Asda not opening checkout tills

[Cramlington567]

About 8pm. Had a trolley full of stuff. There was a single checkout open when I entered. Went there to pay and it is closed with a sign saying in the evening there maybe be times when checkout is closed and you should use self scan. Two staff chatting ten meters away. I ask if they can open the till. They said 'sorry, no we don't have enough staff".

I go to self service. About 4 times the machine stopped and had to wait for the same staff to come over and unlock it. I was only a quarter of the way through my trolley. Justly left it there, walked out and said to the two staff, sorry I am leaving it, it's too much hassle.

Unreasonable? Plus, everyone saw this coming 10 years ago when it was 'we will always have at least one checkout open' then ' just ask and we will open one'.

Went to Aldi in the end but I can see them going the same way.

I am healthy by the way and middle aged. Would they have opened a till if I was elderly? Or obviously disabled but then not all disabilities are visible of course.

@Pancakefam not all staff are trained to be on the tills, and floats are given to specific staff.

But if it keeps happening then staff will complain to their line managers who then complain to store managers who then feed back the senior management.
That's often how changes come about.

Poor you having to leave your shopping behind!

I love self checkout because I have always wanted to work on a supermarket till, but never have?

Some people just walk out without paying which is rude!

Self checkouts are infuriatingly slow if you have a trolly full. The usually checkouts can scan at speed but on a self checkout you have to carefully place each item down and wait for it to register the correct weight. It is so tedious and I am in support of your walking out!

Our sainsburys (London, family area) won’t open normal check outs outside of a tiny peak time. You can do a big family shop and they’ll direct you to the large self checkouts. It’s annoying. We are literally paying to do their work.

I seldom get through self-checkout without needing help. I went at 0800 one morning with a very full cart and lo and behold only selfcheckout. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Two employees present standing around to help self-checkout. I asked did they not have a lane open, as I usually don't come that early. Nope. One of them did offer to scan all my stuff at the selfcheckout which probably ended up taking her three times as long as it would have in a lane, but still less time than if I had done it myself.

The problem is everybody wants to have such lean staffing (including my own job in healthcare) that efficiency and customer service ultimately suffers.

Me too my brother rolls his eyes when I start my I don't work here patter. although becoming increasingly difficult in city centre. Big shop it's the hill I too will die on

Asda is the worst supermarket, there is a whole thread about how bad they are so probably best to avoid anyway. I get a Tesco online shop once a week, so far service is very good, I haven't been told to unload my shopping at the van yet.

Our large Waitrose always have tills open so I top up here or M&S of which our local one has always had tills open but this might not be all of them

I am not being paid to learn to scan shopping.

my shopping bill is sky high so I am paying for the privilege to scan my own shopping.

no.

I go to a shop for the service provided, the help being available and someone else to scan my shopping so I can pack it.

YANBU. Self-checkout does not work with trolleys. Baskets, fine, but not trolleys.

I saw a guy with a full basket in Aldi refusing to self scan the other day…..but he left with his basket of shopping without paying! The manager was shouting at him, angry man threatened to knock him out and said he was leaving and then ran off down the road with his basket of stuff!

Give over, they could have opened a check out. You don't need 2 staff on self check out.

This. I think it’s a bit childish. Plus all frozen and refrigerated stuff will probably have to be chucked as they don’t know how long it’s been out

I really don’t get the issue people have with self checkouts, I’d much rather use them than a checkout with a person. My absolute favourite though is scan as you shop.

Goodness you never use ATMs or petrol bowsers? You’ve never put your rubbish in a bin after a snack in a food hall?

Same in my local Asda yesterday at about 10.30 in the morning.

Quite difficult to go through self scan with a big shop.

YABU. Self scan isn't that complicated. People love to make it a big deal because they're scared of change.

They would lose profit to be fair. Far fewer impulse buys when buying online.

They would lose profit to be fair. Far fewer impulse buys when buying online.

Christ I love a self scan till. I can't be doing with yet more small talk human interaction and I like to scan and pack at my pace.

They rarely 'malfunction' if you have an ounce of critical thinking capability. Also if you need alcohol validating try to time the scan for when the till attendant comes free.

I don't blame you @Cramlington567

Quite a few times when using self scan I've abandoned scanning part way through and taken it all to a manned till instead. If there wasn't a manned til available I'd probably be tempted to just leave it too.

How do you scan a whole trolley of shopping? You take an item out, scan it then put on shelf. But what happens when shelf is full, if you start removing stuff won’t it keep buzzing?

I don't work in Asda but another supermarket, sometimes we don't have a belted checkout open for the last 20 minutes or so before we close (we will open one if someone asks).
This is because we're short staffed and there's lots of other jobs that need doing in that very short period of time, so we can get on and do the jobs that need doing after we close and before we can go home.
We're not just being difficult!

Good for you. Shopping in-store is ridiculous now.
Our big Sainsbury's is the same now in the evenings. If you're lucky there might be ONE manned till. I've stopped going there now. It's no wonder they're losing money. People hate this new way of paying.

Yeh it’s not ok to leave your shopping like that. That’s just plain rude. The staff are paid minimum wage and don’t make the rules.

Not unreasonable!

I always use scan & go but the last few times I've popped in for a few things the scan & go tills have been closed (due to staffing issues) so then I've had to wait at the self scan queue where inevitably the people in front of me have never been in a shop, used a computer or paid for anything before.

Asked why the scan & go has been closed recently and got barked at by the person manning the self scan section that there were only 2 of them but you can see plenty of staff chatting as you go round the store.

They need to just put people back on the tills.

And God forbid you need a bag in my local Asda, you have to hunt down the "keeper of the bags" who will then storm up to your checkout & scan it for you because you might nick a 30p bag but could have 3 unscanned bottles of wine in the trolley that they couldn't give a flying fuck about!

Dreading this weekend when I'll be doing the big shop.