this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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I started using grocery self-checkouts during COVID, but I've kept using them because there's rarely a line (and I'm a misanthrope). I'd probably go back to using regular human checkouts if I had to dig through all my crap to prove what I bought.

Having said that, I've noticed myself making mistakes. I've accidentally failed to scan an item, and I've accidentally entered incorrect codes for produce. When I notice, I fix them, but I've probably missed a few.

I guess the easiest answer is for grocery chains to reinvest some of those windfall profits and hire more cashiers.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Ha! Not that I steal, but I don't care about supermarkets losing money from people stealing.

If they want their customers to know how to use the self-checkout machines better, they ought to pay them for training.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Always making a big deal out of theft for pennies or dollars from individual customers .... but seldom highlighting the theft of thousands and millions by corporate heads at the top

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Ya anyone with an ounce of brain cells predicted that theft would be an issue with self-checkputs but stores were blindsided by the savings they saw with getting rid of cashiers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Also sometimes the machines a super finicky. It hasn't happened very recently for me, but the amount of times you need an employee to reset the machine or enter a code is too damn high.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shift the cashier's work to the customer and then bitch because the customer is bad at that job that they're not trained for?

How could they be bigger assholes? Get fucked, corporate assholes!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Peach!

Edit: that was supposed to say "preach" but autocorrect ducked me. Leaving the way it is because that's better.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I thought we only buy bananas

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Peaches are code 4011, right?

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Corporations want it both ways ...

... docile workers that will work for little or no pay, which make them poor and more apt to want to steal in order to get cheap food

... honest customers that won't steal, even if they become desperate because corporations refused to pay them a living wage to afford food

Economically speaking ... it's a no brainer ... pay people a living wage and pay for more cashiers to work at the front .. the company makes more money by securing purchases and keeping everyone honest and you maintain a workforce of highly paid people who go to spend their money with your stores anyway

Instead, we want to maintain a system where money and wealth continually keep getting shoved to ever smaller groups of people and we wonder why those of us at the bottom keep trying steal and rob the system just to get by.

'If you give a man gun he can rob a bank; if you give man a bank he can rob the world.'

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

It's not the job of corporations to treat people well, they're an entity designed to maximize profit within the framework they operate in.

A democratic government is designed to represent the will of the citizens. If we aren't happy with the way corporations treat us, then we should vote in a government that will regulate corporations to force them to treat us well.

The goal should be jobs that are boring to humans being automated completely AND not having theft because people don't need to do it in order to have a good life.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

AND LET THE CASHIERS FUCKING SIT FOR FUCK SAKE!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't use self-checkouts in retail stores, and I hate that some stores, like Shoppers, will try so hard to direct me to one when I'm in the queue for the cashier. I have put down merch and walked out of stores over this stance, and I no longer visit some stores (like Shoppers).

I'm not entirely against automated purchase systems. A completely touchless system would get a pass from me. I am against retailers forcing their customers to manually scan and check-out their products though, all while treating them as untrustworthy by dictating where they can place their scanned merch, weighing the merch as it's scanned, and checking the receipts after doing so.

Obviously, none of this addresses the question of whether fully-automated retail spaces are actually good for the working class as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

My local No Frills has shut down their express lane and directs people to their newly built self checkout. It's basically the express lane except instead of the cashier scanning my items and taking the payment. I scan the items and give payment while a cashier hovers over my shoulder to make sure I'm not stealing anything

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Yeah I agree. It’s a tough question, are trains good for horse stable workers? Like they might lose their jobs if people stop using horses.

What’s good for the working class as a whole is the end of bullshit work. You don’t argue to prop it up just because the system is shit, you argue to change the system.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

These don't end bullshit work though. They just mean that I am doing it myself, but still paying the same price for my groceries.

If I got a discount for doing the self checkout, since the company isn't paying a cashier, maybe it would be another story, but what they're actually doing is saving money on labour and passing those savings onto themselves.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I never use the self-checkouts. That's bullshit. I don't work there.

I don't blame anyone that takes advantage of the system that corporations are building.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I will happily use self checkouts if it gets me out of the store faster/ lets me interact with the least amount of people possible. I work retail, I need that energy for my job.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I was at Walmart the other day and there were four employees standing around the self checkout. They all said bye to me when I left. Weird shit.

At that point, why not just have them work the tills??

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Because cashiers are a different cost-centre, and thusly a different budget on the company's financial statements. The VP or senior director that controls the cashiers' services would end up looking bad if they had to retrench on that decision, and "looking bad" is death at that level.

A lot of what happens inside a company makes more sense when you realize it's a power struggle between a bunch of narcissists and their lackeys, and that VPs and CEOs aren't really as powerful as you'd think. Companies can be as inefficient and cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face as any non-profit or public sector employer is, but we often don't see it because we've been trained to assume that "private sector == well-oiled machine" and "public sector == clusterfuck".

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What I do is deliberately go to a cashier, even if the line is extremely long, and I see more and more people doing the same. This forces more lines to open. One time they asked if I could use the self-checkout to speed up the process. I replied that if the items were cheaper at the self-checkout, sure, otherwise I'd stay in line.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This forces more lines to open.

Does it really, though? I have yet to see a rollback on self-checkouts.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

At my grocery store, they added in a ton of self checkout, but they didn't give you enough room to bag your groceries. So you have a cart of food, but a mini-shelf to store them on. And yes, they are no limit. They typically now only have two manned lanes open during peak shopping times. I'm sure some theft is part of it, I'm also convinced most of the "theft" is from the stupid setup and the scales on the mini-shelves. Only place I stop for a receipt check is at membership places like Costco. Everywhere else is a firm, "No thank you," and I keep walking. Go ahead, call the cops. I have a receipt.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I just walk by and say "no thanks!"

Our interaction is done once I pay for my items. Don't like it? Call the cops I guess I'm done dealing with the store for the day. Don't trust me? Hire a cashier, not really my problem.

I'm still pissed all these self-checkouts haven't lowered any prices. Seems like if you got rid of 30 cashiers the price of my bread should've gone down a little.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, Costco is fine we all knew the deal when we signed up. But the Walmart greeter stopping me? No way.

You wanna see if I'm stealing? Check the damn cameras.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I prefer self-checkout because cashiers don't know shit about bagging groceries in a reasonable manner. I don't like dealing with people and I like my groceries bagged to my specifications. Self-checkout is a godsend.

That said...

I have made mistakes. I've accidently stolen from WalMart. I've been an employee of WalMart; I am not crying over this. WalMart is a shit employer and they have a ton of self-check so they can continue to refuse full time jobs to cashiers so they don't have to pay benefits. Fuck them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haaaaaaaate packing my own bags. But it beats dealing with people.

Having said that, it's bullshit that I'm doing unpaid labour for the grocery chains. I should get a discount on my bill.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

"I'm not stealing, I'm just poorly trained at this job you're now expecting me to do without compensation."

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How much is the loss really, in the grand scheme of things? Article says 23% of losses are self-checkout and theft, but what's the percentage of losses overall?

Because I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of people scan their items correctly. My local stores don't even bother enabling the scale on those machines.

IMO it's got to still end up cheaper than switching back to rows of cashiers, and self checkout is so much nicer and faster. I check my groceries out in less than a minute usually.


Or, if it's such a big problem, maybe they can license the tech Amazon uses for their physical stores. Literally grab what you want from the shelves and walk out and it knows what you took and bills you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh man I do not want to have to wait at the door, check and make sure they didn't double-bill me for something or charge the wrong price, then try and argue when this inevitably happens...

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Wait, are receipt checks why Shopper's Drug Mart no longer gives me the option of "e-mail only" for my receipt? The garbage bins full of them by self-check-out are disgusting; it's so wasteful.

Edit: Also self-checkouts are entirely on the companies not wanting to pay for cashiers, so I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. Want to make sure people are checking all their items? Stop trying to automate people out of jobs.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I agree but I want to push back on the 'automation' of jobs. Self checkout isn't automation. They just made you do the work.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I have a friend who works at a shoppers, and she was saying even at it's height, theft is like .001% of daily sales. You'd have to steal a bunch of electronics to even make a dent.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Unless there's a barrier to entry (like a membership at Costco), they can't force you to show your receipt or check your items.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Theft is one thing and who knows what the numbers actually are for self checkout. Even with theft and us making a mistake or two, they don't have to pay cashiers, I'm sure they're coming out wayyyyy ahead.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

On a related note, it blows my mind into pieces when I'm standing behind people in line who clearly have no idea how to self checkout. I don't get it. Self checkout has been around for like 25 years. It's not new and it's not complicated.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Even if they've been around for a while, everyone has a first time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I've shown my parents how to do some tech tasks many, many times. And they still don't get it.

Maybe, similar to self checkouts, it's a combination of being so used to doing things a different way or not needing to do something at all, deeply believing they are "bad at tech" and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, and knowing it's easier to just ask for help than to actually become proficient on their own.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

All I can do is act with ethics and integrity. The rest is their god-damned problem. I can't say I have ever been harassed at the door though. Maybe this was just one security guard going overboard.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Then they should be delighted to hear that I refuse to use self-checkout. Problem solved, right?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It does make it much easier to steal, it's very convenient.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I don't feel bad from stealing from corporations. Not my fault they wanted to increase their profits by raising prices, lowering quality and firing people.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I've never seen anyone stealing food and neither did you......

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I know it varies by location, but I have been using self checkout for years.

There are always more self checkouts open than there ever where staffed lines. I don't get in the line that has someone argue over checks or coupons, when a spot opens up the next person gets to start. If I only have a few things I don't need to spend 25 to 20 minutes in line like I did before self checkout.

Other than a couple years of growing pains, self checkout has been a massive improvement for my general shopping experience. The fact that so many trips are for a few items probably impacts that, but even when picking up a week's groceries I prefer self checkout.

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