Guy at Lidl trying to make me use self check out

More evidence that it's essential to have manned checkouts (as well as self service ones!)

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5196760-scanning-error-in-supermarket-conundrum

I'm guessing by this posters frustration, she is not the only person to have been in this situation.

Self checkouts are fine if you have a small number of items, nothing that needs age or security checking and no Children.

Self checkout is a nightmare with a young child - you are constantly having to tell them not to take stuff off the scale, not to lean on the scale, stop them wandering off or getting in the way.

I think he went too far. Can’t he take no for an answer?!
Think you handled it well OP.
I like my local big Marks and Tesco for this. Never been asked in Tesco and always lots of checkouts open.
Sometimes asked once in Marks, say No Thankyou, then left alone.

Thanks Helpnifoseeker and OneDandyPoet....it is as i suspected!

I will therefore continue to be a bolshie cow and insist on a human checkout person. I'm always nice to staff - I know it's not their fault! And if I get the chance I ask them to tell their managers how cheesed off I am with the change.

I know I'm swimming against a tsuanami, but I've changed from my bank to the only building soc which has promised to keep a personned office open on our high street for the next 3 years.

I think, if you feel strongly that this move is wrong, please be awkward in the shops (not rude to staff, obvs) and write to the retail giants concerned.

He'll have been trained to try to overcome objections, so I expect he was trying to establish if your reason for saying no was because you had DD with you hence his offer to help.

You said no firmly and did it the way you wanted and he has done his job by offering to help and gently attempting to convince you by offering help.

Yabu to find it 'weird' as it seems an over reaction to an ordinary situation imo.

M&S don’t have scales so they kind of ask for it.

He should have backed off the first time you told him no, the fact he kept going is just rude. Also weird to be pushing for the very thing that will see him out of a job before long.

I have seen it myself. I wonder if it is going to cut into the approx 40% of stock loss that is through theft by staff.

The cashier on the checkout that served me today in M&S was saying about the amount of theft from the self checkouts and how blatant it was.

This happened to me in a local Lidl store and the guy was very insistent. I was particularly annoyed as I have older relatives who find using self checkouts very difficult but conversely are unlikely to complain. They'd just feel they had been excluded from yet another retailer with this policy.

When I got home I sent a (very polite) email to Lidl customer services asking if this was their policy. I got an email back very quickly saying it absolutely was not and a till should always be opened for customers who didn't want to self checkout or had larger shops. They said they would contact the store manager to investigate and I also got a voucher.

It has never happened since. Clearly they're not going to keep a till open if it's quiet and no-one needs one. I just smile and ask which till do you want me to go to? One is always opened. If you have this issue, drop customer services an email.

I find my local Aldi self checkouts good. There's always someone there helping very proactively - you rarely have to catch anyone's eye to get store approval, etc. And they always seem to have a till open.

Btw I'm elderly...

Good for you! 👏 We pay for a service. If I am going to be bullied into scanning my own shopping, I want something off it - like 10%, for doing the checkout operator's job for them!

😆 As you say 'JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!'

Nothing wrong with preferring self service (and sometimes I do!) As I have said a couple of times, they do have their place. (My 2 millennial DC prefer them some 70% of the time!) But some people don't like them much, and don't want to be coerced and bullied into using them all the time. As the OP was.

Some people DO struggle with them, especially with a big shop/trolley full! And as a pp said, especially people with disabilities, and the elderly ... I sometimes wonder if the supermarkets want to get rid of ALL the manned checkouts and leave us all to do self checkout.

A DISASTER in the making IMHO!

!

Agreed, some tremendous overreactions on this thread.

All of the comments about how using a self checkout is some gruelling challenge are odd too. Even my nine year old can manage to scan a basket full of shopping on them. It's hardly rocket science.

Well actually @LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway it's me. I don't much like talking to people and I get a bit befuddled at the checkouts, so a nice machine is perfect for me. And do you know what? I regularly get staff trying to herd me to a peopled checkout! I wish they'd just leave us to decide for ourselves.

I don't think anyone really truly LOVES self checkouts. Well maybe Gen Z and young millennials so they don't have to talk to anyone! 😁 But most people surely want - and need manned checkouts at least half the time. As we have already established, trying to take a huge trolleyload of shopping through a self checkout is farcical.

I always refuse. I tell them that I don't work there and a member of staff must scan my shopping and they will have to open a till. Never had a problem.

Sainsbury's were always crap at manning checkouts before they had self-service checkouts. If it was a long term strategy for making us love self-checkouts then it worked. Many a time I used to go when the store was quiet just to buy a few items but there was a long queue at the only till open. So frustrating.

Apparently in the UK retail losses are up 33% across all categories compared to pre covid levels; some have loss rates that are more than double the national average and, so it seems, more retailers have struggled with rooting out shoplifters using self check outs. (This is in no way aimed at you @Earlynightthen ).

Sainsbury's have recently been slammed after reducing the number of employees on human being operating checkouts to just one in some stores, and Tesco's and Morrisons are no better.

All this automation is failing to take account of the infirm, elderly or parent (usually the mum..😁) of multiple children trying to do a big shop and use a self check out. Not enough eyes or hands for that problem, and no staff available to help anyone pack.

What about the hundreds of Christmas jobs lost to this automation.

Sometimes the blasted machines don't scan properly and no staff to assist.....(I've got to get a grip or I'll be here all day raging against the machines..... 🙃)

I'd have reacted in a similar fashion as you OP, @Earlynightthen - sod trying to self scan a trolley full with a child in tow!!

That's horrific. That poor lass.

Were there ANY manned checkouts at all?