To think this is why the high street is failing?

[MiamiWindMachine]

I’m off on holiday in a couple of days, so thought I’d go up to the big shopping centre for a couple of last minute things.

In the massive H&M, all the tills bar one had been converted to self-service. The ones on the floor I was on were ALL closed. I went down to the lower floor and there was a huge queue, because no one could work out the machines. There was a step to remove security tags, and people couldn’t work out whether this was only for those plastic tags or if there was some flag on the barcodes for lower value items. Someone else was trying to process a return via these tills. When a member of staff eventually appeared, she confirmed returns could only be processed at a manned till. The customer pointed out that there were no manned tills. The staff member had no idea who to ask about it, then disappeared to find someone, so the queue was getting even longer.

I was on the way out about 15 minutes before closing time and went past M&S. I thought “I wonder if the Bureau de Change is still open” and went to check. The woman saw me approach and had a pained look on her face, saying “Arrgghh, I’ve just cashed uuuppp!” I was a bit taken aback, but said “Oh well, never mind. What time do you close, for future reference?” She then reluctantly admitted that she was supposed to be open until 8, but said “But I do start cashing up at around 7.30”. I was about to ask why when she started saying, “It’s fine; I’ll do it, I’ll do it”, like she was doing me a massive favour. I tried to pay on Revolut and she said “We can’t take those cards!”, as if it was somehow obvious. I asked about Apple Pay and she said, “No, it has to be a proper bank card or credit card”. I therefore went to pay with my credit card and she said, “You do know we have to charge a fee for these, don’t you?” I said I didn’t have a choice given she’d rejected two other payment methods.

I then went down to foods to grab a ready meal and some wine. I went to a manned till as I had alcohol and the girl said, “Oh, could you go to the self-service? It’s just that I’m closing this one”. I asked about the alcohol and she said, “I can approve that from here; it’s just that it’s easier for me”.

I feel like we’re constantly told in the media “Use it or lose it” re: the high street; how sad it would be if we lost the personal touch. From what I could see yesterday, one store has done everything possible to eliminate personal interaction, while in the other, the staff are more bothered about their convenience than the customers’. Is it any wonder that people would rather click a couple of buttons to get something delivered?

I agree with @taxguru, They do have to accept that things are changing.

Things always change. It's a constant evolution. Nothing remains the same forever. Nothing at all.

Plenty of jobs have come and gone over time. It isn't just in retail. Many roles were killed off by the march of technology. My grandfather was a musician in a cinema orchestra back in the days when cinemas still had orchestras and movies were silent. Then came movies with soundtracks (talkies) and bang, cinema musicians were out of a job! My grandfather took a job in the local steelworks after the Second World War precisely because there was no way back into his previous occupation.

Jobs come and go. There is no getting away from that. Technology is here to stay and won't be going anywhere.

Some staff will be needed because problems will occur, and obviously there are still plenty of people who prefer manned tills (my mother). The change isn't going to stop though, so we may as well forget that idea.

Don’t everywhere to be free but I also don’t expect to pay exorbitant amounts. Will shop online - have more choice, nicer shopping experience and save a fortune.

I used to work in a bureau de change....getting out at our finish time was nigh on impossible...customers think we just threw the money in the safe and swan out of the door...but there is so much paperwork and security stuff to do....there is no choice but to start cashing up before....a late customer then means all the security tags on the bags have to be redone....spreadsheets altered etc...there is an audit trail to everything that we do.

I actually work in change. I spend my day making sure the new technology we're implementing covers all our requirements and works as intended.

But for our society, change is only good if the new employment prospects stay in the same place. If we take away all the mining jobs in the North East and say "oh but there's these tech jobs now" but they're all in the South East, how does that help the NE?

If we take retail jobs from small towns in Wales and say "oh but we need web designers" but all those offices are in London? How does that help the small Welsh towns?

Not back pedalling at all, I meant every word (in a flippant way obvs) but I clearly touched a nerve! It’s not that deep. Have a cup of tea.

And this is what grinds my gears - the removal of choice and the "survival of the fittest" attitude that exemplifies the current zeitgeist. Technology is moving so fast that even tech experts are going "Woah" and questioning whether it's a good thing in general.

While the younger generations have grown up with tech, there are a good cohort who have had to learn it as a completely new concept with varying degrees of success. I muddle through, and have used tech as a tool on a very basic level. I have learned various systems for various jobs by writing down step by step idiot guides in notebooks, much to the hilarity of younger colleagues, even more so when I might achieve some speed and confidence only for some new sodding system to be brought in and I'd have to start all over again.

My background is art and design (pre retail failure) and bar a bit of printing and very basic photos hopefully, give me brushes, paint and paper every time.

AI and deepfakes give me the dystopia hereby jeebies, but what bothers me even more is the absolute reliance of every part of our infrastructure on technology that, let's face it, is vulnerable to cyber attack or the intern spilling coffee or the fixer getting locked out of the server room by jammed electronic systems when something goes awry. Our dependence on it is not benign, not practically and not mentally.

In terms of society it creates discrimination - in the US sentencing is "enhanced" by algorithms that predict recidivism in the justice system and can lead to disproportionately long sentences for relatively minor crimes because "computer says no".

And we've all been there at some point - needing to spend hours trying to get through to a human because some glitch has lost your information, or someone has entered something incorrectly. Which ain't so bad if it's your new Fendi flip flops in the ether, but when it's a bank account or a prescription issue, not so much.

Honestly, I'm glad I'm 55 and will probably miss being chipped and scanned every five minutes. At least, I hope I do.

And don't get me started on the slow creep towards social credit schemes....

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Asda has just announced they’re putting more staff on tills because customers don’t like self service. If town centres want to remain they need to make the shopping experience better. Customers don’t like self service and customers have other options.

You say that as if he's being unreasonable. Currently I have rattling around in my head 12 separate 4 digit codes, for bank, safe, various door accesses, burglar alarms, exit from my father's nursing home, use of the toilet, plus longer numeric codes for 3 different bits of IT. It's a miracle that I can remember one of my card pins.

“Not that deep”-are you 14?

It was very quirky and glad somebody else remembers, the strawberry scrunch is unrivalled! The Sanctuary was lovely as well.

Not back pedalling at all, I meant every word (in a flippant way obvs) but I clearly touched a nerve! It’s not that deep. Have a cup of tea.

Of course you're back-pedalling. You've referred to the type of people who don't answer their door previously too. It's nasty when you are taking the piss of people who may be struggling.

You've not 'touched a nerve', I'm very sociable with a partner, kids and a close group of friends. I also don't wfh. I just don't like nasty, goady people, especially ones who then try to act innocent. As for, it's not that deep, as a pp said, are you 14?

I stopped going to ASDA because of self service. The real issue is that stores were built with cashier tills and now converted to self service. But customers take longer to put a shop through self service. So the queues for self service became unreal.

No I’m much older than that 🤣 In fact old enough to remember when people understood sarcasm. Anyway, it’s an interesting discussion so I’ll stop derailing.

Our M&S pretty much had self service sussed, a good mixture of manned and a self service area with easy to use tills. Until they decided to replace the self service tills with a new design. They are awful, previously the basket was at hand height, you slid your items across the scanner and into your waiting bag, all on a level. Now the basket is really low down, you have to reach down, lift the item into a higher recessed scanner, really awkward if you are man handling a bag of spuds and then bend back over to put it in your bag. It's like digging the bloody garden.

Our Tesco is usually fine, but now won't let you use any bag other than a carrier bag, unless you wait for staff to check in your bag and verify it's empty.

Town centers struggle in the UK in part because in British cities, so few people live in the center of town, compared to many other countries. The standard British city has been developed based on the idea that almost everyone lives in a house in the suburbs and has to drive in to town. Trying to provide public transport doesn’t work well, as there is not enough density at the center of the city. Trying to let everyone drive into the center of town and park doesn’t work well either, as it makes for a horrible car-dominated environment that nobody wants to experience, and there simply isn’t enough space - no city center is ever going to be able to compete with out-of-town-retail in terms of being able to offer huge roads and miles of cheap/free parking, so trying to make city centers driver-friendly is always going to be a losing battle.

The UK needs to go gangbusters with building lots of housing in town centers, as it would both address the housing shortage while also creating city centers that are lively regardless of whether suburbanites choose to come into town or not.

Those of us who struggle with emerging tech now are the same people who kept up with changing tech 50 years ago. Wait till you've had more than half a century of changing tech and see how you feel about the world. Changing tech isn't new.

@Topseyt123 some jobs always disappear for ever. But the point is that shops still have to meet disability discrimination laws. I see our ASDA now have pay by card only petrol pumps but still have a buzzer in case anyone disabled needs petrol and needs help. But there is no one there. I have zero problem with mainly tech and some staff for those who do need staff help.

As for self-service - not sure how much money this saves stores, once you have factored in the increase in security staff and the increase in shoplifting. But the problem is that stores have now invested heavily in this equipment - it’s a sunk cost and I guess they feel like they kind of have to make it work!

I take fold up bags on my key ring as we’re not supposed to use carrier bags. So NOT having my bag checked. Knew there was a reason I don’t go to Tesco.

Wow. Fid you strain yourself with that stretch?

We need to repurpose so much of our town & city centres from commercial to domestic. It will be expensive, but much, much less expensive long term than building on green field sites, further destroying biodiversity & having everyone spread out. We need clever repurposement & design, really focusing on how to encourage building the social fabric of society, great for families, great for young singles, great for older people so that housing stock is more flexible and used to its utmost. Not only functional, but a joy to live in - efficient & clever use of space, with an emphasis on light - using the best of the world's cities for inspiration. A long term investment suitable for pension funds. We have exceptional architects & designers, this is not where to stint, the bottle neck will be in not enough builders trade/plumbers/electricians etc... Joined up thinking would be to really support apprenticeships - instead of the incredibly uninspiring 'not beautiful' benchmark, build all over the green belt before we even make a start.

As for shops, I quite like the speed and anonymity of self checkout, but I am so glad we have a great local butcher, fish monger, confess I should also support green grocer, but in our part of the world there just isn't the turnover to keep fruit & veg fresh outside the supermarket - although the supermarket range is getting so narrow and heavily plastic wrapped that I can see a local independent might begin to do better.

I use cloth totes, I've given up and gone back to using the manned checkout, it's quicker than waiting for one person to verify the bags of nearly everyone. At least to be fair to Tesco, there is a good choice of checkouts and hand held scanners. The M&S self service checkouts are are just awful.

@NamechangeRugby It would take a LOT of money to repurpose City Centres for residential. We have a lot of apartments in our City Centre already, but also pubs, restaurants and clubs. The only people who want to live there are students or people into partying. You would have to close clubs and pubs down and restaurants that provide bottomless brunches/lots of alcohol, and move them out. You would need to provide new housing, places to park, access to primary schools at least, grocery shops and parks. It would be very expensive.

Self service is good for a few items. Cashiers though can scan a trolleyfull far quicker than I can. And if I scan I invariably have to get approval for an age restricted item as well which takes time.

I agree that where more people live centrally (and where that’s possible) shops are better. I do also think that massively improved public transport is essential and really lacking outside of London. In my city most people I know drive to the out of town shopping centres, but that’s a disaster for anyone who can’t drive because there are several things you just can’t get anymore in the city centre ( RIP Wilko).
Having lived in the US one thing that struck me and hard was how many small towns had totally deserted and boarded up high street, because Walmart or whatever had opened a huge store outside town and everyone just went there.
It would be great if we could save our towns here, so sad to see them decay.