There are actual GOOD ways to implement self checkout though…
BAD: Me scanning individual items at a grocery store, LARP’ing as a cashier… terrible experience for all… i’m literally doing someone else’s job for free…
GOOD: me throwing my entire basket of purchases into some kind of RFID scanning bin (not sure the exact technology behind it), the screen instantly shows me the list of items and total, and i tap and pay and leave. Actual time saver, and i dont feel like i’m doing a cashier job.
In both cases, it results in a loss of jobs, which sucks… but at least #2 isnt infuriating from a customer POV
You missed a third option that already exists. At the supermarket I go to, I pick up a scanning gun with a screen on it when I walk in. As I shop, I scan things and place them in my bags. At the end, I press a checkout button on the scan gun, and it makes a little bar code on the screen. I head to tge self checkout, scan my barcode, pay, and walkout. It’s fucking seamless and amazing and should be the standard in every supermarket.
The only thing that sometimes ruins it is when there is a line of idiots at the self checkouts with full carts of groceries and I have to wait for them. There needs to be a dedicated lane for scan gun only people. Self checkout is for people with like 10 or less items, not a week’s worth of groceries.
I like it because I don’t have to talk to people. It is otherwise an inferior experience.
They aren’t bringing back cashiers, they’ll have one cashier with a massive line as a deterrent to get you to download the scan as you go app on your phone so you supply the bar code scanner at your expense and they track your phone and change the digital price tags based on your Palantir profile as you walk up.
Or the other option is Walmart has started remodeling their stores into primarily warehouses. The main entrance is badged only for picker workers to hand orders to Doordash or put app orders in people’s cars. The legacy experience entrance will be a temporary secondary option until they get enough robots to make the building fully lights out and automated. Shambling automatons will emerge from the black hell portal in the surface of The Edifice with your tampons and then run facial recognition on you and sniff your car for drug and explosive residue.
It’s always a clumsy experience for me. In some stores I just walk in, get a drink, scan, pay, and be out in less than a minute. But for my actual shopping? Way too much stuff on that little terminal thing.
Self checkout was great for me because I’d have like 3 items and breeze on out. Now people come to them with overloaded carts because they don’t have any actual checkouts.
Same here - I bring one bag from home and when it gets full I stop shopping. Even waiting behind one half full shopping cart in a cashier line is slower than waiting for an available self-checkout.
Interesting to hear all these opinions. These have been around for so many years - there has been plenty of data. Surprising this is just now being turned back. For small orders I’ve always loved the self checkout and found it way more efficient. Part of that is likely because I want out of the store much more than any clerk wants me out of the store.
Same.
That’s a legitimate use case. I’d like them more if they capped the number of items one could scan in one transaction, maybe at ten. I’ve always hated out someone with three carts of stuff could tie up fast checkout line or a self checkout.
I’ve been doing my part, you’re welcome everyone.
Thank you for your service!
I like it because I can get organic vegetables for cheaper.
Just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, on account of how sticky my fingers get in corporate mega stores.
Ohhhh noooo, I only scanned 7 of these 8 tape rolls.
Exactly
That sucks, I DIY if the store has baggers since they don’t do it well 8/10 times and I check the prices as I scan to see if the discounts applied. I’m pretty fast, and now if they remove them, I could do the job really well and bagger, I gained skills from the experience for possible future use.
“things have gotten so bad that it has made many people need to steal, so we can’t keep self checkouts open”
I’m here with your regular reminder that is you see someone stealing food, no you didn’t.
There’s a Walmart near me that I just never bother going to because like 80% of the non-grocery items are locked behind plexiglass. There are 4 self-checkouts and 2 employees assigned to just stand there watching people to make sure they don’t shoplift. They’ve made shopping so hostile that it barely makes sense for it to be a department store at all. Might as well just go back to the old model of telling the employee what you want and then they go get it for you.
Which is basically what they are doing with grocery pickup.
They’d rather change their operations than lobby for the poorest to have enough money to not have to steal.
Although I fully agree with you, there is no gotcha here. They are greedy and want the most for themselves, that’s it.
They’d rather change their operations than lobby for the poorest to have enough money to not have to steal.
They’d rather change their operations than
lobby for the poorest topay their employees enough money to not have to steal.I thought surely an organization of GROCERS would lobby vociferously for SNAP benefits (food stamps), at a time when onerous work requirements throw people off SNAP and overwhelm local food pantries.
Instead we get a bit of the pearlescent extraction of the meat cylinder via suction:
Pretty sure the self checkout isn’t where most people steal, why not just walk out the door with whatever you want?
You don’t steal all of it, you just miss the barcode on a couple items for the camera, so it looks innocent if somebody stops you.
Good news, new jobs opening to fill the cashier roles. But watch they will just implement a ticket system and checkout will take 3 hours.
Yeah but tickets cost money so they will make you sign in virtually on their app
How do I do that on my Linux phone?
Shitty thing is they won’t hire more cashiers when they shut these off.
Guessing they’ll also raise prices when they simply return to previously normal operations.
My local grocery had self checkout for about a year before ripping them out and putting normal ones back in. They don’t seem to be understaffed.
Not all stores are awful on all fronts. They don’t have chairs for their checkout people yet though.
Well other technologies like accounting software are “at least 40%” and self checkout is at 36%, according to the article, so I don’t think this is as devastating as one might think at first glance:
Of 340 retail operators surveyed in 2026’s Voice of the Retail Industry Survey, only 36% say they plan to invest in self-checkout, down seven percentage points from last year. Self-checkout was the least popular technology and the only one to see lower interest YoY. Other investments, such as automated invoices, electronic shelf labels, and accounting software, attracted at least 40% of surveyed retailers.
And of course less retailers are investing in the tech than in previous years: they’ve all already got it.
Ok, now will they actually staff the registers? Because every time I’m in the store there’s only one checkout lane open, and before 10am or so, the self-checkout is closed.
I like how they do it at Sam’s Club. You use your phone camera as a barcode reader, use the same saved payment as online, then walk through a scanner at the exit. They still have a person who can check your receipt but usually they wave you through as the door scanner got it.
The store I worked at in high school got rid of all of its self checkout right after I stopped working there. Let me tell ya, I’ve never gone in there since then. I don’t want to have to talk to someone who may recognize me. Although it’s been like 12 years now so I’m prooooobably okay lol
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