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?

Yes, I think this too.

Went to Stamford for the first time a couple of years ago. What a wonderful place. Desperately trying to move somewhere close

I do not pay £300 a month. And tbh your response is the kind of thing my local council would say. Costs minimum of £4 where I live for an hour or two. It is too much. And paying by apps is too difficult. So we go to retail parks instead.

No town center is ever going to be able to provide parking as ample or free as a out-of-town retail park, ever. Town centers by their nature simply don’t have as much space for huge roads and car parks. And any attempts to cater to drivers just make a town center unpleasant to walk around, because you are exposed to all the noise, fumes and danger of all the cars (as opposed to the out-of-town retail park, where you can shop undercover and let your children run around freely). As places to drive to and park at, town centers will always lose to out-of-town retail centers, always.

So: we would be better off accepting that town centers are just different types of places by their nature, and building lots of housing there, restricting car usage in these areas, and making them nice places for non-drivers to live in and walk around and hang out in.

Suburb dwellers who want to drive everywhere and park are welcome to use out-of-town retail parks instead.

Oh Jesus thats fucking ridiculous

It's definitely a massive problem even in the supermarket near me it's hit and miss if you can even checkout because they don't have tills open and the self service tills can't process a big weekly shop because the baggage area is tiny I've seen so many people just walk out and abandon trolleys and if I'm clothes shopping its so hard to find anything in season or suitable I end up going on vinted or eBay instead

For shop type businesses to remain viable in the High Street. They need to be accessible to those already in the area. This in many cases will be office workers. So later opening for those finishing at 5pm would make sense. Not chasing them out the door.

And with so many the office workers now mostly working from home, that market has also gone online

There is a cafe near me where if you go there after a certain time (which is quite some way off closing time) they serve you your drink in a paper cup and your food in a takeaway bag (but you can still dine there) because they turn the dishwasher on and don't want to have any more dirty dishes.

I just don't go there in the afternoons.

Customer service at it's finest!!!

I don't go to my high street because there are only so many haircuts I need. I don't need a Thai massage, or a shave at the barbers. I could go to the pub I suppose.

I don't really even go to out of town places much now, even though our nearest is about 20 minutes away. If I do, I inevitably come home and look online as there's more choice. Not only that, it's factoring in the time to shop. 10 minutes browsing while I'm having breakfast can be more productive than an hour + traipsing round.

A lot of the time in the bigger stores the store assistants suggest you look online or have I pads where they can look it up for you. It's almost as if the shops would rather we all have things delivered or ' click and collect' (as happened over lockdown in some places ) to keep us out the actual store and needing less staff that way to actually serve anyone. My local
big supermarket has increased capacity for the smart scanners and self service tills over the summer. Do it yourself is becoming the norm.
The supermarkets will continue to thrive and a lot of other places will close ( or become ' pick up hubs ' only)

Around here (large coastal city) high street is dead, yet retail parks (those with Aldi, Screwfix, M&S, Costa etc, Pet store (can't remember the name) are packed all day everyday.)

Free parking? I think that is a factor where I live. Do I pop into town and spend £5 to park for a couple of hours or go to the retail park and I've got an extra £5 to spend.

Also where I am so not sure if it common but the local retail park runs a free bus service from surrounding areas. So on Thursday we have a free bus, other areas other days.

It is a no brainer to go to shops with free parking ( even if it's for a few hours)
I do resent paying in town and it's usually two hours needed which adds up and the cost has give up massively ( every single year )

Believe me when I tell you that nobody is losing their job for not having a manned till on. The staff are given other tasks to do, and then when a customer requests a till that then puts the staff member behind in their work, and stay late for no extra pay. Things change, scan your own shopping, bag it, pay for it, and go home. Or would you like us to put it away for you, cook it and eat it for you as well. Move with the times…..

This is totally true also. I think some employers are now looking at getting staff back into offices after finding productivity does drop off on a lot of occasions.

smellydog1
Of course staff numbers are reduced. Prior to making the customer do the job of a checkout operator, you would have someone on the till and somebody filling shelves. Now you have just one person filling both roles. You may think reduced customer service with no interaction is a good thing. A lot of us don't.

I'm not in the UK and checkout operators in some supermarkets here still bag groceries for us. It's called customer service - an outdated notion these days but you will find it still very much appreciated.

When the shops either pay me to scan and bag my own shopping, or else reduce the price of the goods siginificantly, then I will do the work. Until that day comes I will shop in a store which still understands what customer service is - and I know I'm not alone in that by a long chalk. So you can bore off with your "move with the times ....." crap.

HTH

Just to pick up on 'your employee stay late for no pay'. Who is actually to blame for that? The customer without whom you wouldn't be in that job? You, because you didn't work hard enough to complete all tasks? Or the senior managers who now have you fulfilling two roles with insuficient time to complete all tasks?

Yes, they most definitely are reduced. The supermarket in my town with the least number of self-checkouts and the most number of manned checkouts has far more staff than the one where it is the opposite. I would say the one which is trying to make the customer do their work has half the staff of the other, and I called in yesterday and heard one of the staff apologise for the long wait to a customer as they were short staffed. The supermarket which still believes in customer services at busy times has enough staff to have a checkout operator, plus a packer, at each till, as well as shelf fillers, supervisors etc.

That is true. Supermarkets have hardly any staff now on the shopfloor.

I have heard numerous times how self service is taking jobs away. I don’t necessarily want to be part of taking jobs from people. Nor do I ask for someone to man a till.

Do you work in a shop, because your attitude actually is shit, considering I said I didn’t like something because it takes jobs away? You don’t need to be that rude.

One of the supermarkets where we are (East coast US but not a major city) tried to go 100% self checkout with no manned tills whatsoever, it was carnage! People either leaving full trollies from the resulting long lines queues or some walking out with them without paying

Needless to say they backtracked, but now they have employees manning the self checkout machines where there’s an awkward dance to get the trolly past them every time.

One thing that is nice about the US self checkouts in general though is there’s no unexpected item in bagging area, so if for example the multipacks of soda or water are on a multi buy you can scan one multiple times and pop it back in the trolley

It may well be that nobody is being made redundant, but when people leave, they won't be replaced. So the overall job count goes down.

And people on here should care, because most retail workers are women, and most IT workers programming self-serve machines (and apps that don't work easily for parking, or even parking machines come to that!) are men. So we're getting rid of jobs that women tend to do.

Also, people often need a staffed till because they have age-restricted items and it's much quicker to go to a staffed till than wait for someone to come and find you at a self-serve till.

One thing that is nice about the US self checkouts in general though is there’s no unexpected item in bagging area, so if for example the multipacks of soda or water are on a multi buy you can scan one multiple times and pop it back in the trolley

Yes this is also the case in the M&S where I live and until very recently was also the case in Waitrose but in their wisdom they've put the ones with weighing machines in, so everything takes twice as long now.

Re staff numbers, you're completely ignoring the entire new industry employing huge numbers of people to design and manufacture the self service tills, including entire supply chains, those who install them, those who train the staff, those who maintain and repair them, programmers to program them, etc.

As has always happened, jobs come and go. Yes, there will be fewer checkout operators but there will be "new" jobs elsewhere. It's the way it's always been.

Were you bothered about corner shop owners who lost their businesses/livelihoods when supermarkets opened up and took all their customers?

@taxguru Lets not pretend for a minute that it takes the same amount of staff hours to design, install and maintain a self service till as it does to man an actual ordinary till. There would be zero point supermarkets installing self service tills if it did not save them money. In this case it saves them money on staff wages.