Self-service supermarket tills - love them or loathe them?

lynnemcf

The self scan till in Sainsburys often gives change in 5p pieces, I had 16 given to me as change today, however I often pay for my morning newspaper in pennies! And if I need change for the car boot, I buy a single banana (11p) with a £20 note!

janiebquick

I will use them if I only have a few things. But, like other contributors, I feel that this is nothing bit a cost cutting exercise which I deeply resent. A friend had an awful experience at Tesco in Andover which had no manned checkouts at all and she had to wait ...and wait.... and wait for someone to validate her purchase of a bottle of wine. Only, when the assistant finally arrived, she was not allowed to buy the wine because she had her 17 year old son with her. And, as she had bought the wine as part of a meal deal, she needed to find the other items as the deal was invalid without the wine. She ended up leaving all her shopping at the checkout in disgust. I don't blame her.

MoaningMyrtle

I love them, use them 90% of the time I'm in a Supermarket.
Although the Tesco ones don't issue the till spit vouchers (they give 5p off fuel ones I discovered last week).

DrSheldonCooper

Much prefer them, on balance they are much quicker.

As a regular user of a number of different shops - Tesco has the best, Morrissons are the worst and Sainsbury's and Waitrose somewhere in the middle.

There is no apparent logic behind the way Morrissons has chosen to organise the listing of loose items of fruit and veg.

Also as some others have mentioned great way to get rid of all your loose change once a week or so rather than just continually collecting it in a jar for eventual deposit at the bank.

skivenov

"Would you like to put your shopping through the self-scanner?"
"Can I have a staff discount if I do?"

snowleopard61

pineapple wrote: »

Please circulate your description in case we end up in the queue behind you :rotfl:

I'll be the one with dark glasses and a hat pulled down low - after the other week when I did it for the first time and had my whole penny jar to empty. I thought you could just pour it in and was a bit disappointed to find you had to feed it very slowly. It took ages.:o From now on I'll just use what's in my purse, as I can top it up with my debit card at the end.

ETA: I wish they would introduce them at Aldi. Because I don't drive I can't carry massive amounts and don't want to get a trolley, especially when it involves faffing with a pound coin, but the staff are used to people putting the shopping loose in a trolley and packing it afterwards, and don't like you to pack as you go. I tend to solve the problem by packing very fast (only a basket's worth, obviously) but not handing them the payment until I've finished, so they can't just chuck my shopping out of the way. I've only once had a comment from the checkout assistant; most of them seem to accept I'm packing quite quickly anyway. A self-service checkout would solve the problem, though. At least there would be somewhere to put your shopping until you could pack it, and no-one to rush you.

PegasusPJ

I avoid them like the plague.
they always kick up something when I try them and I have to wait for someone to come and fix it. worse ones for that are at B&Q!
Can't use my rucksack to pack my items and there's almost always a bigger queue (and slower) queue than the normal tills.
Anyway most times I have too big a shop for them (if you need more than 1 bag, they're useless).

LOVE waitrose self scan though.
Not only you don't have to queue, but you can pack as you shop (I cycle so can't just throw stuff randomly in bags yet feel pressured at tills to hurry up) and you can monitor that the discounts are actually applied as you shop (At Sainsbury, I ALWAYS double check my bill after I paid as half the time I have to treck back to the other side of the shop to the customer service till to get a refund for something that wasn't counted properly!)

pineapple

snowleopard61 wrote: »

I've only once had a comment from the checkout assistant; most of them seem to accept I'm packing quite quickly anyway.

A disabled neighbour who is paralysed down one side has an action pending against Aldi on account of her treatment by a checkout assistant when she (the neighbour) couldn't move fast enough.

snowleopard61

pineapple wrote: »

A disabled neighbour who is paralysed down one side has an action pending against Aldi on account of her treatment by a checkout assistant when she (the neighbour) couldn't move fast enough.

This I can believe. Most of them are perfectly pleasant - presumably they realise you have nowhere else to put the shopping until you've packed it, because of the way the checkouts are designed - but one was snappy. I just avoided her after that! They are obviously put under pressure to be exceptionally fast, but I'd rather they were patient even if I had to wait in the queue for longer.

I am not disabled myself btw, just can't see the sense in having to unlock a trolley just to throw a few things into before you pack them. If the checkouts were designed so there was somewhere to put the last customer's items out of the way once they'd moved on to serving the next customer, I'd be happy to pay straight away and pack afterwards, so they have shot themselves in the foot in terms of speed. (Don't mean to derail the thread, I realise this is about automated checkouts rather than Aldi!)

seven-day-weekend

pineapple wrote: »

I wonder how many ex check out staff are designing washing machines? :rotfl:
Ah the march of technology. We are already seeing the onset of virtual shops. One day we will be in a brave new world where no human interaction is required. Good luck to those elderly people whose main socialization is their weekly shopping trip. :huh:

You seem to be suggesting that people who work on checkouts are stupid? Not at all true. My son is very intelligent, but has difficulties in the employment market due to things connected with Aspergers' Syndrome. Added to that, he LIKES checkout work and is very speedy and efficient, whilst still managing to be friendly to the customers.

He is qualified to the highest level in checkout work, is a supervisor on the self-service checkouts, works at this present time on Oven Fresh (the roast chicken counter) and there is a possibility of his training in butchery. All these moves instigated by the supermarket where he works. He is NOT brainless and it is insulting to suggest that this is the case for others on checkouts Maybe the job suits them for family reasons, or maybe it was the only one available. Maybe, like my son, they even like the work.

Anyway, rant over. As regards the self-service checkouts, I will use them if I only have a few items. Any more than that and I prefer to use a human checkout person. I will use the human checkout even for one item if there is no queue. Must keep people like my son in a job.