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The failure of self-checkout technology

bbc.com

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Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#331

Post by GrumpySloth »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #272
notTooFarGone wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany there are a few Lidl's with self checkout now. But haven't seen an Aldi doing it.

All Lidls in Poland already have self checkout, and it's one of the best implementations I've seen, as expected from Lidl.

Except the speaker screams at you, very loud.

The best ones I’ve used are at Rossmann. Completely silent, and don’t measure the weight of anything, so you never get to the “sorry, your shopping’s weight is off by 1g” part. The UI is also very efficient, where in Carrefour they seem to periodically add more popups to the process.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#332

Post by bombcar »

7952 wrote: post #214
lxgr wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This capability is actually built deeply into the chip payment specification used by most credit and debit cards, but it's fallen out of fashion in favor for online-first processing: The original motivation for offline capabilities was that phone calls were expensive in Europe (early terminals worked via dialup modems, which were also slow to connect), and phone lines were not ubiquitous in all stores. Now that that'…

The original implementation of credit cards was paper based. You made a carbon copy of the bank card and a signature taken. And the pin can be verified using the card alone.

Smaller places in the USA will still bust out the carbon copy machine during outages, but they then have to bitch at the processor to get lower fees (often the fees are higher for non-instantly verified transactions).

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#333

Post by whycome »

thesaintlives wrote: post #328

Previously an employee scanned and took my payment. Now that 'employee' is me. What is my upside? Generally I try not to work for free whilst making other people richer...

Well if the other employees screw up they get a warning and maybe some direction. If you screw up at your job you'll get accused of shoplifting and maybe get the cops called.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#334

Post by vintermann »

Gigachad wrote: post #173
hackan wrote: post #92

I love self-checkout, honestly. Machines need to improve, but still. There's a store here where u simply DROP all items in the self-checkout basket, and it automatically computes everything! I suspect it uses NFC or similar, but it works, and its wonderful, simply drop everything in! And wait, there's more: did I say drop everything in? I meant, the bag you are using to hold everything? just put it in that basket, in…

It seems that in general, the US lags behind in retail technology. In Australia, close to all supermarkets are majority if not entirely self checkout. Even a lot of retail brands like hardware stores and clothing stores are self checkout. The ones like Uniqlo where you just drop the items in and it instantly scans them all are incredibly nice to use.

On a trip to a sparsely populated part of Norway I hadn't been to before, I ran into my first unstaffed grocery store. You checked in with a bank card (they did that thing with reserving a 0.50 transcation) and it was self-service in there. Presumably someone would be in from time to time to restock the shelves.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#335

Post by bombcar »

RoyalHenOil wrote: post #220
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a credit card CAN have an outage is ridiculous. They were invented as an eventually-consistent system first! Just save up the credit card info, and charge the bank when the network connection is back up.

I completely agree. When I worked as a cashier, we had no problem letting people pay with credit cards even in the event of a full-on power outage. We just used a credit card imprinter, which was quick, cheap, and easy to use. Why has this suddenly become so difficult? It's not like outages are rare.

Outages are short and rare enough that newer cashiers may never have seen the imprint machine (and the store, if it has one, it’s probably buried in customer service somewhere).

Where outages are more common it’s more likely people have workarounds - kind of like how when there was a power failure and the power company told the local store it would be 4+ hours to recovery they declared “discounted dairy”.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#336

Post by raverbashing »

thinker5555 wrote: post #329
CM30 wrote: post #248

It feels like almost all the issues with self-checkout technology come from the attempts to minimise shoplifting, which don't even seem that effective at doing that. In theory, a system that let you scan products the same way checkout staff do without any weight checks or bagging area rules or other interruptions would be incredibly efficient. Especially if you could do things like scan the same product multiple time…

> It feels like almost all the issues with self-checkout technology come from the attempts to minimise shoplifting, which don't even seem that effective at doing that. Agreed. And in some cases the issues almost feel like they're on purpose in order to drive people away from using the self checkouts. For example, when I use self checkout at my local grocery store, I have to hit a button to tell it I want to use my ow…

Yeah, as much as I like self-checkout it seems the bag logic is broken everywhere

I just scan everything and bag the stuff after payment

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#337

Post by _heimdall »

hackan wrote: post #92

I love self-checkout, honestly. Machines need to improve, but still. There's a store here where u simply DROP all items in the self-checkout basket, and it automatically computes everything! I suspect it uses NFC or similar, but it works, and its wonderful, simply drop everything in! And wait, there's more: did I say drop everything in? I meant, the bag you are using to hold everything? just put it in that basket, in…

That sure is a lot of single use NFC tags though.

These kinds of convenience features are almost never aligned with the strong passion many today have for reducing waste and helping lower our environmental impact.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#338

Post by Moldoteck »

alpaca128 wrote: post #260
CM30 wrote: post #248

It feels like almost all the issues with self-checkout technology come from the attempts to minimise shoplifting, which don't even seem that effective at doing that. In theory, a system that let you scan products the same way checkout staff do without any weight checks or bagging area rules or other interruptions would be incredibly efficient. Especially if you could do things like scan the same product multiple time…

> In theory, a system that let you scan products the same way checkout staff do without any weight checks or bagging area rules or other interruptions would be incredibly efficient How would it be more efficient than a traditional checkout? There's no way the average person can match the speed of a cashier who does that every day, and at least the supermarkets I've visited don't have enough self checkout machines to…

best self checkout is when the store gives you a handheld device to scan products right b4 you put them in bags in your cart. When you approach the cashier, they just scan your qr code and prompt you to pay. After that you just take your bags and go... Even faster if the bags are from bicycle and you just put them in the back and go...

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#339

Post by tnbp »

acd wrote: post #19

I prefer to talk to a real human. 1. Human is nicer than cold robot 2. Liability to scan items is the stores responsibility

Both are true, #2 is huge. I would like to add: 3. Self-checkout displaces workers to the benefit of stores and the detriment of society at large.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#340

Post by candiddevmike »

thesaintlives wrote: post #328

Previously an employee scanned and took my payment. Now that 'employee' is me. What is my upside? Generally I try not to work for free whilst making other people richer...

You get to load your bags appropriately instead of putting eggs on the bottom.
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