Self service checkouts

[Tequila_Woods]

I like them! I think I'm opposite to you guys though in that I don't want the checkout woman waffling to me n taking twice as long to scan my shopping, just get on with it!

Whenever I'm in sainsburys I always make a point of going to the self service checkout. I think it's mainly because I'm ffilling my 4 yr old dream of scanning the items lol.

All good points made here, but one point I'd like to make is that 4 self service checkouts take up the space of only 2 'normal' checkouts, which probably wouldn't even usually be open anyway due to them being shirt staffed!

[beutelwolf]

max_tranmere wrote:

>... but there is not as much annoyance over this as there
> apparently was a few decades ago when supermarkets became
> self-service. A while back there was always an assistant in a
> tie and apron getting the stuff for you from behind a large
> counter and bagging it. The first time you touched the items
> were after you had paid and been handed them. The concept of
> lanes with rows of items left and right of you started - and
> you had to get them yourself. We accept this as the norm now,
> but when it first began it irritated lots of people and
> apparently led to many complaints.

Apparently, Max is revealing here his age to us...

Because I'm getting on a bit in years myself, but specialists grocers shops aside (bakers, butchers, etc. - I even vaguely recall a shop where grandma bought fresh milk that was filled into a canister) I do not recall being in shops like that. In my early childhood the norm were the kind of shops we would now call convenience stores.

[Sam Slater]

Glad you've said that. I don't mind them either. A machine can't be overly inquisitive about your weekend where you wish it'd shut the fuck up, nor can it appear rude and miserable because it hasn't said a dickie bird.

And the sooner Google get round to releasing those self-driving vehicles the sooner we can replace nattering taxi drivers.

[The Last Word]

They're okay for a handful of items, and from a marketing perspective I can see the appeal.

Plus, we're now in the age of internet shopping, which may well be part of the cause. Whingeing about them seems, dunno - a bit pointless?

[max_tranmere]

lol. I wont tell you my exact age, but I was a little kid in the 1970s and a teen in the 1980s. All this stuff about shops in the old days I heard from others. It sounds like quite a nice touch to have someone do it all for you, although there would probably have been long queues.

[planeterotica]

I went in to Tescos the other day just to buy a couple of things and when i got to the checkout and asked for a carrier bag the girl said that they had run out and didnt have any in the store and a quick look along the checkouts i could see she was right, except i was told the next day that they had loads of bags but were just doing a survey to find out the customers reaction if they withdrawl free carrier bags, so you know what to expect in the future bring your own bags...

[David Johnson]

"Whingeing about them seems, dunno - a bit pointless?"

Wrong.

[Nob3y]

I do anyway.
nd when I use the self scan I always say I have used some of their bags.You get green points for that!

[planeterotica]

Years ago you always took a bag with you went you went shopping and i dont just mean the misses, looks like we will have to get in to the habbit of doing it again...

[Bob Singleton]

beutelwolf wrote:


>
> Apparently, Max is revealing here his age to us...
>
> Because I'm getting on a bit in years myself, but specialists
> grocers shops aside (bakers, butchers, etc. - I even vaguely
> recall a shop where grandma bought fresh milk that was filled
> into a canister) I do not recall being in shops like that. In
> my early childhood the norm were the kind of shops we would now
> call convenience stores.

Maybe showing my age too, but I remember being taken shopping with my mum as a nipper to Sainsburys in Surbiton and that was a case of asking for items and the man behind the counter getting them off a shelf behind him.