Live data from Hacker News

The failure of self-checkout technology

bbc.com

551–560 of 621 posts

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about when the internet goes down for several weeks or months...?

This is not a thing that happens in the US, except in disaster-recovery scenarios.

There is a regular war going on in the country neighboring my one, a thing that was hard to think of several years ago. We had a pandemic and lockdowns destabilizing lives of millions of people and thousands of businesses.

What makes you think the US are immune to disasters resulting in having no internet for weeks or longer?

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#552

The weight check slows the whole process down and I find I have to make sure I grab items with the cart-side hand or the system thinks I am trying to drop the item in the bag without scanning. Worst of all is the receipt check after the process - looking at you Costco. It feels like checking pockets in a diamond mine. If I am going to be doing all the work to save the store money they should loose the right to check…

Every Costco I’ve been to has actual cashiers. The self checkout is there if you really want to use it but I never do.

Costco is also technically a private membership club, not a store. That’s why they can check your receipt.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#553
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegetables don't have stickers. They are vegetables. Ah the name… but is it a golden extra apple or a yellow apple? Or perhaps a extra fresh guaranteed apple?

at that point, is it really stealing to just make your best guess? are they going to detain you because you input an apple that is $0.04c cheaper than the real one?

At least over here, differing varieties of the same fruit often cost the same, probably precisely to avoid this problem.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#554

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…

That's a store policy problem; it shouldn't be difficult for them to confirm that a payment has been made for the equivalent set of items within the last 5 mins, and even possible for them to cross reference with your card. When I got stopped walking out of a supermarket with an item with an RFID tag on it, I don't think the security guard (who had no direct view of the self checkouts) even bothered to check that, ju…

That’s the problem with the money incentive most stores have here - what I mentioned in the original post, that the security personnel receives 50 - 100 euros per “thief” caught

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#555

Obviously this sounds like such a US problem. Self checkout in the UK and Europe (Estonia and Barcelona) IME works perfectly: - No thefts - Many people with card payments - Working self checkout machines Also, recently I have been thinking how come the US is pioneering so many tech but fail to implement any, such as: - Payments: No SWIFT/IBAN, still lots of cash usage, no e-invoices (ie for utility bills), still usin…

The US not only has SWIFT, the US government basically controls it; they’re the ones who cut off Russia. In my experience the US was probably slightly ahead of the UK in terms of cards being accepted everywhere rather than needing cash. All of my utility bills have been on electronic autopay for years along with all of my other bills and I write a paper check probably less than once a year.

I don’t know what a “physical email” is. I occasionally receive bills in the postal mail (mixed in with all the spam our postal service likes to deliver every day as some sort of sick and twisted jobs program) but they usually have a QR code I can scan to pay them online.

Social security numbers are de facto national identification numbers. The US is a federation of fifty states so photo ID cards are issued at the state level, similar to how your national ID in Europe will be issued by Spain or Estonia rather than the EU itself. But you can use a passport or even get a passport card instead if you really want to.

“E-government” is a broad subject. In some use cases (internet voting) I don’t trust it one bit. In other use cases (filing and paying taxes or instant background checks), we have it covered. And in yet other use cases (buying health insurance), it was actually easier to do online before the government took it over, at least in my experience. My previous state set up an online system to file for unemployment during COVID but then lost millions of taxpayer dollars to overseas scammers who would steal the identities of residents at random and file for unemployment in their names; a better system probably could have been implemented if it wasn’t done at the last minute and with zero verification.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#556
I’ve actually had very few issues with Target’s systems where I live. They seem to be fool proof, and I’m a pretty big fool so that’s saying something. I still prefer cashiers when I can, because I’m trying to support human jobs out here.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#558

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…

> 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 person caught)

Every once in a while I'm reminded to be grateful I live in North America.

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thanks for the tip—never tried it, but it sounds solid!

Re: The failure of self-checkout technology

#560
my problems with self checkout, mostly i get by without issue but 2 things: 1 occasionally i accidentally scan an item twice, but removing an item takes admin privileges so a simple scannihg mistake requires calling for help, it shouldnt. 2. the payment option in canadian stores prompts you to pay then prompts for points card, donations, receipt/email, then how many bags you need and the reprompts you for pay. its like 5 extra clicks/screens that are useless to me
Post reply on HN