More self checkouts being allocated

Well, I prefer queuing up.
The manned checkouts are always busy and popular at my local Tesco’s store.

As others have mentioned, to run a large weekly shop through the self scan is difficult owing to lack of space.
I could see myself getting into a right pickle with them.
I don’t think staff are losing their jobs.
They are probably being redirected to the self scan machines.

Dylis

I hate self service checkouts. They are always stopping and requiring a shop assistant to wave a magic card to restart. The assistant is always a distance away and I am last in order to be seen. The card is waved, machine restarted only to stop as soon as said assistant has disappeared.
We always have to go through the age verification when buying alcohol etc. I always have to smile politely (through gritted teeth"when I am told "oh just about old enough!" Yuk!

That’s me. So blinking annoying. You can hear the customers pecking & tutting. So how people think it super quick is beyond me.
Usually there is a massive queue

I had an assistant get quite shirty with me once. She was trying to persuade people to move from the queue to the self serve tills. I wouldn’t go and told her I objected to the job losses which might affect her one day. She merrily replied “Oh, no. We aren’t losing jobs - we still have plenty to do like filling shelves.” So who was doing that before? I was speechless.

For the moment I choose not to use it. I like that human connection.
I have two friends who work at our Sainsburys & usually have a catch up with either of them. It evening & quiet, so not holding anyone up.
Plus if I do I big shop the table at the side is tiny. First time I used it, I started putting the bags I had packed in the trolly, the blinking thing went mental! Got told off for doing that. But really how are you supposed to balance all that shopping on a tiny table 😳
I’ve been going to farm foods. No loyalty cards. Good old fashioned check outs. Cheap!

I hate self service checkouts. They are always stopping and requiring a shop assistant to wave a magic card to restart. The assistant is always a distance away and I am last in order to be seen. The card is waved, machine restarted only to stop as soon as said assistant has disappeared.
We always have to go through the age verification when buying alcohol etc. I always have to smile politely (through gritted teeth"when I am told "oh just about old enough!" Yuk!

When my husband had to surrender his driving license for medical reasons we swapped the weekly trip to the supermarket for online. Best move we ever made. Now I only nip out for the odd few items in between online shops, so I don't mind too much using self-service. I dread to think what it would be like using it for a whole trolley load.

Until you get used to them, there may be glitches, but honestly it does n ot take long to accustom yourself to using a self-checkout.

What is annoying is that there are different kinds of checkouts in the different chains of supermarkets, and most of them do not accept cash.

I always use scan and shop as it’s much quicker. However last year my nectar card got hacked- I didn’t know this was a thing but apparently it’s quite common although I’m told that Sainsbury’s have now improved the security. The first I knew about it was an email from Sainsbury’s asking if I’d used £60 worth of points in a random London store I’ve never been to. (I save my points up all year to use at Xmas). I had my points restored to me and a new card issued, I was also advised to lock my points which I did, but then couldn’t work out how to unlock when I wanted to use them.
Anyway, after all this I kept being selected for the “random” checks on the scan and shop. I asked the assistants whether it was because my card had been hacked, and all except one denied it was the case. The one who said it was probably linked advised me to contact customer services about it, which I did and then it seemed to be ok.
This all put me off scan and shop for a while, but I use it again now as so much quicker. I’m afraid it’s here to stay, but I do feel sorry for those who want a human to talk to.

Agree!

I have never used scan and shop, as I am a technological half wit. I confess, that I do a lot of my shopping on-line (predominantly due to mobility issues), which is very frustrating, as himself has difficulties with translation, eg: loaf of bread = muffins; laundry liquid = dishwasher tablets; ketchup = chilli sauce and last week, Tesco had no loo rolls at all!!

Whatever happened to the days when Safeway's would p rovide a packer at the end of the checkout AND there would be the unconditional offer of the shopping being taken to your car?

Also, in more honest and trustworthy times, the person in the queue behind me would offer to unpack my trolley, whilst I packed at the other end of the conveyor belt? I was always extremely grateful and said "Yes please". It also speeded things up!

We do our once a week shop at Tesco, get there around 7am - first checkout operator start time at ours. There are usually two tills open by the time we are ready to go through and always queues pf 3/4/5 people with trolleys at both while the SS tills next along may have one or two people buying a few bits. How anyone manages to go through the SS ones with a trolley full I don't know. Whenever we have tried to use one there is always some hold up because something is wrong.

Our local Sainsbury doesn't open manned checkouts until 9am. So on the rare occasion we go there it has to be a mid morning visit.

Our local small Lidl store doesn't have any SS tills at the moment, but the larger one across the town does. We started to use that when it first opened, but when they stopped manning tills most of the time we switched back to the old smaller shop.

If I'm going to be buying from a store I want to be served not do it myself. Would be interesting to know how much stuff gets "lifted".

We do our weekly shop (Tesco) early too, like Calendargirl. During lockdown we went at 6am when the shop opened, but now we go after 7.30 as the first till with a real person doesn't open until 8 (last week it was 9 ). When that till does open, there are always people who prefer to use it. We're retired and so have time to wait and want to keep local jobs open, like others on this thread.

We also wait in M&S in a queue for a real person, and it's interesting that as soon as a new till opens up, there is a queue for that one too.

I don't like self-service tills, as apart from the jobs issue, something always seems to go wrong. If manned tills disappear completely, we will use self-scan, but I hope that never happens.

Astitchintime

When we do the main grocery shopping we always use ‘scan and shop’…..no queues at checkout and no rush to pack groceries either.
If we pop in for a ‘forgotten’ item then we’d probably use the self checkout tills although I do find them tedious as our store has had new ones installed and they’ve had teething problems.
It’s a sad state of affairs when ‘progress’ means people are losing their jobs though.

The one and only time I was persuaded - warily- to try Scan'n'Shop was the day there was a massive digital glitch on the shop's system.

Scanners stopped, card systems stopped and it was glorious chaos.

Oh, for the days when we used to shop at Home and Colonial.

Well Ambergran I am one who is concerned about jobs and I very very rarely shop online. I can’t be the only one.

Casdon

I don’t mind scan and shop or self service at all, my only bugbear is that I wish the self service packing areas were bigger, because I’m always struggling to balance things on them because I’ve got too much for the space provided.

My supermarket has 3 self-service conveyor belt tills - as well as scan & shop and the usual self-service stations.
It's a very popular option, & great if you've a large trolley load & don't want to feel rushed packing it all up just so.
When they first opened a man probably late 70's wandered up & was about to unload his trolley when the (really nice) assistant warned him it was self-service. He swore at her! (I didn't hear, deaf, but she was really upset & I asked what he'd said).

We use scanners wherever we can - much faster and much easier. If it's just a few things then the self checkout. There are rarely problems these days, mainly I think because we've got used to using them.

I wonder how many of the people concerned about retail jobs mainly shop online these days - the main cause of the closure of thousands of high street shops and the loss of thousands of jobs.

Lathyrus3

I’ve never used Scan and shop so enlighten me🙂

How do they stop people slipping in unscanned items or scanning a cheaper and putting in a more expensive one or scanning 100g of cherries say and then just adding a few more?

Not that I’d ever do such things. I still have prickles of conscience over a small wedge of Brie that lurked unseen in the corner of the trolley.

It just seems the possibilities are endless.

They do regular checks, we actually had one on in Sainsburys on Saturday; they used to check the whole trolley but now they select seven items at random to check if they have been scanned. It is such a good system, our bags are in the trolley so we scan items and pack them in the bags as we go round, the bags are ready to transfer into the car after we have paid.

I agree that there needs to be a choice.
And surely installing self service tills is costly so I don’t think getting rid of staff on tills makes much sense.
I prefer self service but am supporting bukkie in her efforts to make her displeasure known with regard to getting staffed tills replaced. For those who prefer this, just as some prefer to speak to an actual person in a bank, it is important that their complaints are taken seriously.

My local Tesco have just very recently introduced self serve trolley checkouts..

ViceVersa

I understand what you are saying, Bukkie, hence why I said it is important that there should always be a choice for people to use self-scan/self-service tills or a manned checkout. However, while you are saying you tell the shop staff you know it's not their fault, it's those same stuff who then have to go round putting all your shopping back if you abandon a full trolley load.

Yes but it evidently makes Bukkie happy.
I do think there should be both. or even all four-self serve, scan and go or manned till, or online delivery.

But I’m always (not) amazed by people who refuse self serve tills, who don’t preserve jobs by using public transport to go to the supermarket or to the bank to draw cash to keep bank cashier jobs by refusing to use card or ATM.

I just feel so sad the cafe isn.t open anymore. Nice to get a coffee after a big shop and little break. But there is a Costa nearby and I think custom has gone there a bit.

the Morrisons over the other way still has a super cafe and cheap meals too, I'm just attached to my habits.

BlueBelle

Well I don’t think we can stop progress and I like using the self service which I have done ever since it started with my weekly trolly load . the staff who were on the tills seem to all be employed watching the machines that are often far from perfect. we can’t just stay with one method There are now three methods in most supermarkets, the add it up as you go round on the trolly machine, the old style till, and the self service tills. Everyone seemingly catered for.

Yes, thats true in my local big Sainsbugs, and currently it actually works well. They always have someone on a till until later in the evening, but if you get stuck some young person comes along and will do it for you 😊.

Those working on the tills are sometimes disabled, btw, in one way or another (some sunflower badges or lanyards, or clear need to stay sitting).

The Walmart in my town put in a huge section of self checkouts a few years ago. This year they have mostly all been removed leaving just a small area of them and have gone back to manned checkouts.The reason being the shoplifting was becoming out of control.

Bassoues no you take your shop to the self scan till, scan the whole shop onto the till in one go (its stored in the scanner as you shop) then pay with your card or contactless.

I've never done the self scanning as in going around with a scanner. However i I would do self scanning would I still have to go to a till to wait to pay? Which is a tad self defeating