Self checkout tills are killing the shopping experience

[Stopsnowing]

My first two jobs )as a Saturday girl) was on the tills. I learned to chat with customers and fold their clothes neatly and handle money responsibly. Sometimes they had queries or complaints or would ask me questions when they couldn’t find anyone on the floor.
I am not a massively chatty person and I have a busy full time job. I am not someone whose only social contact is via shopping but dear God how soul destroying is shopping in places with all or mainly self service tills.
it is deathly quiet and there is no interaction with a human except for one harried person trying to whizz around fixing the scanning issues.
marks and Spencer is fully self service now and if you want to be served by a human you have to join the single long refunds queue. Waitrose had two tills open the other day and when the queues built up and a lady asked them to open another till she was directed to the empty self check outs and was told they didn’t have the staff for another till. When I shop in Aldi or Sainsburys they have one or no staffed till. So anyone who is elderly or who needs help has ti stand and wait and that is not easy.
I am now scanning a whole trolley shop. It takes longer than being served and involves a lot mor e reaching down which some people won’t be able to manage.
the Waitrose lady told me “can’t stop progress”. I said” whir about your job?” She said her job wasn’t affected as they were only not replacing leavers as opposed to sacking people so she would be ok. She seemed to miss the point that if she left her job she wouldn’t be able to find another similar one. My children won’t be able to have a Saturday job where they will get their first lessons in customer service. A huge chunk of jobs has gone forever. Another element of customer service is gone (because these till Roles have not been replaced with staff walking the floors (good luck with that). Social interaction reduced. Another step towards the death of the high street.

This piece rang true for me

https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2023/aug/02/want-a-glimpse-of-dystopia-visit-the-self-service-checkouts

It's not killed the experience for me, in fact it's done quite the opposite
.
I'm autistic and have ADHD so always found it difficult to load/pack shopping and do small talk with a random stranger whilst also thinking about where is my club card/purse etc - the need to have thing's immediately to hand is string and even with phones having to find a fly card then a payment card would get me in a stress.

Now I do scan as you shop so all I need to do at the till is take out my phone to pay. The club card is scanned at the beginning, the shopping is nearly packed and I just tap my card and go.

It had only failed on me once since it was installed and I got myself in such a mess the staff told me to sit down and someone scanned it all manually for me. All I had to do was tap.

I would never go to a shop alone without this tech if I needed more than a handful of things

*neatly packed

I won’t use them on principle. My argument has always been that it’s a good way for the big stores to get rid of paid staff - I’m interested in the pp whose experience is that people don’t apply for supermarket jobs; are they just very low paid, I wonder? Or are some people beginning to treat the job market the way the job market has historically treated people?

I’ve become ‘that’ older person who says loudly ‘I prefer to be served by a human being, dear’ - works a treat in my local M&S. I’m neither an absolute technophobe, all that aged (50s) or averse to a smile and a greeting from the cashier - if I’m in a mood of not wanting to face people, I don’t go out unless I absolutely have to.

I feel this is all the inexorable march of ‘progress’ and the current debate about closing ticket offices in railway stations suggests automation is the way business is heading whether it’s good for people or not, and whether -ultimately - it really is good business. I suspect that if I live long enough, actual tills with an actual cashier will be making a comeback in the way vinyl records have (and our city boasts a VHS video shop!) Until then, I’m heading for the independents who still have employees whose job it is to serve customers.

I hate self service tills and actively avoid them. Waiting in the queue for a self service till to become vacant I see how many problems there are - things not scanning, not registering in the bagging area etc. People are much slower at putting their items through the scanner than an assistant sitting at a till is. I'm sure it's a fallacy that they're faster than manned tills - unless the shopper is only buying very few items.

I also hate them because they are yet another way that people are becoming isolated from one another and are communicating with one another less and less. Humans are social animals and we've thrived and evolved on interactions of all sorts. It feels like neoliberalism capitalism wants us to do less "free" interacting and more of the sort that they can control.

Self-check in at the airport is absolutely rubbish I agree, there are massive queues and most people fly once a year and naturally don't know how to use the machines, different from a supermarket.

Or bag drop, I should say. I actually check in online.

Going shopping took on a lot of importance in my df’s life when he got frail. It was an outing he could still manage independently. He got a bit of social connection. He felt he was still contributing to the household.

The checkout operators recognised him and were very kind to him. But I know he would have struggled with the self checkout and in all probability accidentally shoplifted.

Personally I like them (when they are working properly) And I like the ordering screens in takeaways. I prefer atms to walking into a bank (which was an option once upon a time) but I’m an introvert. If you chat to me at a checkout my gut instinct is to never return.

Even so, I think there’s still a need for a human operator, and preferably one without a headset. It annoys me when businesses rainbow up or use advertising with images of the elderly or disabled, or trumpet their autism friendly hour while their day to day operation systems put profit before people.

@MissMarplesNiece

I also hate them because they are yet another way that people are becoming isolated from one another and are communicating with one another less and less. Humans are social animals and we've thrived and evolved on interactions of all sorts

Not all of us.

I thrive on minimal contact with humans I don't know. Communicating less when it comes to needless chat with a stranger is perfect for me and many thousands of people similar to me.

I work in a store but we don’t have any self service tills ( wouldn’t really work as there a lot of very big products). My favourite part of the job is chatting to customers & you soon get to gauge who is willing & who just wants to go. I think self service tills have their place in supermarkets but alongside ordinary checkouts. Plus they’re supposed to be quicker but I often find they cause more work eg at Tescos your bag is never automatically verified so you have to wait for the assistant. Then you have the dreaded “unexpected item” - I often end up swearing at the machine, saying how can it be unexpected as I have just F ing put it there!! 🤣

I’ve become ‘that’ older person who says loudly ‘I prefer to be served by a human being, dear’ - works a treat in my local M&S. I’m neither an absolute technophobe, all that aged (50s) or averse to a smile and a greeting from the cashier - if I’m in a mood of not wanting to face people, I don’t go out unless I absolutely have to

Snap. I had a (slightly pointless) conversation with the manager of my Waitrose yesterday - got the line that 'well this is the way society is going' (cashless and self checkout) but got the feeling that he'd had feedback about people missing the human interaction. Did score a bunch of flowers to keep me sweet though, so that was appreciated.

I really resent the way that since covid ended the corporations like M&S are nudging us none too subtly in the direction of going both cashless and working for them for free - and if that makes me a technophobic Luddite, I'll live with that. I'd rather go in the local coffee shop that has counter service and someone who actually acknowledges you as a human than the chain that expects you to order via screen and makes it obvious you're nothing but a profit source.

I think that the "oh the elderly" argument should be beginning to wear thin.

Smartphones and self scan have been around fifteen years. So your average 80yo was 65 at least when they came in - they're not THAT complicated to operate, and haven't changed much in that time.

I like self service tills. Except Wilkos. Those can get fucked, even the staff can't operate them - which is especially baffling given the age of the technology.

I personally prefer self scan (not a fan of making chit chat) but I don't see how shops can ever go fully self service as surely that'd be discriminatory to people with some kinds of disabilities? Also if you were a wheelchair user the tills are rarely fully accessible (card machines and touch screens placed at a height etc).

My dad has a tremor and mobility issues and self service would be an impossibility for him. I take the bigger point about it eradicating some jobs but I don't think we'll be eradicate human employment to the level some fear.

Yep totally agree

Smartphones and self scan have been around fifteen years. So your average 80yo was 65 at least when they came in - they're not THAT complicated to operate, and haven't changed much in that time.

Unless your eyesights going and you can't see the screen. Or your fingers are arththric that makes touching stuff difficult. Or you've started to get a bit flustered being barked at by a machine and holding the queue up. Or you just like some human interaction in your day and are getting pissed off with the way people are being treated as resources for the corporations. I mean, it's not as if we get a discount for doing what cashiers used to do, is it?

I think these things just change.

It must have been similarly upsetting when shops moved from a 'ask the shopkeeper behind the counter to get everything you need' model to the 'wander around and pick up what you need' one.

As it was to go from the 'visit several specialist shops' to the 'find all your food under one roof' model.

As it has been to go from 'spend Saturday mornings walking up and down the high street' to the 'order it online' one.

But it's only really upsetting for those that grew up used too the old model. The next generation won't care. As we didn't care that we grew up shopping in a different way to our grandparents.

It must be only some branches of M&S not all cos ours still has staff on the tills on both floors and in the food hall.
I do agree with you though op - I much prefer to be served at the till by a human and have a little chat about what Ive bought or the weather etc. Sometimes you can get to know the staff so well they almost become friends and chat turns to "how are your kids?" or "did you enjoy your holiday" etc.

I refuse to stand in a queue to serve myself so I avoid them. My local m&s and boots have gone fully self service so I no longer shop there. With food shopping I'd much rather shop online than serve myself, I just do click and collect, £3 for someone else to go and pick all my shopping, saves me an hour of time, well worth it but yes I know having elderly parents that going to the shops is the highlight of their day and they need that human interaction. It's not about being able to use technology, it's about feeling part of a community.

I like self service tills. Except Wilkos. Those can get fucked, even the staff can't operate them - which is especially baffling given the age of the technology.
I love the Wilko ones. I like using the scanner gun thing!

I’ve become ‘that’ older person who says loudly ‘I prefer to be served by a human being, dear’

When people do this please look around and see how busy staff are, especially in the local stores which are smaller. Staff are there to help, but when people insist on being served when staff are trying to unload large deliveries (usually under staffed) it’s not helpful.

We aren’t losing our jobs to technology, it helps us keep the store running when not enough people want to do these jobs.

Scan and shop on the Sainsbobs app is a GLORIOUS invention. Stops me over spending.

It should definitely be a mixture of both. I used to work in a branch of a local bank and the amount of times cashiers have stopped vulnerable customers being scammed out of £1000’s jusy from being really familiar with their normal requests is astounding. If a regular who normally withdraws £100 a week wants £2000 cash it strikes up a conversation and quite a lot of the time there would be something sinister.
Ive always been a self checkout person but whilst I’ve been on maternity leave i have enjoyed the chit chat at the tills and people talking to the baby etc, but yes things are going very isolating.

In my local sainsburys they have cameras on the self service tills. In the one the next town down it’s scan the receipt.

In the first Sainsbury’s they had the bright idea recently of having 3 men hanging around near the security guard area who seemed to be just chatting (they were undercover security guards). After a couple of visits of feeling really uncomfortable near them I spoke to customer services and said I’ll be shopping elsewhere unless they go. Can’t have been the only one unhappy as they disappeared.

but when people insist on being served when staff are trying to unload large deliveries (usually under staffed) it’s not helpful

You mean when you have customers trying to buy things in your shop and keep your business in business, don't you? because that's what those 'people who insist on being served' are.

And staffing problems aren't the customers' problem, frankly.

much prefer the self scan checkouts

Our local mini tesco had a refit and now only has one till, that's never open. They've changed all the self service to card only and the kiosk your only allowed to buy 3 non kiosk items.
I pay in cash a lot, and it's a huge pain.
The nearest decent supermarket to me that does scan and shop is 11 miles away.