Spill the beans...on your self-service checkout tips (beep)

Hezzawithkids

I_luv_cats wrote: »

With Morrisons if you get the bags ready first you get a warning un- identified item in bagging area - I often just scan the lot and then pack after paying!

But don't you then get the patronising voice telling you to "Please take your items"??

:mad: The Sainsburys "Please take your items" command is particulary galling since you get about 3 nano-seconds to pick your bags up. Like other posters I often talk back to the machine, especially when I haven't done anything wrong. Not very productive I know but it makes me feel better!

Cimscate

My tip would be never use self service if you have more than a bag full as you are bound to need help at some time! Weigh your own fruit and veg can take longer than queuing at the checkout as well

jscho84233

If you collect loads of change and regularly use coinstar machines to cash them in, try using a morrisons self serve machine instead! That way you can avoid paying coinstar's 8.5% counting charge. The machines will keep on counting all the coins you put in until the hopper empties. Just buy something, anything, drop all your coins in the machine, and the machine gives you notes as change. I once bought a pack of gum for 45p, and then put in over £100 worth of change!

You just have to make sure to keep the hopper topped up so that the machine doesn't stop counting the change until you've put it all in. If you let the hopper empty before you top it up, the machine will think you've finished and complete the transaction. I would also suggest doing this early in the morning, when the coin bins will be empty.

The morrison's assistant clocked what I was doing and said, "Oh my god, what a brilliant idea, I would never think of doing that!"

philman

PersonallyI love the self scan and always go for them over the shop-assistant ones unless I have multiple bottles of alcohol or anything like that.

I usually use Sainsburys so don't know how applicable these are to other supermarkets.

-Don't expect the items to go as fast as the staffed checkouts, WAIT for the till to register the weight before scanning again. And if you have to mess about a little while packing, again, WAIT for it to register the final weight before scanning again!

-If using your own bags, tell it before you put them down!

-When buying items with the yellow sticker on that are discounted because their sell-by date is today, make sure to cover up the original barcode with a finger, so the discounted barcode scans and not the original.

-When doing loose items that you have to input manually (loose rolls, pastries or fruit for example) You don't neccecerily have to put the exact item, all the loose bagels for example cost the same, so rather then scanning through looking for the exact type you chose, just press the default plain bagel or whatever.

-For some reason the special offers (2 for 1, 3 for 2, etc) don't always register right away. But they will register if you press 'finish and pay' and then press 'back' again. For some reason they also register as soon as you scan your nectar card at the end of scanning.

coachwise

And I thought I was the only numpty intimidated by the dreadful things!!!!!!

moneysavingkitten

This is my best tip, it particularly applies to Sainsbury's, but has happened to me in Tesco's and elsewhere too.

If I am buying special offer items, especially multibuys, I will put them all through the self service checkout, then press 'Finish and Pay'. When you do this you would expect the checkout to take all the multibuy discounts off BUT IT RARELY EVER TAKES THE MULTIBUY DISCOUNT OFF THE FIRST TIME.

To get the discount to actually come off, you need to press 'Finish and Pay' then 'Back' then 'Finish and Pay' A SECOND TIME TO GET THE DISCOUNT TO COME OFF. If you press back a second time you will often see a second round of discount has now come off.

This angers me so much on occasion I have been right down the entire self service que and showed this to other customers, who think I'm a flipping nutter till and extra £3 odd comes off their bill.

In my opinion it's bloody robbery and they think they can get away with it, because they think you won't check because you put the items through yourself.

On another note, advantage card never works for me in Boots I have to get them to put it through manually every time.

If I am using my own bag on self service, I put the bag down in the bagging area before I press any buttons at all. Then when you press start, it seems to tear the weight of the bag automatically. If the bag is not entirely on the platform though, and it is knocked, it will often through up an error later in the transaction.

What is it with Waitrose's self service too, not taking cash? I am not the queen and this is not a cashless society, even if I do use my card for most things, it's guaranteed if I need to buy something in cash, I will end up at Waitrose self service.

phone_angel

It could be seen as a bit pointless to some but I refuse to use robot tills in supermarkets as they are job killers and these companies already make enough profits. Soon we will be stacking the shelves as well or slicing our own deli.

Cara_xx

I get on fine with Morrissons self service tills, but my complaint is that there is too much space between where you scan the items and where the bags are - im not sure if its just my local one, or if they are all like it, but you scan your item, and have to take two steps to the right to place it in the bag!
Sounds quite silly, but when you cant scan multiple things at once, and put them all in the bag at the same time, you look stupid - beep ... two steps right ... put things in bag ... two steps left ... beep .. two steps right ... and so on!!

irrelevant

My Top Tip for Sainsburys machines -

Before you do anything, press the "Paper Feed" button on the voucher/coupon printer. If it doesn't spit out about an inch of paper, move to a different till, or ask the assistant to sort out the printer. These things do actually print useful vouchers occasionally, and are used for their "brand match" price promise promotion - if the machine is jammed, out of paper, or otherwise not working, you might miss out on some savings..

As has been said, be careful when scanning reduced items - if the label doesn't cover the original barcode, do so yourself with a finger. And sometimes ours, not sure if it's same on all, beeps on a reduced item but doesn't actually add it to the bill - then you get the "Unexpected item in bagging area" shout - make sure it's shown on screen before you bag it.

thriftymanc

philman wrote: »

When doing loose items that you have to input manually (loose rolls, pastries or fruit for example) You don't neccecerily have to put the exact item, all the loose bagels for example cost the same, so rather then scanning through looking for the exact type you chose, just press the default plain bagel or whatever.

Not really a good idea. Fine from the customer's point of view when paying, but not good for the shop or the customer in the long run. E.g. if someone buys 3 onion bagels and puts them through as 3 plain bagels, the shop's system will think it still has 3 onion bagels more than it actually does. If all customers do that, the system's stock levels are wrong and something that goes out of stock won't automatically get re-ordered by the system. This happened all the time when I worked in a supermarket, things would be out of stocks for days at a time because the system's stock count was out and we ended up having to manually stock count all the loose produce and bakery every day to account for people not using the tills correctly. (And trust me, it is mind numbing having to count 200 apples or whatever... especially when you get so bored you lose count about six times and have to keep redoing it.) So you could do this, but don't complain when whatever you need is out of stock next time you want to buy it