Had to scan my own shopping today on a normal till

[Legoandloldolls]

In Wilko today. I was asked I wanted to pay by card and was directed to a normal till. They had blocked the belt off so i there was a upturned storage box to balance your basket on but only about 5 inches of the top of the conveyor belt. I had bought a mop and bucket and various other things so I scanned it on the floor. It was my choice to scan it on the floor as I just didnt want the faff of balancing it all on the minuscule make shift storage box. Then had to use the till screen and walk to end of the till to pay.

I know it's a first world issue but I hate self serve even when it's set up properly. Scanning my stuff at a proper till felt very depressing. I think it's just grim that some shops are so tight they wont even employ staff to run a till.

It's another depressing experience during the pandemic on the high street. If they had the full belt to use maybe it wouldnt have been so bad. I felt like I was being a CF wanting to shop in there. Mind you there was no where else to buy a mop, but if there was a choice I wouldn't rush back

[MootingMirror]

I highly doubt it's because they're too cheap to employ staff - it's far more likely that staff were isolating and they're short staffed for that reason. Also, in the nicest way possible, this is a ridiculous non-problem. If this happened to me, I don't think it would even cross my mind to think about it after two minutes. Why was this so depressing for you?

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

Of course it’s to save money/ our local Asda is entirely self service, even the long conveyor belts for a whole trolley. They can stick their supermarket !!!!

[Megan2018]

We have this in our store, much better than getting close to a person. They haven’t had time to bring in proper self service tills yet but this is a good Covid measure. I am seeking out self service everywhere.

[Fuss]

They have that in my local Wilko, completely baffled the elderly couple in front.

[Legoandloldolls]

Because the till isnt set up for a pleb like me to use. I had to walk up and down the till to put my card in and then back to the till screen. It's a ballache. Also the shop about six times of a Tesco Express so sells curtains, homeware, stationary, toys, food but two members of staff. You could three pound lands in the foot print. At least on a normal self service till its geared up for you to just stand there, scan your shit and has a user interface designed for fuckwitted people. A till for a member of staff isnt set up for ease of use.

[KylieSmilie]

I was thrilled when our Wilko started doing this. There is always a queue to get in and then there is another queue to pay. Now there are two self service tills so the payment queue is really short now.

We haven't a conveyor belt to deal with. Ours are swivelled round so they are are regular tills rather than special self serve ones.

[Akire]

Been doing it at our Wilkins for ages. Was against at first as less staff but means they can have 2-3 extra checkout opens and less time in queues. You just have to remember throw each item along to the bottom and then run around to pay by card and back. Awkward as with screens for checkout person it seems back to front. I do get childish kick from Zapping everything mind quite fun!

[Legoandloldolls]

@Megan2018 is it for covid? That never occurred to me. Do they block off the belt in your store? I couldn't use this one. They had pulled it high with shite so you could only scan on the storage box.

There is no where else I could buy a mop unfortunately. There is a lidl, boot, macalls and Wilco. I woudnt choose to do it again unless I had one or two small items.

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

Anyone who thinks this is good and down to covid is naive- money saving and it will never reverse. Appalling behaviour of large companies who just want to take from local communities and give nothing back.

[Hullabaloo31]

Our Matalan has completely converted to self-service unless you want to pay cash.

So now people stand there and try to de-hanger/scan/take security tags off when you have no idea where they are on each garment/bag the huge trolley loads that people always buy in Matalan, whilst the shop staff all stand around the tills chatting.

[Legoandloldolls]

There was hardly anyone in there thank God as I did take a good few minutes thinking how the hell do I fit this massive bucket on this set up?

There was two tills like this and a staffed till for cash. Also with the perspex screen across the length of the till. Why cant they take that off and let you use the belt to faff about and scan and pack on?

I clearly dont go into Wilco often enough

[TheArchFear]

It is a pain in the arse for staff as they have to monitor / fix / scan stuff for people at 2 or 3 tills, painfully slowly, in the time they could have served the same number of customers at a regular till.

It's not rocket science, though... the screens are clear

[Legoandloldolls]

@Hullabaloo31 I wouldnt want to do this in Matalan. Surely they loose more than staff wages in people nicking stuff?

Surely it puts people off buying more items? In poundland its baskets of small Items, but clothes and curtains is a bit weird.

[Megan2018]

@Legoandloldolls yes the manager’s daughter in my DD nursery bubble. They brought it in specifically for Covid. They have plans for proper tills but can’t fit them yet. The whole belt is in use although it doesn’t move. We have 2 tills like it out of 5. Reduces staff exposure to people and vice versa.
I liked it as none of the “unexpected item in bagging area” nonsense!

[BusterTheBulldog]

Our Wilkinson’s has started doing this too. I’m all for self service but not this half way house. Just really clunky and awkward. Would have been much quicker if till person sat in right place was doing it!

[BlueisthenewGrey]

I had this a couple of weeks ago and not been back since.

I don't mind a proper self scan, but the set up in wilko is cheap and does not save any time for the customer. It made social distancing worse as when you get your receipt you have to wait for the person in the next till to vacate.

I told the member of staff who directed me to this shambles what a bad idea it was and not very covid safe and she was rude which is a shame as I like wilko and I will not be back until they install proper self service tills. I normally spend a fortune at Christmas there but not this year.

[ConfusedDotty]

I thought it was fine. Didn't bother me at all, in fact, I rather enjoyed it, it was like being a child again 'playing shop'. If it wasn't for SD I would offered to scan the confused woman's shopping in the queue behind me.

[DelphineWalsh]

They had this in our local Wilcos. Only just after the rona they put up massive Perspex screen in between what would would be the server and the customer. Now they're expecting the customer to do it all from one side with the massive screen in the way. 2 members of staff stood there barking instruction orders to the general public how to use their tills instead of actually operating them.

If they want to introduce self serve they need to install actual self serve tills.

[anniversarywoes]

Dd and I did this recently! Thought it was a bit odd but just cracked on with it. Hardly a terrible experience, just a bit different?

[PolarBearStrength]

Ugh. I hate this. I think about 90% of the customers struggle to do it (a lot of the customers in my local Wilko are elderly or mums trying to manage kids) and it makes everything take twice as long. Plus they have no queuing system for the tills! In fact that makes me more annoyed. The tills don’t line up with the aisles so there are people waiting all over the place and no one knows who was first.

[Crystal87]

I had to do this the other week with my kids in tow which was a nightmare. It's put me off shopping there to be honest. I hate it in Matalan now too, you have to scan and fold your own clothes and take off the scurry tag yourself. There's no customer service in there, it's awful. I'll only go in now if I'm with my DH as I get flustered doing it with all the kids with me.

[Crystal87]

• security tag

[Witchend]

I'm not sure it's money saving. Our local Wilcos had it for years and not they actually have more staff as they have someone to wipe it down between customers. I've been quite impressed with how our local one has handled Covid. I've almost forgiven them for taking over the Woolworth's shop.

[ArosGartref]

I've had to do this. It was a nightmare and I used to work in a shop so consider myself to be a self-checkout pro!

There was plenty of staff around to show me what to do so hopefully it's just temporary.

[emmathedilemma]

My sainsburys has brought in more of these, i'm not sure if it's due to Covid but they had already started installing them before the pandemic. There's probably only 2 or 3 manned tills now in a big store. I hate the self service ones, I don't think I've ever used them and not had issues with it or to wait for the assistance to authorise something. I used it earlier the week - the start screens says "if you have your own bags please place them in the bagging area" so I did.....next thing is it flashes up an error message because there's something in the bagging area and nothing has been scanned. WTAF?!? The alternative is to scan everything and then bag it but that takes twice as long and the store was busy. Also, if you have a big shop then the bagging area isn't huge but you daren't lift a bag off to put it in the trolley because that also confuses it. They drive me fecking crazy!! It wouldn't be so bad if there was a member of staff on hand to assist when needed but sometimes i've waited so long for one to appear that i've been tempted to just walk out with my shopping. AND my nectar card voucher wouldn't scan because it was badly printed so still had to queue at customer service desk to get that added and pick up the sodding lego cards. Playing shops was fun as a kid but if i wanted to scan shopping i'd get a job in one!!