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The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

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Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#221

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

lozenge wrote: post #216
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "the cost savings have been passed on to the customer", do you mean that a) self-checkout has caused the customer to pay more for groceries, or that b) the cost of groceries has remained the same (or decreased), but now the store makes extra profits from it because they don't have to pay as many clerks? If b) then we're back to where I started: you might as well complain about the discount on Swiss cheese. You don…

Neither a nor b. Take the wholesale price of the product, add rent, delivery, payment processing, in store labour and all the other expenses involved in running a store, then add 1-2%. That gives you the price you pay in store. That formula hasn't changed since self checkout was introduced, but the cost figures have changed.

I don't see how self-checkout does not come under "all the other expenses involved in running a store". Also, I dont' see how it comes under the 1-2%, which I assume is the profit that the store makes.

I still don't see how all this says that "the cost savings have been passed on to the customer", as per your previous comment.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#222

Post by krageon »

mkl wrote: post #212
Shaanie wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt it's any different than membership cards.

Those don't track you around the store, or profile you for personalised advertising, or connect your purchases to online behaviour, or even necessarily identify you (I never filled in the contact details for mine, just use the number to get the discounts).

They definitely do profile you for personalised advertising. They identify you because you have to give the card when you pay, and unless you always pay with cash your name comes by.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#223

Post by LocalH »

lozenge wrote: post #151
gizmo686 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are publicly traded companies. We do not need to guess what they are doing. Walmart has a profit margin of 1.62% https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-pr... Target: 3.96% https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TGT/target/net-pro... BJs: 1.13% https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BJ/bjs-wholesale-c... For reference: Alphabet: 19.71% https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alpha…

Now McDonalds is a company which clearly is introducing self checkout to raise their margins, but I don't see any hand wringing about it on this thread.

If you're referring to the order kiosks, that's not really the same thing, since the staff is still preparing your order. In fact, I prefer those kiosks, as I can use them to remove a point of failure and ensure that my order goes into the system correctly.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#224

Post by LocalH »

michaelmrose wrote: post #159
LocalH wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any major stores that provide a self-checkout discount.

Probably because the labor cost involved in paying minimum wage employees is low and the cost of goods sold is high. If you buy a $500 TV maybe the store paid 300 or 400 for the TV 10-20c to check it out for you. How much discount do you expect to receive?

I don't expect any discount. I was just stating that I don't know of any retailers who give you a self-checkout discount.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#225

Post by chihuahua »

tbyehl wrote: post #189
chihuahua wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The self-checkout at Costco is a godsend. I usually buy 2-5 items at Costco, and the self-checkout allows me to avoid standing in line behind people with overflowing shopping carts. I can pay in about 30 seconds and get out of there.

Funny, my impression of Costco is that they have literally the worst self-checkouts anywhere. I've never made it through without needing assistance and it takes forever to get assistance because, as best as I can tell, no other customer is more successful at it than me and there's never more than one person working there. Meanwhile, the staffed checkouts always seem to have another person assisting the cashier to get…

Maybe the experience is better than usual at the Costco store across the street from Costco headquarters is Issaquah, Washington, where I usually go.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#226

Post by praxulus »

SantalBlush wrote: post #106
koolba wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Amazon profiting from knockoffs means you can steal bananas from Kroger’s?

If Amazon is not held accountable for fraudulent business practices, is it ethical to hold a shoplifter accountable? The answer, in my mind, is that it is not only not ethical to do so, but it is grossly unethical to do so.

If a wealthy, influential person is not convicted of a murder they clearly committed, does that mean it's grossly unethical to hold anyone else accountable for murder?

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#227

Post by 1000units »

praxulus wrote: post #226
SantalBlush wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon is not held accountable for fraudulent business practices, is it ethical to hold a shoplifter accountable? The answer, in my mind, is that it is not only not ethical to do so, but it is grossly unethical to do so.

If a wealthy, influential person is not convicted of a murder they clearly committed, does that mean it's grossly unethical to hold anyone else accountable for murder?

If that's the norm, yes. If the rich can kill my people with protection from the state, we have a moral obligation to war with them.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#228

Post by mb_72 »

lozenge wrote: post #148
mb_72 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously they’d rather the company hire more workers and charge them s little extra. It's happened the other way around - self checkout didn't exist, and when it was introduced prices didn't drop even though employment expenses are now lower. There isn't even an incentivising discount for using the self-checkout. I've seen people have no end of problems with self-checkout systems, and would rather I have an experi…

Groceries are the most low margin retail business at 1-2 percent. So the cost savings have definitely been passed on to the customer, unless you can find figures to the contrary.

> So the cost savings have definitely been passed on to the customer, unless you can find figures to the contrary.

I think it's more up to the supermarkets to demonstrate that self-checkout is lowering prices. As a consumer I wouldn't 'definitely' believe any cost savings would be passed onto customers, and IMO it'd be foolish to do so.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#229

Post by loco5niner »

Thorrez wrote: post #41
jedberg wrote: post #17

I must be a rube, because I've never stolen from one of those things. When it makes a mistake I call the attendant to correct it. Mainly because I support the idea of automation and want it to work well. Maybe it's just the reliability engineer in me that wants to call out the bugs and have them fixed. Or maybe it's the former security engineer in me who got paid to find the flaws in these systems and my ethics deman…

>I really like the self checkout machines and being in control of how long the transaction takes instead of up to the whims of which cashier I've chosen But if there's a line for the self checkout machines, you're not at the whim of a cashier, you're at the whim of some customers who many not know how to operate the checkout machines well.

Luckily, most places have 6 or more self-checkouts, so you would have to get 6 customers. 1 customer here or there doesn't slow you down significantly because 5 others are moving.

Re: The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (2018)

#230

Post by reciprocity »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #196
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The following is unrelated to our main discussion- a digression. Apologies, but your comment about disdain of junkies made me reminisce (also- it hurt my feelings, but OK, I'm a big girl) (I'm on a diet). The first time someone tried to sell me heroin was when I was sixteen. I had gone for the first time to Exarchia Square, a place in Athens, Greece, were all the countercultural types gather. I had heard that all the…

Another story- sorry. I had a friend, called Mitsos, the Sailor (because he used to be a sailor). I first met him after he had come out of jail- I don't know what he was in for and I never asked. He had this way about him that you see in people who have been in jail and have taken it as a harsh lesson. Once they 're out, you look at them and they may be a bit scruffy, a bit uncouth, a bit down and out (because jail n…

I just wanted to let you know that I read both of your stories and took them both to heart. So thanks for sharing.
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