody else on the register. These companies do deserve the hatred from the customer.

The third group is recent, the Assisted Checkout model. Best example is Lowe's and Home Depot where they're only using the regular register if needed for a special transaction, otherwise the cashiers scheduled move to the self checkouts and serve customers there unpredictably. In other words they cherry pick the toughest carts and scan for the customer, probably as a loss prevention technique but still effectively eliminate most lines because before only one customer could be paying and now four are in the same space. They're always there to help which is the key, and I'm seeing people shop there who have never used a self checkout in their life suddenly realize "oh, that wasn't so bad" because they are staffed. Usually these employees do the scanning on the self check machines and leave the customer at the payment screen. Only oddity is I'll include Costco but I'm still convinced most stores did self checkout in an effort to add more registers in the limited space of the front end, they remove two full serve lanes and add nine to twelve self checks that are staffed with one employee per three registers. So they actually are adding staff and creating the express lane model using the smaller self checkout unit.

The last is where we are with Trader Joe's, the e-commerce resistant retailer. They don't even have room in their stores to stage curbside orders and aisles are too narrow to add Instacart pickers. Some of their stores I still wonder how they maintain health code compliance because the back door is open during all hours with food freight outside usually under a canopy and being stocked all day. But they've decided that the best model is only full serve checkout. Funny that Albertsons was in this group and had pulled all their self checks, but then when they had to make a real effort of e-commerce curbside pickup they quietly put them back to shift the labor from a cashier to a order picker.

These articles really need to help customers understand how many of these self checkout situations they dislike are frankly the consequences of their own actions. Aside from my favorite mentioned CVS (and others who don't staff the front at all or even supervise or assist with self checkout), it does seem most stores are using these as a choice for the customer so if they're complaining then I'm not sure why, they could have lined up at register 5.

[jamcool]

Costco installed a self checkout lane at their new Buckeye AZ store.. there is no customer used scan gun (Unlike Sam’s Club), you have to place your items on a table after scanning at the terminal, and a clerk has to scan large items in your basket. More inconvenient than Sam’s.

[arizonaguy]

Costco installed a self checkout lane at their new Buckeye AZ store.. there is no customer used scan gun (Unlike Sam’s Club), you have to place your items on a table after scanning at the terminal, and a clerk has to scan large items in your basket. More inconvenient than Sam’s.

That's the way that Costco self checkout has worked.

Fry's (the Arizona Kroger owned chain), Albertsons / Safeway, Target and Walmart all have scan guns for customer use. However Costco, where bar codes are on multiple sides of their product and usually sells larger items that are more difficult to lift out of the cart and scan, doesn't allow customers to use scan guns.

[storewanderer]

It is ironic at Costco they don't let the customer use a scan gun yet at Home Depot and Sam's Club use of the scan gun is mandatory if you want to use self checkout...

As far as self checkout being inefficient, yes, it is less efficient. But you can have more customers paying at once via self checkout.

This is no different than bank ATMs. Old tellers were far more efficient than ATMs but the ATMs, you can install more of them, have them open more hours, etc., so the ATMs do a better service to the customer than the old 9-4 M-F line of tellers.

[J-Man]

Self checkout story from today's LA Times.

[SamSpade]

Um, does VONS have that same culture? Because that column really is a little bit of a love letter to Albertsons.

I will admit as a child I remember this kind of connection between my parents and many of the clerks at the local Albertsons in my hometown. This was before the self checkout era. Remember how they used to post the department managers photos in the department in a frame? I felt a little of it in high school when I would see the same faces at the local independent grocer before it shut down due to owner retirement/aging storefront/etc.

Here in a larger city/suburb, I have almost never seen this. I used to see it a little bit at Fred Meyer near the "stadium" in Portland before the expansion, but that was around a decade + ago. I'm not sure if older shoppers are unique in this regard (more likely to write checks instead of using debit/credit) or if it truly is a store to store thing.