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The failure of self-checkout technology

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Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#521

Post by watwut »

civilized wrote: post #247
watwut wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not freeing people to do more useful jobs. It is just making them unemployed. I like self checking, sure, but the employment result of it is not better jobs.

Your theory predicts ever-climbing unemployment rates, but the prime-age labor force participation rate is near its all time high [1] and unemployment is at an all-time low [2]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060 [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

It does not. I never ever said or implied that self checkouts are the only process going in economy that would influence how many people are unemployed. "My theory" would predict "ever-climbing unemployment rates" only if:

- self checkout was only thing going on in the economy, - cashiers represented overwhelming majority of employees.

Otherwise you are making overly large prediction from a single small data point.

-------------

Let me say opposite theory: if self checkout would be "freeing people for more useful jobs", cashiers salaries would be raising prior self checkouts. As employers would compete for people, they would pay cashiers as much as those "more useful jobs".

That did not went on. These were and are minimum salary jobs.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#522

Post by watwut »

chris-orgmenta wrote: post #200
watwut wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not freeing people to do more useful jobs. It is just making them unemployed. I like self checking, sure, but the employment result of it is not better jobs.

> It is not freeing people to do more useful jobs. It is just making them unemployed. Only if the creation of jobs is slower than the displacement... Which I agree it is, with this tech (and our slow response in gov, universities etc.). But sometimes (sounds callous but just pondering this small part of the equation), maybe jobs need to dry up in order to compel workers to move on? And this tech will open up other op…

I like self checkouts too. I am not arguing against them. It is just that these jobs going away is not helping former employees nor freeing them up. Economy is always going through changes, I am not arguing to stop progress.

> maybe jobs need to dry up in order to compel workers to move on

Nah. This is just lying to ourselves to feel better. Workers do not need to be compelled and it does not help them at all. The changes may be helping overall economy in the long run or just be irrelevant overall, but individuals on the receiving end are just not helped.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#524

Post by temporallobe »

I understand that Sams Club isn’t your typical grocery store model, but its Scan-and-Go app is absolutely the most impressive “self checkout” system I have ever used, and I think other stores could, in selective markets, start adopting similar systems. Imagine being able to walk into a store, scan the items on your phone, pay in the app with a connected credit card, and walk out. I think one of the keys to the success of Sams Club’s system is that an associate must scan a QR code generated by the app, and then scans a few random items in your cart before letting you leave. It seems like this discourages shoplifting because every shopper is a known entity (by virtue of the app). It’s not a perfect system of course, for many reasons (you can’t use cash or be anonymous, for example), but it sure beats the hell out of any of the clunky and buggy self checkout systems I’ve ever attempted to use.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#525

Post by pcthrowaway »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #499
jtbayly wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The majority of the problems that I run into with self-checkout are related to not being able to buy items I picked up off the shelf like Mucinex or children's cough syrup or alcohol without getting an employee to check me out... at self checkout. What's the point of "self" checkout if somebody is required —not by failure of the system but by rules—to come help me several times during the process? Edit: a…

I always gamble and scan any alcohol or age restricted items first. About half of the time, it throws an alert and flashes but lets me continue scanning, it just won’t let me complete and pay until someone has come over and approved. For some reason though, some idiot designer who never actually thought about how these would be used in reality, decided to make it so that the other half of the time it immediately stop…

If you scan the alcohol first, you can then move over to another checkout and proceed with the rest of your items if you need to wait for assistance for the alcohol

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#526

Post by _heimdall »

imtringued wrote: post #512
_heimdall wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We nowadays have disposable smart labels with integrated screens. Look up ynvisible

Those seem really wasteful too IMO, why do we need them?

Disposable is really in the eye of the beholder. Just because it can be single use, or even if its biodegradable, doesn't change all the resources that go into manufacturing them in the first place.

Just toss a bunch of unlabeled apples in a bin and let a human cashier who has already learned all the product codes for produce just type them in. Or if we really want self checkout, put a barcode at the bin and no labels on the apples at all.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#527

Post by Reason077 »

klondike_klive wrote: post #256
Reason077 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Produce is not a loss-leader. Pretty solid margins if you compare market prices on produce with what the supermarkets sell them for. And if you’ve been in any UK supermarket near closing time on a busy weekend day, you’ll see that they routinely sell out of many/most items before restocking overnight. Stuff that hits its best-before date gets marked down to sell. Generally speaking, there isn’t a huge amount being wa…

The waste is externalised. Supermarkets regularly renege on their agreements with farmers, leaving millions of tonnes of produce to rot. Check out getfairaboutfarming.com

It is certainly unfair to growers if supermarkets are reneging on purchase agreements. But the link you sent has just a single anecdotal "case study", and the site seems to be a marketing site for an organic food box supplier. Hardly by itself evidence of a systemic problem.

Besides, if a purchase agreement falls though with produce already grown, normally what happens is the produce is sold on the wholesale market instead. In that case, growers might receive a lower price, perhaps resulting in a loss, but that's not as bad as leaving it "to rot" and getting nothing at all.

Produce would typically only be dumped in the case of a huge market glut (when prices are so low that it is not even worth harvesting/transporting them), or if there are labour shortages making it difficult or uneconomical to harvest.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#528

Post by bitwize »

Let's see... do I want to have my stuff scanned by an attendant who's lightning fast with the scanner? Or do I want to do it myself, slowly, while GLaDOS critiques my technique and seems to look for excuses to make me do it over for her own perverse amusement?

I mean, for me it's not a hard decision.

Self-checkout is enshittification. It diminishes the shopping experience so the company can save a few bucks by not employing cashiers.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#529

Post by nielsbot »

TrackerFF wrote: post #417
compiler-guy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because I personally have never seen the problem, it couldn’t possibly exist!

Not saying that they don't exist, but my experience has been nothing but positive. It must be 8-9 years since we got one locally, and it's been smooth sailing for me. You scan the products. Confirm that you've scanned everything. Want a shopping bag, yes/no? Pay. That's it. The scanners work. Payment work. Getting a receipt works. Maybe I've just been lucky, who knows.

Why do you like it better than having a cashier ring you up?

Me: I don't have to scan, check I've scanned everything, enter the number of bags, put groceries in those bags. Instead I put my stuff on the belt, I pay and walk out w the groceries--and the cashier is a pro at scanning and bagging, whereas I am not.

Plus, it's not like these stores are going to pass along the labor savings to us. They'll just pocket the difference.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#530

Post by netsharc »

dahfizz wrote: post #266
radarsat1 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly how it works in the Netherlands, you just scan your items and go. There are no weight checks and you can scan items more than once and edit and remove things from the list. Apart from getting a poorly executed random check sometimes (which is far from effective for the purpose of avoiding theft imho) it actually works really well.

Enjoy your homogenous, high trust society. We are all jealous.

Whenever I see anyone use "homogeneous" in this context I always consider them a racist...

Meanwhile Netherlands elected an anti-immigration right-wing government in their last elections: https://time.com/6339173/dutch-election-results-geert-wilder...

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