To wonder why people hate the self check outs at supermarkets

[Mumto123monkeys]

It’s driving me a bit mad....people moaning.
I don’t get what’s wrong with them, I’ve heard ‘why would I use them, I don’t work hear’. But surely it shortens the que...

Also ‘I like to speak to people, not a machine’ ok....it’s not difficult to strike up a convo in most places...
and loads of others! Personally, I can’t see the issue! I use both, I prefer self serve-scan as you shop too, if it’s available! It’s much quicker, and the kids love it so helps keep them happy!
I know they can be glitchy, but some shops have got them really good!

Self service checkouts are the worst of all worlds. They take jobs away from actual people, and they make shopping harder and less convenient.
It reminds me when all those really crap air hand dryers suddenly appeared in public toilets about 25 years ago. Lots of complaints about how they could only dry your hands if you stood under them for 10 minutes. But they were introduced because they saved money. It was not for the benefit of people actually using the services.
Self service checkouts have not been introduced for our benefit.

I love our Waitrose self checkout, whizz through in no time and never have a problem.
There's always an assistant standing nearby watching in case help needed

Yes waitrose is the only supermarket that people have name checked as having self service checkouts that are fine and well staffed. So it shows that actually people are not resistant to technology, but resistant to poor technology.

I won't use them as they have taken jobs from mostly women.

I don't like them because they too often go wrong; because if there is anything slightly complicated or that you need to ask about, they are pretty useless; and because they steal real people's jobs while still performing worse than the real people do.

I hate them because they have put a lot of people, especially women, out of work; they don’t work properly and I avoid them like the plague.

@Mumto123monkeys

YABU, they are a PITA!

2 out of 3 times I go through one, I have to get assistance for a can of red bull, some wine, aspirin, hayfever tablets, even fucking cough sweets FGS! And there is often an 'unexpected item in bagging area' message, and things that are small and light and don't register on the scale.

They can be handy occasionally, but I find them more of a nuisance tbh. Our local Asda (a small-ish one with 12 tills,) turned ALL of them as self-serve. It caused so much chaos and so many complaints, that they changed 6 back!

They don't cut queues because the shop just employs fewer staff. M and S regularly closes a whole bank of SS tills and let's a queue build up at the SS tills because they are too cheap to even staff SS tills properly.
They scan very slowly. I've used a Tesco proper till and I've used a self scan. The self scan is far slower.
I resent the way they force you in to using them.
Many are card only. I am not cool with this.
If you 'weigh own bag' it doesn't work without approval.
The scales is rubbish. I end up scanning it all and then packing.
The voice is fucking annoying. Lidl has no mute. Others do though. Use it!
If you put two different items in a small bag like lemon and lime you then have to take them out an do them separately because of the scale.
I like people.
I hate the way some supermarkets try to make staff man both the proper and the self service till at once, meaning they can't do either job properly. Just pay up!
Too often it takes ages for someone to come and approve your booze etc.
The Tesco ones are v bad for missing reduced products and charge you full price.
You can't enter multiples of a single item when scanning.

In summary a mixture of shit design and wanting people.

I like them! I use them several times a week and they rarely go wrong🤷maybe I'm just lucky!

I love scan as you shop too, that's the best way to do it. It is annoying when they have to check a certain amount of items so they take it all out after you've packed it so well🤣🙈

I love them especially for when you're not buying much and would otherwise be stuck in a queue behind someone with dozens of items. Our local Co-Op has them and it means I usually go there to buy my lunch just for the convenience of the quick check out - in and out within a minute or two - bliss!

I don't like them because all the ones I've used have needed assistant intervention, often several times. I'd much rather be server by a human.
I hardly ever chat to anyone who is in the supermarket just shopping, unless I get asked to read a label or where something is located, and I am a chatty person.
If you shop at T*o supermarket, you don't get clubcard points at the self-service checkout.

served not server

Oh yeah, they are handy, and it's good to have a choice, but they do go wrong too often for my liking. And a shop replacing ALL of the tills with them? Really?! As I said, it went down like a cup of cold vomit, when they changed all 12 tills in our Asda, and they changed 6 back.

I use scan and shop, I have chronic pain and just have to put shopping in the trolley and then into the car is so much easier on my back.

I have grown to like them but we live 5min from a big ASDA, so have used them a lot. We anticipate their usual malfunctions and know how to work around them.
Like, scan something semi-heavy, put it in own bag, put bag in bagging area instead of using the "own bag option". DH and I do these things without thinking about them now, so it is nice and easy.

Also get to set my own pace and don't have to do small talk (I don't mind the small talk, either, I usually compliment the cashiers on something and it always seems to cheer them up, so there is that).
Never get IDd at the self-checkout, which means I just need to take cash and/or card - always get asked for ID otherwise and I will be 30 this year. I mean, it is nice to know I could pass as under 25. I always take it as a compliment, but at the same time it is a bit annoying.

Of course, there is the monthly PMS shop, which entirely consists of junk food and really prefer to scan that by myself while I quietly curse the female reproductive system to hell.

Morrison's self-checkouts are terribly understaffed here but that is the only place were I prefer a proper till. As for weighing everything seperately, we got a bunch of reusable grocery bags, which means using an extra bag does not come with the plastic issue.

I actually do not mind the automatisation of jobs, however, I do mind that it comes without welfare being improved. I am all for a universal base income that people can actually live on but that is a little off topic.

I watched a great documentary a while back about the opening of the first ever superstore in the 1960s and the original footage featured people saying much the same thing as many on here are saying about self service tills. “We’ve lost the personal touch, why should I have to get the stuff I want to buy myself that’s not my job, the trollies never work properly.”

And yet, we got used to supermarkets.

I love them. I rarely use a staffed checkout and rarely have any problems. If I do it’s because I’ve made a mistake.

Has anyone used them at Decathlon? There's a bucket underneath a screen and you just place the items one at a time into the bucket and it magically knows they are there. No swiping tags or typing things in. I was in absolute awe!
Yes! It’s amazing. I wanted to go back and get more stuff.

I just don’t like being served by a machine
You prefer it that people are paid to serve you?

How many people - mostly women - no longer have a job now they put in a bank of machines and one person to sort out problems?

Sure. Keep these low paid service jobs just so the womenfolk have jobs to go to. Or, take away these jobs and ensure women are given a fair crack of the whip at jobs which aren’t low paid with little prospect of moving up the chain. Like, perhaps, designing and maintaining the machines used to do the crappy mundane jobs nobody should be forced into because they happen to be female.

I use scan and shop

This is my preferred option. I did laugh though when we were randomly selected for a re-scan (always when you’re in a rush) the lad was berating the system. Apparently Tesco have upped the number of random stops, and the number of items they scan, because they weren’t finding enough people who had nicked stuff. His comment was “when will they accept people just aren’t nicking stuff”

Morrison's and Coop ones are rubbish. I use them everywhere else. My mum who lives alone always queues for the till cos she has time and likes to chat to the checkout people. Horses for courses I say

I don’t like them because there are few enough jobs as it is.

If you shop at T*o supermarket, you don't get clubcard points at the self-service checkout.

Yes you do.

My husband won’t use them as he sees it as taking jobs from people that's why I don't either.

I love our Waitrose self checkout, whizz through in no time and never have a problem. There's always an assistant standing nearby watching in case help needed

Sadly not at mine. You have to wait for the assistant on Customer Services to finish with her queue and trot over. It doesn't help either that almost every single user of the self service tills needs help as the car park refund needs to be manually authorised by staff.

Ok. It’s clear I’m in a minority to like them!

I get that they’re not accessible to some people, and that’s not ok, needs sorting.

But I’m not buying the ‘loss of jobs’. Having worked in a supermarket, the staff were put on to other jobs in the shop, such as putting more stock out for the ever growing number of people shopping.

Some people like being served by a person, ok personal preference.

Tills going wrong. I still think a lot is down to people not reading the screens or listening to staff helping.

I like SS tills because I'm quick and efficient. Many people aren't and so using the SS tills can be longer.

I like IKEA SS tills as items always scan well and at the right price. The one thing I like about LIDL is that they have elongated bar codes on items do the scan much easier.