To be really sick of supermarkets treating paying customers like scum

Exactly.

We have barriers at my local station but when it's busy they just have them open to get people through quickly.

I hate it in London when you're trying to get to the family gate with your DC in a massive crowd.

@Needmorelego · Yesterday 14:38
Well unfortunately so much is stolen from supermarkets they either have to do this or they will have to put up their prices.
Want to pay £10 for a loaf of bread? I doubt it.
You would not believe how much retailers lose in theft.

@Sunshineandpool · Today 22:43
I'm not sure they'd get many customers if they started charging £10 for a crappy supermarket loaf! You'd be able to get a nicer loaf for vastly cheaper from the bakery.

That's true. And of course the bakery doesn't have self-service tills; they have a counter and a person to pass the bread over it to you the customer. And their bread is real bread. This is a win-win-win situation.

And, contrary to what @Needmorelegoclaimed, supermarkets don't have to put their prices up to cover theft: they could reduce dividends to shareholders instead and thereby save much more than they would by charging more to customers. (Check it out: do the calculations.) They won't, of course. --Why not? (Answer left as an exercise ...)

I think the point is the real thieves aren't going to be using self checkout - they've legged it before that point!

Exactly. People blaming thieves when we all know these things are about using self checkouts! Less staff for them to pay = more hassle for customers.

If you are going to preach about respect, it might be an idea to try treating people on here with a bit of respect, @OptimismvsRealism. Your attitude towards anyone who does not agree with you is the polar opposite of respect. If you display this sort of attitude in real,life, it would not surprise me that others don’t treat you with the respect you think you deserve.

I wish I could do this more and completely for go the supermarket.

I use the bakery and the greengrocer. But can't really afford corner shop prices for everything else - and they don't have everything I want either.

I'm not sure they'd get many customers if they started charging £10 for a crappy supermarket loaf! You'd be able to get a nicer loaf for vastly cheaper from the bakery.

My local Sainsbury's doesn't trap you in a pen. That would piss me off to be honest.

I did used to use the self scan but got annoyed with it. One time I had the 'random check' so staff member came over to scan 3 items of my shopping. Before I could say anything he'd grabbed an item of clothing right from the bottom of my bag and it came up as 'not scanned'. So he had to scan all my shopping again! I wouldn't have minded but the I'd bought the item of clothing from a different shop!! And he'd just scanned it without looking!

After that, I was obviously on the black list and got a 'random check' every single time! So after about 4 times I gave up with it. The point of doing it is so you can be quick - no point if you have to hang around for staff doing checks!

Not true nobody complains. Some of us complained when our local station (or rather the private company that stole it from us with government connivance) wanted to treat us like criminals in this way by installing ticket barriers.

We campaigned successfully and managed to defeat the proposal using planning laws. We still are thus treated in a civilised manner when we arrive home on a train, rather than being dealt with as though we are all fare-dodgers or criminals and forced into interminable queues like in many other less-civilised localities.

Supermarkets could learn from this. They won't, of course, driven as they are exclusively by profit rather than any inkling of public service. Oh for the days of my youth before local shops were forced out of business by criminal gangs of tescos, lidls, sainsburieds and other supermarket mafias!

Train and tube stations have ticket barriers. Nobody complains they're being treated like a criminal.

Why is it strange to not want to do the job of a checkout person then be treated like a criminal. There used to be a thing called customer service.

So your issue is with security measures being obvious? What a strange thing to take offence over.

It was less visible to the customer. Though self-service is likely to blame. Make the customer do the job of a checkout person, but then stand there and watch them do it?They need more actual staff on checkouts rather than watching customers and attending to the machines that constantly go wrong. I used to scan and pack and the customers were happy.

@S0livagant that surprises me. Way back before even 20 years ago supermarkets had cameras, security, plain clothes security and those large one way mirrors that was the management watching over the store from their office.
Even 30 years ago we had walkie talkie radios that linked stores to each other, to the council CCTV office and to police.

So a security tag setting off an alarm that then results in things being checked doesn’t prevent theft? Someone checking what has been self scanned doesn’t prevent theft? Of course they do.

You seem excessively worked up about this 😂

It's a chicken and egg thing really....which bad human behaviour came first?

I think customers tend to reflect how they are treated. There has always been theft but customers weren't all treated like potential criminals back when I was working there.

@S0livagant ok it's semi-full circle. For fresh foods you could see what's on the stall and pick what you want.
For longer life products (tins of things, flour, tea, coffee,packets of rice/pasta etc) you basically got what the shop assistant picked off their shelf - not you the customer.
You say you wouldn't have treated customers the way some staff do now when you worked 20 years ago. I was in retail 20 years ago and I think customers have got a lot worse (aggressive, demanding, messy, impatient) but also (I agree with you) customer service has got bad too.
It's a chicken and egg thing really....which bad human behaviour came first?

It's not a full circle, though. If I'm there at a market stall or butcher or baker (closest thing to 'the old days'), then I can see what I'm buying, that it's fresh and of good quality, make my own substitutions if things are not available (may mean switching other things to match a change). That's more what I have gone to over home delivery, as much as I can afford to.

It is disappointing to see how much it has gone downhill in supermarkets since I worked in one 20+ years ago. I would never have treated customers the way they are treated now.

You’re being obtuse. I’ve just been abroad and you have to scan your receipt to get out of the supermarket- great idea!

@S0livagant surely the "enough" is doing home delivery.
If you don't like the way staff in shops do their jobs - then don't go in the shop.
Quite frankly with the amount of shopping lifting and aggressive behaviour towards retail staff I think in a few years physical shops won't be the norm - everything will have to be ordered.
Pretty much like "the old days" when you stood at the counter, asked for what you wanted and they handed it to you. You didn't pick it off the shelf and place it in a trolley.
We (society) have gone in a circle of how we purchase products.

These shops are making massive profits whilst making their customers do the work of the staff they go rid of. What’s next - stacking your own shelves? They introduced self check out to save money, but when did prices go down? OP is right - a lot of people on this thread are acting like sheeple, and just accepting a bad deal.

I'm wondering at what point people on this thread will say 'enough'? Surely there will be a point?

I completely agree all this security theatre is really annoying. I suppose it must work on the lower end of criminality, but not the organised steal to order gangs operating.

These shops are making massive profits whilst making their customers do the work of the staff they go rid of. What’s next - stacking your own shelves? They introduced self check out to save money, but when did prices go down? OP is right - a lot of people on this thread are acting like sheeple, and just accepting a bad deal.

The other thing they do is then have the audacity to ask for a charity donation, when a lot of their staff are having to top up their wages with benefits like Universal Credit and others. We as tax payers are effectively subsidising these monsters and yet they ask for more money so their bosses can get OBEs? GTFO.

I’ve returned £500 of stuff to IKEA before when their security guard physically blocked me from leaving, and followed me out of the shop.

So I shop online. It has the added bonus of costing most companies a huge amount of money. I think Ocado is the only profitable one.