Most self-checkouts range from mildly annoying to downright unusable. Except Home Depot. Home Depot self checkouts are wonderful.

Most stores near me don't let you use the self checkout with more than a basket, but then they will not have anyone at any of the normal checkouts while having 3-4 employees just chilling "watching" the self checkouts.

If I have just a handful of items it's convenient. But one in 20 times I seem to find a way to screw it up - like trying to scan the loyalty card as an item...

Any more than 8 items I'd rather just use a cashier to scan the items for me. But places (like shoppers) don't make it easy at all.

The faces of the execs when 'shrinkage' goes up: :O

Maybe it's just me, but everytime I use a self checkout I end up doing something wrong and have to wait for an attendant to help me. I usually try to just skip the first few steps and just go right to the cashier.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

CBC News interviewed several people who said during recent visits to major retailers, they were frustrated to find cashiers weren't available — only self-checkout.

Valcov says he stopped shopping at his local Canadian Tire in June, following several store visits where only the self-checkouts were open and no staff members were available to help him.

VideoMining, a U.S. market research company, analyzed shoppers' checkout habits during 1.2 billion trips to more than 1,000 U.S. grocery stores in 2022.

Sharma says retailers like self-checkout because it reduces labour costs, and that customers are increasingly drawn to the machines to avoid long lines at the cash register.

Retailer Loblaw, which owns pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart, says its policy is to offer customers both self-checkout and cashier options at all times.

In an email to CBC News, Loblaw offered Rayman and Winterburn an apology, and said that it has contacted their local stores to resolve the problem.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I always use lines with cashiers because:

1. their jobs will evaporate if people don't use them

2. self checkout means that you're doing that job FOR FREE for the company