Self-scan supermarkets - arggggh

thelawnet

Is there something we can do about these things?

A local Sainsburys did 'scan as you shop', so I tried that, but it turned out to be slow and cumbersome and they regularly required a 'rescan' of £100+ worth of shopping. And scanning while you shop is annoying and disruptive, and takes longer than letting the trained staff do it.

A smaller local Sainsburys has replaced nearly all of its tills with self scan, except that they then close down the self-scan tills because they don't have enough staff to supervise the self-scan, so you end up having to queue.

The machines are designed to minimise losses to theft, not for consumer convenience, so they won't let me use my own proper bag (not the nonsense 'bag for life' that breaks after 3 uses) without getting a supervisor to authorise the weight discrepancy caused by having a loaded backpack/pannier in the 'bagging area'.

I can't buy a bottle of wine/beer without having it authorised, which involves standing there waiting while someone comes over. And of course the machine is too dumb to remember that I'm over 18, so I need to get every subsequent bottle authorised too.

Some supermarkets have 'please place item into bagging area' repeatedly after each item, while all self-scan tills are very slow because they want to check the weight of each item in 'the bagging area' (and you're in trouble if you remove something from 'the bagging area' too, this will require another trip from the supervisor checking you're not a crook), which requires a delay while the scales settle down.

I had M+S' self scan not warn me about the security chip on some fish I bought there, leading to embarrassment as I left the store.

Went into Boots today and bought an item for £1. Thought I would use the self-scan as it couldn't really go wrong for one simple item. Wrong: I tried to pay with some of my 7,069 advantage card points, and it took the points off but said I hadn't paid. I complained to the staff and they insisted that the machine had a record of purchases and that I hadn't paid. I said 'pull up the transaction record for my card, there was 7,069 points before, now there are only 6,969'. 'We can't do that'.

The staff said 'are you going to pay for this?'. 'I already have', I pointed out. Eventually the manager walked off with my card and came back after about 10 minutes having found out I was right, and their precious machine was wrong, and I had indeed had the points deducted even though the till said I hadn't paid (have these people never heard of transactions?). (This same self-scan was for several weeks incapable of handling price reductions, and would charge full price for reduced items - no warning given.)

These machines are infantilising and inefficient. They treat every consumer like a crook and the shops don't want to hire enough staff to babysit them properly.

They are bad news.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

And they will ultimately put people out of work. After all, why employ 7 people on near enough minimum wage when you can pay two to watch 15 checkouts?

I hate them too. Boots' ones are the only ones which work 7 times out of 10. I haven't seen M&S, Tesco or Sainsbury's ones ever work smoothly.

4743hudsonj

I use them fine?

The only ones i find annoying are ASDA ones as they are far to sensitive and require you bag your items faster than the speed of sound. God forbid if you need to move something.

However every other experience has been pleasant and fast, no mumbling from rude staff that cant bother to smile when i give a genuine hello. Good riddance IMHO. Ive also not had this issue with alcohol, i usually get asked if i have more, and they do something so i can scan away in peace.

Then theres the untold riches from stupid users who ignore the deafening "Notes are dispensed below the scanner" and leave there cash back that they just requested.

This local tesco to me is a god send.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221940/Death-checkout-worker-Tesco-pioneers-self-service-store.html

kentguy07

I believe self scan does people out of jobs ,they break down a lot. I would rather have a person to talk to like the good old fashioned way.

the time i used self scan the thing kept coming up with some kind of error and the staff constantly had to override it.

that is what happens when you power your self scan checkouts with windows xp i am afraid.
the times iv seen the windows xp starting up logo because they had to reboot the system.

I believe if they used linux that the self scan checkout would work better.
just my 2 pence. Still it would be better if they did not have self scan.

chuckley

awwww man u just got bad luck with them! i find the sains ones the fastest, but people r SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW using them. and ALWAYS swipe items slowly.

i tried the 'own bags' thing, but ntoiced the 'place in bagging area', but thats long, id rather do it at the end.

if im buyin alcohol i que up, coz i always think they dont have the magnet. dunno y!

i prefer them for times when im spending a silly amount on a card, like 1 banana. i always think a checkout person will cuss me for not having 15p!

mynameisdave

Sainsburys ones are awful, in my experience.

I use the Tesco ones all the time. If I am in ASDA before they close (which is rare becaues i hardly ever go there) them down I use their and only had a problem when I was buying something feebly light so it kept moaning I hadn't put it in the bagging area. Morrisons I hardly ever go there as well but don't ever recall having problems with them.

GemJar_2

The asda ones drive me insane. "Please place item in bagging area" Give me a bloody chance!! And at the end "Please place card into machine or insert cash" it takes her ages to say that for some reason.

vodooelephant

I use them when i have a nice big jar full off change.......

Kaleidoscope27

I use them in supermarkets if I've only got a couple of things. Or in Boots usually, which I find okay. Although last time I used one in Boots it wouldn't add the points to my card. The staff member "supervising" was chatting up the girl on the tills. I gave up as it wasn't worth the hassle.

What gets me is the number of times the things say "Please insert cash or chose a payment method" Boots say it several times I find. SHUT UP! Give me chance to locate my cash or payment method. Jeez.

iNath

kentguy07 wrote: »

I believe if they used linux that the self scan checkout would work better.

You might want to rethink that, B&Q's self-scan uses Linux, are they better? Are they heck!

Fuzzy_Duck

I wholeheartedly agree. I use the Tescos ones and they're only worth using if you're buying a few things. It's hell if you're doing a big shop- I don't have the space to jiggle my bags around and the machine will start shouting "please place item into bagging area" repeatedly until I put them back. It takes ages to have booze authorised, especially as one member of staff is usually running around like a headless chicken as practically everyone is having the same problems.

Had one incredibly annoying experience where the machine wouldn't shut up- we'd scan an item and an error would instantly appear on the screen. We had to keep calling the surly member of staff to put a code in for it to let us continue. In the end she gave up and did our packing for us.