The failure of self-checkout technology • Hacker News Board

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#31

Post by mewpmewp2 » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:43 AM UTC

noneeeed wrote: post #9

Curious. Obviously this is just just anecdote, but all the shops I use regularly (in the UK) have been increasing the number of self-checkouts and upgrading the systems. My local Waitrose has stripped out a whole load of basket tills and replaced them with a larger self-checkout area with upgraded hardware that is noticably better/more reliable. Perhaps this is a location or shop specific effect?

Same in my local area. Also I find it very good for my own usage, and there's variance of different self checkout machine systems.

One where you use a remote to scan the products as you add them to cart, then just put away the remote. The other one where you scan at the station.

I would say I see 5x reduction of actual people working behind the checkout.

And I basically rarely wait in queues any longer.

I have never witnessed a singular tech failure either.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#32

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:43 AM UTC

I only go to self-checkouts if forced to use them, I rather spend my time keeping those employees on the job, plus there is hardly a time there isn't some kind of error with those machines anyway.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#33

Post by jimbobjimface » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:44 AM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #11

noneeeed wrote: post #9

Curious. Obviously this is just just anecdote, but all the shops I use regularly (in the UK) have been increasing the number of self-checkouts and upgrading the systems. My local Waitrose has stripped out a whole load of basket tills and replaced them with a larger self-checkout area with upgraded hardware that is noticably better/more reliable. Perhaps this is a location or shop specific effect?

For UKer, is it just me or is the M&S self-checkout system by far the worst one ?

Yes! They have the worst scanners, no idea where you're supposed to position the barcode so I end up waving it around for 10 seconds before it gets scanned.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#34

Post by jdietrich » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:44 AM UTC

kioleanu wrote: post #17

I’ll leave a comment I’ve made last time this came into discussion: Self-Checkouts have been really problematic in Germany with stores rushing to put them to use and namely: 1) they have very bad interfaces 2) they don’t trust customers at all 3) it’s easy to report cases to the police and 4) stores have people hired to catch thieves and their incentive is that they are paid 50 to 100 euros per report (paid by the pe…

I think that's a Germany problem rather than a self-checkout problem.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#35

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:45 AM UTC

kioleanu wrote: post #17

I’ll leave a comment I’ve made last time this came into discussion: Self-Checkouts have been really problematic in Germany with stores rushing to put them to use and namely: 1) they have very bad interfaces 2) they don’t trust customers at all 3) it’s easy to report cases to the police and 4) stores have people hired to catch thieves and their incentive is that they are paid 50 to 100 euros per report (paid by the pe…

As someone living here, besides all those points, I have seen what these machines have made to employment in supermarket chains in Portugal, hence I tend not to be yet another statistic of people adopting them.

Rather have my actions support the employees.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#36

Post by robertlagrant » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:46 AM UTC

Faaak wrote: post #30

I really like those that you can find in Switzerland (either in Coop or Migros). The basic assumption is "trust the customer". Thus, the self-checkout devices don't have the annoying "you must weight the article you just scanned". You just scan them one by one, add them to your bag, pay at the end, and that's it. Sometimes (it happens to me around 1/year) you get a random search, which is not that bad as they just ra…

Co-op in the UK has that as well. I don't know if it's the same for every area, but the one near friends of ours that we pop into on the way to theirs just has a scanner.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#37

Post by chippiewill » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:46 AM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #11

noneeeed wrote: post #9

Curious. Obviously this is just just anecdote, but all the shops I use regularly (in the UK) have been increasing the number of self-checkouts and upgrading the systems. My local Waitrose has stripped out a whole load of basket tills and replaced them with a larger self-checkout area with upgraded hardware that is noticably better/more reliable. Perhaps this is a location or shop specific effect?

For UKer, is it just me or is the M&S self-checkout system by far the worst one ?

The software on the system itself is, but M&S is my favourite experience of all because in my store they have twice as many self checkouts as anyone else, they have an appropriate number of attentive staff directing people to empty self-checkouts / sorting issues, and they haven't bothered with scales which slows things down.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#38

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:47 AM UTC

dfox wrote: post #27

Kathula wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>theft will be next to impossible This sounds like some tech utopia t thinking. What's gonna stop someone just grabbing something and walking out? The employees?

The general idea is to use something like UHF RFID to scan the whole shopping cart at once (there are even UHF RFID tags that can interoperate with EAS systems). The technology exists and is suprisingly cheap and is used by some some clothing retailers. And that points to the main issue: you have to somehow apply the tags to the items, that is easy to do if you work closely with the manufacturers and only sell your o…

[deleted]

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#39

Post by V__ » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:47 AM UTC

kioleanu wrote: post #17

I’ll leave a comment I’ve made last time this came into discussion: Self-Checkouts have been really problematic in Germany with stores rushing to put them to use and namely: 1) they have very bad interfaces 2) they don’t trust customers at all 3) it’s easy to report cases to the police and 4) stores have people hired to catch thieves and their incentive is that they are paid 50 to 100 euros per report (paid by the pe…

This is not my experience at all. Can you tell what retailers you are using, so I can avoid them?

If I don't have to otherwise, I only go to the store with a self-checkout near me. There are some ux problems which they should improve but all in all I'm happy.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#40

Post by flacebo » Tue, Jan 16, 2024, 10:47 AM UTC

transfire wrote: post #3

I love them. How quickly people forget… waiting in line for over 10 minutes wasn’t all that uncommon back it the day. Doesn’t really matter though. The next gen tech is coming soon. You won’t have to scan anymore and theft will be next to impossible.

I was really surprised how futuristic the shopping experience in Decathlon is. Every item has a unique rfid (or something) tag, and all you have to do is put them in a box at checkout, and it scans them automatically.

Most of their items has this tag inside the regular tags, I guess this would be much harder to implement in a regular store.