YMMV wildly. Walmart of all places generally has a good ratio of self checkout to actual cashiers, but there's this annoying trend with a lot of the local stores where they have only 4 self checkouts period but will only ever have one, maybe two other checkout lanes operating. Doesn't matter if there's a line stretching the full length of one of the grocery aisles, 2 non-self checkout lanes and that's it.
In Sweden we have had a version of self checkout for 20 years in the largest stores, and here it seems to work fine.
Instead of having to scan everything at a station, each product is scanned with a handscanner when walking through the store, and put directly into shopping bags. Then only the payment and possibly a randomly occuring verification is left before leaving the store.
The random testing is usually just an employee scanning three to five items from your bags, and occurs like once every four months (as long as you're not actually stealing and caught).
We have that at a grocery store in my area, though you use an app on your phone to scan with the camera and the "random testing" seems to happen pretty much every time. If I had one of their scanners instead of their laggy app, I'd be much happier. (Though I guess modern handscanners are Android devices with a laser, so maybe not that much better...)
The best thing is when you've been doing it for so long that the random checks happen, like, once a year. I actually don't think we've had one since before the pandemic.
AGREED. Why does the "unexpected item in the bagging area" joke still get a laugh? My 9-year-old doesn't remember a time when that was a legitimate problem.
I really enjoy using the self checkout. I don't have to talk to anyone, it's faster than the employee scanning, and I bag my shit better and not have to worried about smashed bread or fragile items. It's not for everybody and I get it but it leave it for the people do want to use them.
Don’t ring the funeral bells just yet, but the self-checkout kiosk horror show could be nearing its end.
Stores across the country are reversing course on the machines, and consensus is growing among analysts and insiders that self-checkout has been a disaster for consumers and retailers alike, according to a new report in the BBC.
Dollar General made enormous bets on self checkout tech in 2022, but it recently announced the project flopped.
Shoppers are reportedly 21 times more likely to sneak items past machines than human cashiers, but consumers also constantly steal unintentionally because the self-checkout process can be so cumbersome.
Not only do self-checkout machines double theft rates, they actually increase labor costs thanks to employees who get taken away from their other duties to help customers deal with the confusing and error prone kiosks.
But a growing number of consumers are souring on self-checkout, thanks to endless frustrations, accusations of theft, and wasted time.
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