I went to Sainsburys today. As I got to the self-checkouts, I could see there was a much bigger queue than usual. I soon found out why: they have just updated all of the self-checkouts, and the new software is glitchy. About half the people there checking out were requiring assistance from the staff, and the three staff members could barely keep up.
For a while now all of the self checkouts have had screens above them that record, or at least watch you while you scan. You can see yourself in the screen, I assume it's to deter theft. I started scanning my items, and immediately I found out what the new software is. On the first item, the screen snapped an image of my face, and kept the image on screen above me, while the screen in front of me that shows the scanned items got a big warning flashing up on it, declaring that I had bagged an item that I hadn't scanned.
Both screens froze like this, my face on the screen above with a message in huge letters on the screen below declaring to the entire shop I had bagged something without scanning. Declaring me a thief to the entire shop, even though I hadn't done anything. Because the staff were so busy with all the glitches I had to wait there like this for about 10 minutes until someone would deal with it.
As I waited I watched the other checkouts and saw that this glitchy new tech was doing the same thing to other people. It seems ridiculous, it's made the process longer, caused a bigger queue, and is wrongly accusing everyone of stealing. It seems counter-intuitive, they want more people to use self checkouts but this is going to put me off using them in future.
I dread to think what they'll come up with next. Maybe they'll eventually get rid of all cashiers and when the machine accuses you of stealing there will be no one to check your items and see that you haven't. I wouldn't be surprised if they have robot police waiting to arrest you for supposedly unscanned items soon.
And let's not forget this is to stop starving, poverty-stricken people from accessing food in the only way some people have.
Why?
I was using sainsburys online ordering recently when I was unable to walk for a while, and I prefer to shop in store. With the online ordering they were sending me items that had reached their use-by date already, vegetables that were rotten, mushrooms that were slimy and black and some items were out of stock and they sent me substitutes I didn't want. So I would much rather go and choose my own items.
Also because its easier to price gouge you. They do this thing sometimes where they actively change prices based on who is shopping and what time it is and shit.
because stores want to sell you items that are low quality like that.
But whenever they've sent me bad quality items I've rejected them on delivery and got a refund.
You do that. Not everyone does. They rely on people being too lazy to get their refund most of the time.
Plus once the in store option is gone they can be a lot less generous with refunds. Its like how doordash and stuff used to basically operate on a trust system but they started to be more strict over time once the market was established. They'll make it tedious like take a photo with a piece of paper with the days date and the item that wasnt good, scan the barcode, stuff like that. And people wont bother.