Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to hate self-service tills in shops?

138 replies

EightiesChick · 19/05/2010 15:38

Their presence in lots of stores is increasing all the time and I really don't like it. If I wanted to work at Tesco / Boots / B&Q etc, I'd fill in an application form like everyone else! I am there as a customer and part of that is not doing the firm's work for free. It will be an excuse to cut tons of jobs any day now, if it hasn't been already.

Plus it doesn't actually seem to save any time, given that half the stuff doesn't scan easily and you have to wait for someone to come and correct the machine.

Plus the repeated recorded instructions like 'unexpected item in bagging area' drive me up the wall.

If I'm invited to use them, I refuse - though so far I have suppressed my desire to rant about it when someone says 'would you like to use the self-service till?' That's why you're getting it here.

OP posts:
ThatVikRinA22 · 19/05/2010 22:25

oh thank god its not just me. i get really really arsey with them and i hate it cos DD loves them and i just always end up looking like a total prick whenever i try and use them.

whenever i go into tesco now i hiss to DD that i am NOT going to the self service checkout!

Petsville · 19/05/2010 22:31

YANBU - really, really hate them. They can't cope with bike panniers, or with you not putting stuff in the "bagging area", so I have to solemnly park everything on the side and then pack it in my pannier after I've paid. Absolutely maddening. And I worry about the shop staff who won't have jobs because of these blasted things.

Meglet · 19/05/2010 22:34

I like them when I only have a couple of items. I stick my purchases in the bag on the scale while it's going through but just transfer it all to my own bag when it's done.

And I love shoving all my coppers into the machine and emptying my purse out .

ThatVikRinA22 · 19/05/2010 22:36

i end up "talking" back to them and subsequently look like a fucking fruit loop.

Sherbert37 · 19/05/2010 22:59

Wonder how many people leave notes behind by mistake? Dd forgot £5 of her hard earned babysitting money at Tescos. She was lucky it had been handed in and she got it back.

angelbabe1982 · 20/05/2010 11:32

Hi all i don't want to cause trouble but, self service tills are fine.
I work in a supermarket (blue one) and regularly have to man these. I am not so sure how putting everything you have scanned down is hard? It works on weight so if it hasn't been scanned, don't put it on the scale bit.
Also, SS doesn't replace staff, it actually enables shops to employ more staff in other areas such as stocking shelves etc - presumably you would be more than annoyed to find empty shelves?
I agree that when they get a fault its bloody annoying, but so are the people who curse at me and the machine when they have not put the damn item dowm!
Its maybe worth pointing out that supermarkets HQs set targets, ie we need 40% of customers to use SS, if we have queues of more than 1 person we get scored down, and if people with 10 or less items go thru big (belted) checkouts we also get scored down. All of this results in our Team Leaders and Manager getting a bollocking.
It is unfair as I do think SS needs improved, but the actual store teams don't deserve to be berated for it.
FWIW one town complained about the SS in their Tesco and Tesco removed them - Newtonhill nr Aberdeen, so keep writing emailing about them and you never know..

PatsyStone · 20/05/2010 11:42

Having said I like these things yesterday, I was losing the will to live this morning in Sainsbury's when I was putting the damned little french stick in the bag, repeatedly, but it was so light the stupid machine didn't seem to register it and kept barking at me. Aagh

pagwatch · 20/05/2010 17:02

angelbabe

you are not causing trouble. But I still think they are shit.

CheekyPinkSox · 20/05/2010 17:09

I find them easy to use. Except when i get a dodgy one and its telling me remove the unexpected item in bagging area that isnt even there lol

indigomagic · 20/05/2010 17:24

I love them, can zoom past the queues of people who can't use them and whiz out of there. Oh, and the ones in Boots don't make you put your items in the bagging area. After scanning they ask you whether you are packing them or putting them in your own bag.

nappyaddict · 20/05/2010 17:35

angelbabe can you explain to me after I have scanned an item (and am therefore paying for it) it insists I put it in the bagging area? I can understand the "unexpected item in bagging area" cos it thinks you are trying to take stuff you haven't paid for. But if I've paid for it why does it matter if it goes in the bagging area?

Petsville · 20/05/2010 22:07

Second Nappyaddict's point - I understand why I can't put my bike pannier in the bagging area, because it thinks I'm trying to get away with something, but why I have to put the stuff I've scanned there I can't understand - it slows everything down.

Kaloki · 20/05/2010 22:29

nappyaddict I assume it's so they know that you aren't putting extra items through.

JaneS · 20/05/2010 22:37

angel, sorry, but for some people they are a nightmare. My elderly gran before she died could just about cope with handing her money to the till lady, and there must be loads of elderly people the same. I can't manage them well myself as I've no visual memory to speak of and keying in a barcode is totally beyond me. It drives me nuts that the idiots in the shop near me will insist on telling me to go and use the self service when they see me heading to the back of a long queue.

Then they get impatient when I can't manage them. So sorry if that's annoying, but they are crap.

RustyBear · 20/05/2010 22:44

Our tesco has recently updated its software so you can use your own bags, but before the update one of the assistants (who was probably fed up with having to go & put the code in every time someone used their own bag) told me that if you scan a heavy item, like a 4 pint bottle of milk, put it in your bag & then put the bag down in the bagging area, it will accept it. Presumably the thing is set to accept a certain percent variation in the known weight of an item. Not sure if it would work with a bike pannier though, as that might add too much weight.

chesgirlNOTgriffins · 20/05/2010 22:50

I sort of love them because its like playing shops

But on the other hand they are rubbish.

I tend to buy discounted items and they dont understand these and start shouting at me.
They surely must put people out of work.
The supermarkets make squillions in profit and they want me to do their bloody work.
They must be crap for anyone with English as a second language to use or people who are Deaf or hard of hearing or people with LD. I would think they would be pretty tricky for some people with physical disabilities as well.

We must all be mad to let the supermarkets get away with this. Customer service going backwards not forwards.

The ASDA in the main shopping area in my borough is almost all self service. They only have a couple of old style checkouts now.

ooosabeauta · 20/05/2010 22:54

I love them, mainly because you don't have to have an extra pair of hands handling everything you buy iyswim. So many times I've queued at checkouts and seen the cashier coughing straight into their fingers, or licking their fingers in order to open someone's plastic bags, and then I think - that's all going to be spread over the things I put in my cupboards

If not life-theateningly dangerous, still a bit unpleasant. I know someone puts them on the shelves, but I don't have to see that bit so I can cope with it...

fledtoscotland · 20/05/2010 22:55

I normally prefer them but the B&Q ones are a joke.

Bought a packet of seeds and some paving slabs the other day. It asked me to get a supervisor as I couldn't put the slabs on the weighing surface "please place item in bagging area" yet told me to put the seeds back in the trolley as they were a "heavy item". The supervisor just told me that all gardening items were "heavy" where home-improvements (ie the slabs) weren't

Kaloki · 20/05/2010 22:56

No one is being forced to use them are they? If you don't like them you use the till surely.

JaneS · 20/05/2010 23:01

Kaloki, the Co-op near us doesn't have a non-self service option after about 8pm, and before that, they quite often go down a long queue telling people to go to the self-service tills. I know you can go at a different time or explain why you'd rather not use them, but I suspect they'll become more prevalent.

Mind you, I live in hope that I'll learn to use them and stop getting disapproving noises from behind me!

EmmaBemma · 21/05/2010 07:17

I think they're ace! I never have to queue and I like not having to talk to anyone. I'm pretty used to them now so non-barcoded grocery things and other stuff that doesn't scan is no bother to me. I use them for big shops too - our supermarket has ones with massive bagging areas that are clearly meant for a trolley-load of shopping rather than just a basket.

Re: "unexpected item in bagging area" - you can just pile up your shopping on the scales and then put it into bags/your bike pannier when you've paid, it doesn't have to go straight into a container once you've scanned it. But our local has a button you can press to indicate that you're using your own bags anyway.

Rockbird · 21/05/2010 08:43

I was doing my 'getting a sandwich on the way to work dash' round M&S last week and I'm merrily scanning my trolley load of junk when a man (70s ish) walked up to the scanner beside me, plonked his shopping down and then asked me if I would mind scanning it for him as he didn't know how to work it! I was no way dressed like an M&S employee and in a tearing hurry but of course I did it and chatted to him as I did but I wanted to say FFS go to another till then! What's the point??

flootshoot · 21/05/2010 09:16

I quite like them. Mind you, recently DH used them to buy some condoms - he thought it would avoid the embarrassment of going to a cashier (I think he's 12 years old at heart when it comes to these sorts of things). Of course they are security protected so he proceeded to set off all the alarms, had several people called over etc....

heh heh heh.

jellybeans · 21/05/2010 09:47

I like them but worry about the jobs they may replace.

YellowDaffodil · 21/05/2010 09:48

I hate them because I am too stupid to use them.

They always shout at me, always find any shopping I put in the bagging area 'unexpected' and completely ignore me when I shout back at them.

Fortunately I buy alcohol with almost every supermarket shop so have an excuse not to use them