I like self checkout as an option, almost everywhere.
I DON’T like REQUIRED self checkout.
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I will put one other mistake in there, is self checkouts with too many prompts. I avoid using self checkout at a few stores because the minimum number of prompts is higher than 3.
Good: scanning starts the process, select done AT MOST asks for how many bags, then payment type, swipe and pay (optional email receipt on pin pad).
Bad: Cant’ start till you tap start, asks for member ship card up front, asks if you want to donate, scan, asks if you want to use your rewards, asks for number of bags, also would you like an email receipt?
You missed incessant “place your item in the bagging area” and failing/requiring “assistance” if you scan too fast.
Ya and some of them will let you put your own bags in the bagging area in the start so you can fill your bags as you scan, while others do not.
What I find works pretty well is to have the bag ready and put the first item into it and then set it down on the bAgGiNg ArEa together
One cool thing I’ve found is that you can scan your card on the reader at any time.
I walk up to the machine, scan my first item, tap my card, then do the rest of my scanning. When I hit “done”/“pay” it just processes the card and prints a receipt
That trick likely only works on specific brands of these self checkout terminals.
Last time I was at a Target with only self checkout I went to customer service and had them scan me out.
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It helped to be polite but firm about it.
“There are no staffed checkout lanes and I hate those robots. Please check me out here.“
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That’s not being polite, that’s just being an entitled dick head thinking you deserve special treatment.
I stopped shopping at a local grocery store because the damn self checkout made you scan everything and place it on the stupid scale. I couldn’t put my own personal bag there as it would upset the whole system. It ended up wasting more of my time. If they want self checkout to be used more they need to understand someone isn’t stealing and paying at the same time. Sure something might get missed on accident, but I’m not scanning $100 in groceries to steal some arbitrary amount.
Also, Home Depot took self checkout to the extreme and it sucks ass for it.
No no no, people definitely steal and pay at the same time. I was guilty of doing so when i was younger and more stupid. Older self checkout were so easy to scam by tag swapping or only scanning some of my items and not others.
You were going to steal in the first place. This doesn’t change anything. Ethically ambiguous people “stealing” by purchasing something at a slightly lower price doesn’t equate to a company therefore making it so I have to use weighted systems. It’s part of the cost of doing business. Odds are good they still broke even after profit margin. Im not going to argue any of that, but it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have to put my stuff as I’m scanning on a scale. Either trust me to ring it up correctly or put the proper amount of people on checkout.
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This is so key. If don’t have enough regular lanes (which at times is just 1), the old/slow/large/complex orders are much more likely to go through self-checkout. Now they’re annoyed that they “have” to use the machines, and so is everybody behind them that has to wait for them. Congratulations: you’ve managed to piss off literally everyone!
Walmart in my area was pretty famous for dropping all cashiers at certain times of the day, and splitting the self checkout “watcher” with customer service. Bit of a clusterfuck but they kept it up for years before 2020 made them shake things up.
They schedule what is budgeted by corporate, ime.
Same. I’m purchasing 2 small things and there’s a line with the creepy incel cashier? Yep self checkout FTW. I have an entire cart full of stuff and the store doesn’t even have a cashier? FML.
Ya, having a lot of items, or odd items like vegetables or bulk items at a grocery store that need to have a code entered or need to be weighed suck at self checkout.
I would also say large items, but home depot and costco provide wireless scanners which work very well. Can just roll your cart up grab the scanner scan and go without taking stuff off.
That and age-gated items like alcohol and [some] medicines. If the one human managing the self-checkout horde is busy, you’re just left waiting.
Somehow Costco has managed this well (as has Sam’s Club).
Costco always has sufficient ID checkers in the self-checkout, and Sam’s checks your ID as you leave the store if you do the Scan-as-You-Go feature. Q
uick and easy for both.
They really need to just pay for extra cashiers. And* can’t they also have “express lanes?”
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Exactly. Seems Costco and Sam’s do just that.
I don’t mind self checkout. It turns out i can be so incompetent that the self checkout watcher has to scan everything for me.
Is this a real tweet?
Because if it is, it’s brilliant!
No clue! XD
Is this a real tweet?
Lemmy users really will take the most obvious jokes at face value.
Could’ve been a real tweet, if someone there had the balls to make the joke. Poe’s Law and all
What’s brilliant about promoting a crime? And what’s next? Call to kill all Jews or something?
Something being a crime and something being immoral are two different things.
It may not be immoral but it is unsafe.
Quite a jump from shoplifting to genocide, which makes for extremely poor rhetoric. You should’ve at least listed every next step, e.g.: shoplifting -> robbery -> armed robbery -> murder -> several other steps -> genocide. Which still looks absurd but like, less.
It was once a crime for black people to sit at the front of a bus in America. Guess that means Rosa Parks is responsible for the Holocaust.
Thank the gods we had you to point it out.
Wow, just wow…
Fucking racist.
O green peppers are 99 cents each but red and yellow are 1.29? That’s so weird all these peppers I’m buying are green.
Fuck you, I’m the cashier now.
Bill Burr: “what’re you gonna do? cut my hours?”
Also
Oh, something didnt scan and you walked out without paying for it?
Enjoy your broken spine as cops appear in full swat outfit and tackle you to the ground and beat you with clubs because you are shocked and arent immediately calm and compliant.
Clearly a joke, but they will start a record for you till they can get you for a felony…
Start a felony charge for a loaf of bread?
give me a break. These companies cut corners every where they go. You think there stocking up on hard drives and algorithms to cut up and record people?
Look up the target method. They can automatically connect your face/payment ID to items you haven’t scanned. They get you after you’ve racked up enough cumulative value that you haven’t paid for to count for a felony.
So no, they aren’t sticking you with a felony charge for a loaf of bread. They’re sticking you with a felony charge for enough loafs of bread to value a serious theft charge.
It’s not going to effect you if you only ever stole one loaf of bread. Waiting until you commit enough theft is the cutting corners part you’re talking about.
Facial profiles and items stolen require directories, centralized databases, hard drives, programming, knowing the items. Personal to sift through the data.
Companies think that’s cheaper than self check out?
You must not be an engineer.
It doesn’t have to do with what I think. That is what they do. Why don’t you put any amount of effort into verifying what I said instead of insulting me like you think I just made it up?
You don’t think that loss prevention would be doing that stuff regardless of whether they had employed cashiers at registers or not? Loss prevention has been around since long before self checkout lanes, doing the same things they’re doing now. They already pay those guys. Self checkout is still cheaper if they don’t also have to pay a dozen cashiers.
Also, you seem to be imagining a whole fbi crime scene setup in every store for a job that’s basically handled per location by 2 guys and a computer.
A “database” doesn’t have to be (and usually isn’t) centralized across stores. “Hard drives” can be a single multi-terabyte hdd in the age we’re in now. “Programming” is just out of the box software they teach their prevention guys to use. The facial recognition and knowing items part comes built into the self checkout machine.
You must not be an engineer either, because an engineer would understand that the cheaper option isn’t necessarily lower tech.
Again, take 10 minutes and learn how to utilize a search engine. It’s not something they want people to know, but it’s also not exactly a secret. Target pioneered the kind of loss prevention techniques big box stores use today.
This is what I found. It’s just an attic from somewhere, but it has lots of references.
You sweet summer child…
My husband had a nasty cold and the self scan he was using we later found out should have had an out of order sign on it. After missing the fact that it wasn’t dinging for every item because he couldn’t hear well, they pulled him and had him arrested. His total was off by $100 and he should’ve realized it, admittedly, but he just wanted to get home. We were able to get them to drop the charges because the self check out was malfunctioning but he’s still banned from Walmart.
and getting banned from walmart is more devastating than most people realize, cause in a lot of places walmart has run out the competition, so if you cant go to your walmart due to a mistake on THEIR part, that means you might have to drive an extra hour to some not-walmart place.
Its complete and utter bullshit.
I hope that store burns down with the manager that made that decision trapped inside.
Yeah I’m not paid to use your stupid machine properly. I generally avoid self-checkout and never use it if I have a manually entered item. When there are no full service registers or only one, you know I’m going to be extra sloppy with the self-checkout.
I generally avoid self-checkout and never use it if I have a manually entered item.
At a certain point you’re just denying yourself the savings. Go get that informal employee discount!
I’m against what Walmart especially has done by remodelling stores and removing their checkout lanes and replacing them all with self checkout.
but I have nothing against a store having a couple self checkout lanes.
Cause they are nice to have if you only bought one or two things, and don’t want to wait behind a full cart… or if you are buying something you are personally embarrassed about and don’t want to have a cashier see.
Self Checkout should be a very minor option valuable to a select few.
not the primary means of checking out for everyone.
Oh for sure, if I gotta guess I’m picking the one that’s best for me every time.
Self checkout wants my opinion I’ll give it :)
At Costco it’s great minus the membership checks. Thanks this was a quick process, now let me stop and take my card out so you can see I’m not stealing deals.
Walmart, fuck you hire more cashier’s why am I waiting 10 minutes to checkout at self checkout when you have 50 closed fucking lanes!
Walmart, fuck you hire more cashier’s why am I waiting 10 minutes to checkout at self checkout when you have 50 closed fucking lanes!
I straight up said this the last time I was there to one of the managers watching the self checkout after I heard them complaining about the long ass line. Maybe if you actually turned the other 20 lanes on instead of only having 3 the lines would go by quicker, ya dumbasses.
You expect them to pull 20 extra people put of their ass?
If they offered a living wage it wouldn’t be a problem. They can afford it, without raising prices.
No no no no no, HOW could they afford that?
Tell me how they could afford it as a giant multi billion dollar company.
It’s not even possible to pull out billions to shareholders and CEO’s each year if they did that.
Why don’t anyone ever think about the poor ultra rich?
Whether they have them all open or just 3, they still only have 2 or 3 employees watching over it all. For some reason, they’re all open in the morning when there aren’t any customers, but then in the late afternoon, they turn everything off when the store is flooded with customers. It’s ass backwards.
Probably some power-mad manager saying “employees must get up early to learn discipline”.
The thing I really hate about it is that where I live, they don’t have bags at the self checkout. Cuz you know, someone might steal a fucking plastic bag. 🙄
Where I live (Montréal, Canada) plastic bags are banned everywhere. You either bring your own or buy a reusable at the cash. Some places (like grocery stores) also sell paper bags. You get used to it. If you have a car you leave a bunch of reusables in the trunk, if you don’t you just have to remember to bring one with you. The also sell some super thin ones you can carry in your pockets that are sturdy and large enough for a small run at the grocery store.
The only thing I’d hate about that, is if they don’t have a recyclable option and you always have to buy the reusable ones. At some point they just become garbage because you forgot them for the last 20 trips, and who needs 100 reusable bags?
I agree. I have a drawer full and a bunch in my car. I see a lot of them for sale for a buck at thrift stores, it’s kind of funny and sad.
I have about what, five reusable bags. One is always in the backpack to use both as a basket replacement in case the supermarket doesn’t have any (or they’re all at the exit and none at the entry), or as overflow container for the backpack, one is generally holding onions and yet another potatoes (both hanging), that leaves – yep, one as backup and the awkward small one is stuffed with three dirty dish towels waiting for hot wash to accumulate.
Do consider cloth bags simply because it’s easy to actually give enough of a fuck about them, just like you give a fuck about a t-shirt. Oh and keeping potatoes and onions in plastic would likely not end well. The only plastic bags I buy are bin liners.
If you’re shopping with a car the standard over here is to have a fold-up box in your boot.
I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m saying that I’d hate situations where my choice is “carry loose items” or “buy new bags” if I’ve forgotten my already owned bags at home. I don’t dislike reusable bags, I own quite a few actually, but when I forget them I’d rather buy paper bags than be forced to buy yet more reusable bags.
Or how about you forgot to bring them in with you but don’t realize it until everything is unloaded on the conveyor?
Most grocery stores still offer paper bags and personally I love them to pack everything I want to bring to the recycling bin
Yes, and also for the compost. I used to store a few as well but they are so thin now, it’s not worth it.
It’s not that I care what they’re made of. Here they’re required to charge 10¢/bag. I would happily take a paper bag. The thing I don’t like is being treated like an extremely petty criminal.
As an aide though, everything I’ve read supports the conclusion that the bag bans only lead to more waste. IIRC, a generous estimate would mean you need to reuse a bag at least 20x in order to break even on resource usage… Which basically never happens. It’s an excellent example of a feel good solution that sounds good until you run the numbers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That said, I’d be perfectly happy to see us eliminate almost all uses of disposable plastics.
It’s different here (at Walmart at least), they leave all their reusable bags at the self checkout where you can just buy them. But there is a lot of staff and the area is like a bullpen, so there is only one exit and there are employees looking at the carts’ contents.
As for the bags, for sure it’s a contentious topic. And I agree with you. As I mentioned in another reply, I see a lot of the sturdier reusable bags for sale at thrift store, they have to roll them up and put them in a bin they have so many…
I like the aldi model with no bags—when you forget a bag you look for an empty box. Not ideal for people who walked though.
In the before times, when you could still find baggers at checkouts, paper bags were provided. I know the cost was figured in to the prices but it is B.S. that they now charge for them.
Neverminding that we have to scan the cards to even begin scanning the (soon to be our) stuff.
My Costco has had “self checkout” for about a year now. There’s a Costco employee that waves you over and scans all your items. I really don’t get it.
The Costco self checkouts can only do a certain amount of weight per square inch before they shit the bed. Which is bad, because it’s costco. Unloading the entire shelf while you haven’t paid can’t be done, so you have to scan, hit the weight limit, pay, unload, then scan and load the shelf again…and then pay again. Idiotic design that multiplies the wait times considerably, lol.
Remember kids, if you see someone shoplifting or switching the barcodes at your big-box self-checkout: No you didn’t.
Preach!
I’m lucky enough to not need to take the risks involved in order to get by, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to fuck over someone that may be unluckier than me. Idgaf what it is, I’m fucking sergeant Schultz.
The way I see it, you’re doing a public service…
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You’re creating jobs in loss prevention.
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You’re helping make the case for retaining more checkout workers.
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You’re keeping those minimum-wage checkout supervisors safe by not putting them in a position to intervene with desperate people trying to feed themselves.
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You’re helping the store avoid wage theft by having you play unpaid, untrained, unqualified security guard.
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You’re helping the needy feed themselves.
Give yourself a pat on the back, you local hero! 🫡
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My grandmother snitch on some poor bastard stealing crystal light at walmart. If someones stealing fucking crystal light from walmart theyre clearly in way worse than I am.
I worked at a supermarket in a wealthy area for years - no one stole more than the wealthy old crones from the retirement village next around the corner.
The funny thing is she ain’t wealthy, ffs we live in the same house. She’s just got a really stupid and weirdly conservative and at the same time progressive sense of morality.
If I cared enough, I’d tell someone because I hate thieves, but I generally prefer to mind my own business. Same philosophy if I saw someone stealing from a small business.
If you hate thieves, you should love shoplifters. The real thieves are at the top scheming more ways to fuck the poor.
Yes yes of course. Poor good. Rich bad. I get it.
Walmart and their ilk steal far more in wage theft than they lose to shoplifters.
“These companies don’t pay their employees enough, in my opinion, so I’m ok with people stealing from them.”
Just say what you mean.
But the self-checkout cameras sure did.
Genuine mistake, I can’t be expected to do a job I wasn’t trained for. All those apples look the same to me
Everything is an apple for the untrained eye
Thats why you follow safe Covid Precautions. 😁👍
Especially when these people aren’t shoplifting big-ticket items like TVs. They’re shoplifting things they’re desperate for like food.
Oh - that I just don’t care about. Do you care about the wage theft they’re committing? It’s at a far larger scale than any shoplifting.
Why are you so concerned with protecting a massive multi-billionaire-owned company plagued with ethical issues? Are those billionaire boots super-tasty or something?
I have no sympathy for companies losing money due to theft at self-checkout, it’s a cost saving measure that’s bitten them in the ass.
They also suck for alcohol, or anything that doesn’t have a barcode, as mentioned in the story. I never buy either of those products at self checkout.
That said, I really liked the opportunity to not have to socialize with someone
Ha, I once got booted from a Safeway in my early 20’s when I was trying to buy beers and the lady who was supposed to be verifying ID was shooting the shit w her coworker. She clearly saw the thing flashing, but wanted to finish her story. I tried waving at her to no avail. She had a very I’ll get to you in a minute vibe, but she clearly wasn’t talking about work stuff. I had worked at a Lucky previously and they used the same self checkout system system. I knew I just needed to type my bday on their terminal to get it to sell, so I went n did it lol. Hey, self check out amirite? I figured fuck it, I’ll do that part too I guess.
She finally noticed like right before I paid and took my beers and wouldn’t let me pay. I was like here’s my ID, I’ve been waiting like 5 minutes to show you. Manager showed up told me to leave, and never come back, it was a whole thing. Granted, I was 100% being a young , dumb prick, but I was annoyed with the lady not doing her job, and wasting my time. Having been on the other side of that terminal before, knowing how easy it was to do, I was super annoyed that she wasn’t even acknowledging me trying to get her attention. Fun times lol.
I would have done the same.
I knew I just needed to type my bday on their terminal to get it to sell, so I went n did it lol.
EWW
???
Self checkout is useful when you only want a few things. Much faster.
If you’re getting a full trolley, you’d need a barcode scanner to take round the shop with you. If you don’t have that, it’s faster to go with a manned checkout.
A grocery store near me has the self-scan as part of the app. It’s pretty good, but honestly it’s not that bad to do a full trip through the self checkout.
Wegmans tried that at first but failed and removed it. No one wants to scan products with their phone while shopping.
I do. It’s kinda new here in Germany, but I think it’s working pretty well.
Oh dang, I love it. It’s awesome to be able to see what my total cost is as I shop. I definitely buy less when I do it that way, and added bonuses include everything already being bagged the way I like it and not having to talk to people (at least usually). I did it all the time during the pandemic.
The theft is a feature, not a bug in my eyes!
Alcohol isn’t so bad where I’m at, I just scan it first to give the worker some time to scan their badge and let me continue
I honestly only use self check out. I don’t buy a ton in a single shopping trip and I just find it easier to do it myself since I bring my own bulky bags that go on the side of my bike. A lot easier for me in general and sucks some places are getting rid of it.
Interesting! Alcohol doesn’t have a barcode there?
Here it does. But the self checkout lamp will go to red instantly and a clerk has to come to approve your age.
It has a barcode, but most places haven’t figured out the “show ID to a human” flow yet.
After a few times I memorized where the bread or fruit (w/o barcode) I usually buy is in the menu and am almost equally fast as an employee would be. So it just took me some time to adjust personally.
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unexpected item in the bagging area. place items in the bagging area. unexpected item in the bagging area.
I’m thankful pretty much every store here deactivated that sensor shortly after installing self checkouts.
A Kroger near me recently updated their self checkouts and now they’re way more sensitive, they view any hand movements on its little camera as “you just slipped something into the bag I’m calling the employee over”, and you can’t mute them anymore which is the lost infuriating for me. I have trouble doing things with a lot of noise, and having a loud ass computer yelling about everything it’s doing makes my checkout take easily 3-4x as long. There is no benefit to disabling the mute button, it still screams for employees when something went wrong, and it only frustrates and irritates everyone who can hear it, employees included. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the employees complain about it too.
Yeah the Meijer by us is sensitive like this and when it starts inevitably flashing with approval needed an employee comes over, scans their badge and an overhead security camera clip of me scanning the last item displays on screen.
Which is so awkward to have to stand there with this employee who I’m sure is just as sick of the process as I am.
I don’t shoplift and I enter all produce honestly, it makes me want to start scanning my avacado as bananas.
Legit!
I’m already being treated like I’m doing shady shit, might as well actually pullshady shit.
Practice your sleight of hand movements. I’ve figured out how to make it look like I’ve just scanned one thing but moved two at both Walmart and Kroger self checkouts without any alarms going off. Helps a lot with my getting my employee discount for having to run a register.
Ugh I had a grocery store with great self checkout and then they added the dumb sensor. Became worst experience. I assume it was intentional sabotage to the self checkout experience. Least that is what I would do.
Even worse, here in Canada at the Sobeys owned stores, you can opt to use your own reusable bag (plastic grocery bags are now outlawed) but if you do they prompt an employee to come check your bags. They never actually check, but if there isn’t an attendantbaround you just have to wait there until they notice and end the prompt. I waited for 10 minutes the other day because the employee went off for a break or something.
You know, around the 5-7 minute mark I’d be dumping my reusable bags and walking out.
I would’ve but I had just spent an hour getting a cart full of groceries and I wasn’t about to go do that again somewhere else. Plus I couldn’t imagine, at the time, they’d be gone that long.
Oh man I nearly gave my SO an aneurysm because I started scanning items while she set up the reusable bags. Both of us were so over that stupid machine getting made about those bags sitting there!
Oh same note too! If you dare start doing something before you’ve gotten those bags ok’d, or if you plunk down a bag before it prompts you to do so it’s like you’re committing a felony.
Is this really something people struggle with? I don’t understand this complaint. I haven’t actually heard that alert in decades.
Edit: thanks to the few of you who have answered. I’m not saying I don’t have any problems with self checkout—the overhead camera always thinks I’m stealing the soft drink or prescription or whatever that I leave in my cart, for instance—but my problem isn’t ever with the scale thing, even though that’s always the joke everyone makes.
You heard that message decades ago?
Yep. My local grocery store had them in 2003, and that was probably the last time I heard that message.
Okay buddy
But you still haven’t answered the question yet. I’m not saying I don’t have any problems with self checkout, but I never have that problem anymore, and haven’t since the Bush administration, even though that’s always the joke people drive into the ground. I have way more trouble with the camera.
What question?
Whether this is an actual problem you have or just a joke that everyone tells.
The closest grocery store closest to my house is the only self-checkout store around me that still uses scales and they’re awful. There are certain items it doesn’t pick up on and it forces you to bag your groceries after checking out, making everything slower. I avoid that place at all costs, even though it’s the closest to me.
I think they all still have scales, but I think most people’s problems must be with poorly-calibrated ones or something. I haven’t had trouble with them in a very long time. What I have trouble with is the camera above assuming I’m stealing and summoning a person every single time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the ones I use have a disabled scale, but only that one grocery store I mentioned actually uses it. It could be that they have poorly calibrated scales, but if that’s the case, then all of the ones they use are. Self-checkout everywhere else is a breeze.
When I worked at a grocery store, the attendant could override the “unexpected item” alert and it would re-tare the scale, causing problems for the next person if it wasn’t actually broken. I bet that’s what’s happened at the store you avoid; just years and years of careless attendants overriding too quickly and messing up the calibration.
No they aren’t they are gonna lean in even harder what a dumbass story. One time fixed cost will always win over paying people in perpetuity
Yeah I have trouble believing this. They just remodeled the Walmart near me and I bet there’s 60 self checkout machines. There’s like maybe 3-5 normal checkout lines in between the self checkout.
I keep seeing stories every so often on Facebook about this. I feel like these stories just pop up to bring up engagement on the site. most stores in my area (Florida) have increased self checkout
Yeah I think they saw a couple of examples Of stores taking out the self checkout lanes and ran with them. Although you could say the theft that the self checkout lanes allow is a recurring expense, but that’s probably not nearly as much as the saving that the machines give.
It isn’t. Or at least it isn’t as big of a problem as they are letting on. https://www.retaildive.com/news/retailers-crime-problem-numbers/699107/
Shrink has hovered around 1.5% (that’s 1.5% of total sales…) And the NRF has been coy about the fact that 1/3 of that shrink is “administrative” issues - lost product, mis allocated, warehouse issues, broken in transit, etc.
Additionally, a little less than a third is from employee theft, and a the remaining 36% is external theft.
But since they lump mistakes and general admin issues in with theft, they get to claim a higher number whenever they complain very loudly so that they can redirect the conversation away from the massive increase in profits they have had, along with the increase in wage theft cases they are losing, as well as trying to cover up the fact they are closing “under performing” stores in poorer neighborhoods (which not limits access to people in those locations, but the store doesn’t care, they dont buy stuff anyway…).
I saw a grocery store put in the best self checkout lanes I’ve seen, then take them out a couple years later because their customers didn’t like them.
Things be weird sometimes.
My favorite is still having them closed when low staffed because they still need a person dedicated to helping them.
Just amazing how much trouble management goes to to make experiences for customers worse
Kroger here just added two more lanes of self-checkout. We won’t use them. We’re a family of 3. We buy a lot of groceries. Doing it by ourselves would take so much more time.
Our Kroger had two rows of mini self checkouts, 2x3, and adjacent it was a cashier checkout. They removed one of the rows of minis and replaced it and the subsequent with a conveyor self checkout instead, so 3 minis and 2 conveyors.
Now there are fewer places to check out, and the belted checkout is annoying as all hell to use. If you have 3 items it’s wasteful to use it because you have to walk 5 feet to fetch your bags, and if you have a large cart of groceries you wouldn’t want to self checkout anyway because it’s a hell of a lot easier to have help.
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In my experience, self-checkout started with the weight sensors, rather than adding them later. I’ve noticed some stores have a system now without the weight thing, which probably cuts down on confusing and time-consuming error situations, but it makes it seem chaotic. My parents use them in the most fucked up way - leave everything in the cart, scan stuff, bag it, then put it in the cart, and I’m just WHAT? Aren’t they going to accuse you of stealing? Some walmarts aggressively pursue claims of theft from self checkout, like in the case of this lady who was awarded 2.1 million after being accused of stealing, which she said was not true. This article details the story of a lady who said she was arrested after not scanning things by accident, and the article notes “Sixty-two other people were cited and released by police at the same Tucson Walmart between January 2021 and April 2022.”
During the civil trial, which lasted about three weeks, the judge criticized Walmart for the “intentional loss” of the security camera footage, according to court records. The judge, James T. Patterson, said that the court would advise the jury that the videotapes “were destroyed by the defendants with the intent” to deprive the plaintiff of the benefit of seeing them “and that the jury therefore is to presume that the content of the missing videos would be adverse” to the defendants.
Walmart also is starting to use ‘AI’ to detect self checkout theft, which I’m sure will be foolproof and work out great.
And if you’re wondering which item causes the most problems, it’s milk. O’Herlihy explains, “People find it hard to scan milk … Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don’t scan it.”
What?
Anyway, I’m sure they love not paying employees to do this, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
From Tucson here: Walmart in town is pretty sketchy compared to the other places. We had someone light the chemical isle on fire on Christmas Eve that burnt down half the entire store lmao. Walmart sold itself as a low price retailer for so long that only low income people go there and with that there’s theft and then the classism of hiring armed guards during their high crime periods.
And if you’re wondering which item causes the most problems, it’s milk. O’Herlihy explains, “People find it hard to scan milk … Sometimes they get frustrated and they just don’t scan it.”
Does milk not have a bar code?
If anything, I’d figure it would be produce items that would cause the most drama, but eventually you start to remember those codes. 4011 is bananas. 4799 is for tomatoes. 4065 is green peppers…
I love self-checkout because I bag things exactly like I want and I can get the process completed without having chat with the cashier or Karen out on the bagger for putting just two items in a large paper bag.
I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped or accused of stealing things, but then I usually choose the unit closest to the cashier and I leave all my items in the bagging area until I’m done. That said, I used to be a grocery store cashier, so I understand the process a little better than most, but it’s still easy to make mistakes.
Self checkout scanners are unbearably slow, and if you try to go any faster it’s “unexpected item in bagging area” and wait for the overworked assistant.
I refuse to be bossed around by shitty robots.
Condensation on milk barcodes causes scanning issues I’ve found
Probably because it sweats and the pure white nature might make the laser more reflective? Only thing I can think of.
Milk is frustrating to scan? I did it yesterday just fine…
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. People find it difficult to maneuver? Can’t find the bar code? Self checkouts tend to have a hand scanner too, and they could use that.
Self checkouts tend to have a hand scanner too
I’m going to guess that this is regional or vendor specific, because I’ve literally never seen a self-checkout with a hand scanner. And if I ever did, I would expect it to transform into a broken, dangling cable within a few months.
Perhaps. I’ve seen many, and they’re wireless. I suppose they might end up missing.
I know Walmart has them, it’s kinda necessary considering the size of some of the products they sell.
We have hand scanners at the local grocery chains HyVee and Dillon’s (owned by Kroger) that are doing just fine. Lowe’s and Home Depot have hand scanners too. They have all sorted out all the ‘unexpected item in baggage area’ and other stuff years ago.
No idea about Walmart, but could see that type of store going cheap on the hardware and having it treated terribly.
It’s fairly new in my area, but it’s great. That and contactless payments (Google and Apple Pay) are nice.
Every self checkout I’ve used has a hand scanner. Scanning your own things is so much faster. I fail to understand why people whose job it is to check people out all day are so slow at it.
Then you get the customers that want to have a conversation with the checkout clerk. I’m sure the checkout person doesn’t care that your grandfather has the same name and he was name after his great grandfather who rode the rails across the expanding United States in the 1800s.
I fail to understand why people whose job it is to check people out all day are so slow at it.
It is tiring as hell and they might just be pacing themselves.
Can’t wrap my head around this one. I held the gallon up the the scanner, it beeped, and added the price to my total. I can understand if people were intentionally stealing it for any other reason, but to say that the act of scanning it is just too much of a hassle…?
The condensation over the barcode/potentially warped shape of the milk often makes it not scan on the first go. Seen it many times haha.
At my Walmart the employees don’t stop people from stealing food. They told me as much.
I believe it’s policy at Walmart for the regular staff to not prevent theft at all. Loss prevention handles that. They’ll build a case without pursuing at first, and then being down the hammer.
I keep hearing this and I wonder about how they do this. I mean how to they keep records of every shoplifter? Do the employees recognize the people every time they come in? How many shoplifters can they keep track of? Are they like “ah yeah it’s shoplifter 687, put this video in his file”? Do they bother with people stealing an occasional item like basic clothing or food? Are they watching a single shoplifter over years, like what if they only steal once in a while and it’s low value? I’m curious about this, I’ve never actually heard from anyone who was watched over a period of time and then prosecuted.
They have your face and whatever else information you give them when you check out. It’s all covered in cameras. Doesn’t take much. I’m sure they don’t get everything and they have false positives. But if you become such a problem for them yeah.
I don’t have any real experience with this but I think it’s actually hard to catch the accidental thefts and such who they are losing so much money and starting to rethink these things.
I was busted for shoplifting as a teenager and I sort of know how this works. The general employees (cashiers, service staff, etc.) don’t give a fuck if you steal and will actually get in trouble if they try and apprehend you. Almost all large companies operate this way for liability reasons. They aren’t insured enough to cover all of their staff in the event that one of them gets injured or killed trying to stop someone from stealing something. Much less costly to simply budget in a line item expense for incidental theft that’s bound to happen.
Instead of the employees focusing on shoplifters, they have a loss prevention agent in the back watching cameras. Those cameras all over the place in all the big box retail stores, and they don’t even look like those super obvious dome cameras anymore. Most people who steal and get away with it will eventually come back to the same store to do it again. They take note of your face/features and watch for you to return (also, the large chain stores will share this information with other nearby stores). As soon as you step through the door the next time you come in, cameras are recording your every move. That’s exactly what happened with me and my delinquent friends. We ripped off the same store about 2-3 times and the last time was when the guy actually made his move and apprehended us. He waited for us to actually take something without paying for it and physically stopped us at the door as we were stepping through the threshold. At that point, they confiscate whatever you stole, show you the security footage of you taking the product and walking out with it, call the cops, press charges for petty theft if under $1000, and call your parent/guardian if you are a minor.
In my case, I got extremely lucky because the cops simply never showed up after hours of waiting for them, and eventually, they couldn’t legally detain us any longer, so they released us to our parents without charges. My Mom was pissed and set me straight when we got home, and I stopped hanging around the dumbass kids who coerced me into doing it in the first place. We were also banned for life from the store, but I’ve actually been back to that same store several times as an actual customer and they didn’t recognize me anymore. Or they just didn’t give a shit.
If you just steal once, especially if it’s a spur of the moment thing, a very low value item, or a complete accident, it’s really unlikely that loss prevention will care. If they start noticing lots of inventory going missing, they will watch those sections much closer for suspicious activity. There’s always the chance that you could just be randomly singled out by the cameras.
I’ve heard of some places not bothering to stop food thieves because a person who steals food from a grocery store probably desperately needs it, but I imagine they all have a line that they aren’t willing to let people cross.
I feel like in the future this is going to get more intense. They will have facial+ear+gait recognition combined with AI so they can detect and combine literally every instance of shoplifting, intentional or not (to say nothing of footage that only coincidentally has the appearance of shoplifting but they retain it as “proof” anyway), over decades of visits to any of their locations, and once you’ve accumulated over $1000 combined in unpaid merchandise, hit you with a felony charge.
Or they just ban you after the first incident straight up, and electronically recognize you and kick you out for the rest of your life afterward.
And you would have no affordable recourse because they have all the footage and lawyer money to oppose fighting it.
Target will wait for you to steal serval “inflated value mind you full profit plus…” thousand dollars of stuff before pursuing you legally. It’s easier when it’s large sums.
That’s how it works for most stores in Canada.
“theft over” (aka theft over $5,000.00) can get you 10 years in federal prison, “theft under” is up to two years in provincial jail. That’s a huuuge difference.
Also, more footage, more angles, easier to convict.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-334.html
Honestly, can you blame them?
Electronics, luxury items, other “nice to haves” maybe. But who wants to be the reason someone goes hungry?
Not to mention, they are getting paid dogshit wages.
And they actually can get reprimanded or fired for doing so. Fuck it.
Can confirm. Used to work for a big retailer and one day caught someone stealing (not food) and confronted them. I was a pretty solid employee who had been there for years but my manager had to fight hard to stop me from being fired; it was a really close call.
Yeah it’s been 20+ years since I worked retail but we weren’t allowed to confront anyone, especially inside the store. We had to wait until they left the store for a manager to approach them and we had to be 100% sure they stole something in the first place.
The worst I ever saw happen to someone is they gave it back when confronted outside the store, it was a $5 can of automotive spray paint.
I was never quite sure if this was all legal reasons or because of the blowback against the brand if someone was wrong and it made headlines.
When I was a youth, we used to go to Safeway and get donuts or “Mojo’s” (wedge fries) at the bakery, then munch them while walking through the store so that they were gone by the time we got to the till to buy our cans of pop.
One of those unforgettable moments from those years was when we were finally called out by a security guy, something very casual like “you boys are gonna pay for those donuts up front, right?” and Chris who was “that guy” in our crew, bounced his donut off the mall cop’s head and ran like his life depended on it
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For this reason, I think it’s pretty shitty they put condoms in alarm boxes. If there’s something I’m okay with stealing from a Wal-Mart, it’s food and condoms.
Don’t think I could convict anyone stealing safety glasses either.
Don’t get it. Sam’s and BJs both have scanning apps on the phone. Most amazing tech ever! Costco… HURRY UP! Also, Sam’s and Bjs don’t check my card because I WOULDNT BE ABLE TO BUY ANYTHING WITHOUT THE CARD ANYWAYS… Costco!!
It is a dumb bit of ceremony, but the door checker just glances at the card. You could roll in with a paper print out and be fine until the registers.
Still, enough people do stupidly wait until they are in the door threshold and then block the path while digging around, so they should get rid of it.
Pretty sure the check for the door is just there to make people feel more important.
Makes it feel exclusive?
It’s to make sure they didn’t forget the card at home/in the car/etc, and not realize it until checkout
BJ’s doesn’t check anyone going in. You’re free to browse without a membership you just can’t buy anything.
At our Sam’s we just walk right by that door checker. If you show a card they nod, but if you don’t get out your card they ignore you
It’s so that you can’t share your card with friends. You specifically have to live at the same place and have proof when you add them to the account
Jokes on them, I shoplift at the staffed checkout too.
I avoid self-checkout as often as possible. In my mind, that’s taking a job away from a physical person, it’s a cost-savings for the retailer, but customers never see any benefit from it. I choose the person checkout everytime as my little bit of solidarity with my fellow humans.
I’m the opposite. I use self-checkout as often as possible, because it means I have to interact with as few people as possible. I loathe people being forced to ask me how I’m doing, because we both know they don’t care. Or when they ask “Did you find everything?”- does it fucking matter? Either I did, which is why I’m checking out, or I didn’t, in which case it doesn’t fucking matter because thanks to their shitty implementation of JIT their stock has been converted from on-prem inventory to rolling warehouse deliveries every single day. Just let me get what I want and get out.
I have never seen cashiers ask such things. At most they’d ask whether I have the discount card or if I want one of the featured discounted items. Usually I don’t miss anything when wearing headphones.
Same. Perhaps once upon of time, but I haven’t met a cashier with that energy in years.
Which is great because I also don’t like the interaction. My experience lately has been nodding and card flashing - maybe a “Credit” / “Debit”.
I see massive benefits from being able to get out of the store quickly when I am done instead of getting stuck behind some old person with a ton of coupons to argue about.
It helps that they sorted out the oversensitive weight checking and still staff a couple of lanes when it is busy so people have a choice.
Self checkout is often not the quick option for me. Accidental double scans, coupons, random tests all requiring assistance who is already occupied make waiting behind an old person a more consistent experience.
I live in the UK now, human cashiers are so slow here that even the worst self checkout is leagues better.
I mean absolutely FUCK people who are old and are so annoyingly poor they need to try to save 60¢ on food: get the fuck out of the way, am I right?
Take a chill pill.
Being poor and using coupons is fine. Taking a long time arguing about coupons is not the same thing.
you can be annoyed about something someone is doing without making some personal judgement about that someone
if my train is late because the train driver had a heart attack im aware that its not the drivers fault, but im still not going to be thrilled about my luck
Have you considered switching to pickup when you can? pick what you want from the comfort of your home, drive to the store at the designated time, an employee has picked all your goods and it is brought out to you. Same price for you, more labor for the company to pay for.
If you’re just ordering non perishable items that’s fine. Otherwise you might get nearly-expired items, over-ripe produce, etc. It’s all up to the whim of the employee, and they may be having a bad day…
So far I haven’t noticed that happening. They seem to be pretty good about grabbing decent stuff. That’s at my Walmart and Target at least
Glad to hear it. I know a guy who got a load of nearly expired groceries and vowed to never do it again.
I really don’t like doing pickup for most trips because I care about the quality and ripeness of my produce and also purposefully select the furthest away expiry dates for certain things I go through slowly, it becomes a lot to ask someone else to do if there are 20 comment lines for these little details, but if I don’t it just results in wasted food and money :/
Either way the company is getting your money.
But using a real person cost the company more, in theory
I also avoid it but due to not being good at it. I would hate to be accused of shop lifting due to a mistake. It would be a hassle to straighten out.
So, you just want the poor to continue being poor…
Replace them with “no chit chat” lanes. I’m just buying some pasta, I don’t want to talk to you.
But then how will Margaret, the 80 year old lady who can retire but doesn’t want to because she has no friends or family and therefore nobody to talk to except for her captive customers, get her social interaction?
Would it be so bad to be nice to Margaret for a few seconds? It would mean a lot to her, I’m sure it would brighten her day.
Margaret doesn’t need your pity.
I typically try to go out of my way to make the worker have the best experience with me as possible whether it’s a Margaret or anyone else.
Fuck you.
I try to reserve judgement based on edgy comments like this because I usually tell myself “eh, it’s probably just a dumb teenager, they don’t mean it.” But seriously, if this is the way you think about people, you are not a good person and should rethink your life.
You will be old someday just like everyone else (if you’re lucky), and you might be lonely at that point. Desperately lonely. Think about that. Actually, if this is genuinely the way you relate to others, it’s likely everyone will turn their back on you at some point and you’ll be very alone long before you reach old age.
I guess there is good and bad with either style. I generally prefer the self checkout because I can bag my own stuff
We really need a code of etiquette for them, though. Trip to the store this morning, and they were down to 3 self-check stations from usual 10 with literally a dozen people in line. Including one couple with a cart full of a week’s groceries and one lady trying to win coupon roulette. Four other people cycled through the third scanner while those two piddled away the day.
Here in Denmark, it’s becoming more and more common to be able to scan your items with your own phone using the store’s app while you go through the store, and you can bag everything straight from the shelves.
You then pay by credit card, also with your phone, scan a QR at a designated exit, and you’re good to go.
They have random checks, but they’ve only been about 1/20 for me.
I used this as a pilot program in Pittsburgh when I lived there. It was a hand scanner running some sort of Android based OS but largely the same thing. You scan your store card to unlock a scanner, scan your stuff as you walk through the store putting things in bags, then you walk to a kiosk, pay, then walk out.
I used to get so many dirty looks from people who thought I was stealing a whole cart of groceries until they saw the receipt print out.
Doing it directly via an app would have been even better!
None of our stores here bag your stuff anymore so it doesn’t matter what line you pick.
