Only about one-third of surveyed retailers plan to invest in self-checkout technology this year, significantly fewer than in 2025, according to an annual retail industry report. While...
the cashiers are not free to be transferred to more important work, they are fired. this is objectively bad.
regardless if you are scanning the items when putting them into the cart, or you are scanning them at the checkout point - you are now doing the cashiers work, but you are not compensated for your work. the price you pay is the same. you are now an employee, but without being paid. this is objectively bad.
when a scanning error happens, you are now responsible for it. the industry word for it is theft. you are a thief if your scan isn’t correct. the responsibility shifted away from a worker with (depending on locale, forget the US for a moment) insurance and workers rights, allowing for smaller mistakes. But the retailer isn’t picking up the responsibility, it just heaps it on the customer. As they did with the work. this is objectively bad.
depending on the efficiency of this system, the retailer chains (not stores, the chains) are increasing profits. the workers and the customers don’t see a dime of that. this is objectively bad.
A store near me in germany has recently switched a number of rows to self checkout. Absolute chaos, nobody wants it, long rows on the few chashier points. I saw it exactly one time, told me what i think, they tried to sell me the convenience, i told them what i wrote here plus that they are located in a commercial area, not a mixed housing/commerce area. Nobody goes there to buy a handful of stuff. People came for “Hamsterkäufe” (german colloquial, hamstering essentially: buying large quantities for reserve), self checkout is not convenient. I will not visit there anymore, there are other stores who don’t do this crap.
I hear you, but scanning in store means I save a lot of time. Queues at UK supermarkets are really long. It also allows me to keep an eye on how much I’m spending and spot it when discounts are correctly registered. Unlike what you’re describing about how self scans are received there, they have been accepted a long time ago here.
One more - what about produce? Most produce I encounter does not have any way to scan it and I’m not going to sit there and look up a bunch of stuff. Good checkers know the produce codes by heart and makes that process so much more efficient.
If lower operating costs doesn’t lead to lower costs to the consumer, it’s not the fault of the self checkouts. Then it’s a lack of competition which would keep margins low. It’s your government at fault for not regulating the market properly.
In my neck of the woods grocery stores all operate with razor thin margins. So I’m fairly sure they’d cut prices if self checkout allows them to. There’s so many people chosing grocery stores primarily based on price.
Why would I care about doing the cashiers work? We don’t have baggers where I live. The work is essentially the same as bagging. In many cases I explicitly want to use self check out because it’s more convenient and saves me time. If I need three items I can scan them and put them in my bag and be out of the store before I’d get half way through the checkout line.
As for theft, in principle I see the problem. In practice I’ve never heard of anyone being charged for it around here.
If we can operate shops with less labor I think that’s just good. We should instead focus on creating other more meaningful jobs. Again, a government issue IMO. We need more teachers and nurses but we don’t pay them well enough.
reduction in labour requirements is good, scanning errors should have updated legislation so that the company is responsible for reasonable mistakes, capitalism incentivizes improvements in efficiency and rewards it with increased profits.
because, in theory, it will lead to a reduction in prices. In practice this requires a highly competitive market that would exist significantly more if the antitrust laws were enforced.
Self Checkout hat serious drawbacks:
A store near me in germany has recently switched a number of rows to self checkout. Absolute chaos, nobody wants it, long rows on the few chashier points. I saw it exactly one time, told me what i think, they tried to sell me the convenience, i told them what i wrote here plus that they are located in a commercial area, not a mixed housing/commerce area. Nobody goes there to buy a handful of stuff. People came for “Hamsterkäufe” (german colloquial, hamstering essentially: buying large quantities for reserve), self checkout is not convenient. I will not visit there anymore, there are other stores who don’t do this crap.
I hear you, but scanning in store means I save a lot of time. Queues at UK supermarkets are really long. It also allows me to keep an eye on how much I’m spending and spot it when discounts are correctly registered. Unlike what you’re describing about how self scans are received there, they have been accepted a long time ago here.
I wonder if anyone has become injured during self checkout and attempted a workers compensation claim
One more - what about produce? Most produce I encounter does not have any way to scan it and I’m not going to sit there and look up a bunch of stuff. Good checkers know the produce codes by heart and makes that process so much more efficient.
If lower operating costs doesn’t lead to lower costs to the consumer, it’s not the fault of the self checkouts. Then it’s a lack of competition which would keep margins low. It’s your government at fault for not regulating the market properly.
In my neck of the woods grocery stores all operate with razor thin margins. So I’m fairly sure they’d cut prices if self checkout allows them to. There’s so many people chosing grocery stores primarily based on price.
Why would I care about doing the cashiers work? We don’t have baggers where I live. The work is essentially the same as bagging. In many cases I explicitly want to use self check out because it’s more convenient and saves me time. If I need three items I can scan them and put them in my bag and be out of the store before I’d get half way through the checkout line.
As for theft, in principle I see the problem. In practice I’ve never heard of anyone being charged for it around here.
If we can operate shops with less labor I think that’s just good. We should instead focus on creating other more meaningful jobs. Again, a government issue IMO. We need more teachers and nurses but we don’t pay them well enough.
reduction in labour requirements is good, scanning errors should have updated legislation so that the company is responsible for reasonable mistakes, capitalism incentivizes improvements in efficiency and rewards it with increased profits.
Why is it good for anyone else?
because, in theory, it will lead to a reduction in prices. In practice this requires a highly competitive market that would exist significantly more if the antitrust laws were enforced.
Until unions are strong and anti compeition has a spine, labour efficiency should not be championed.
unions are just workers forming a monopoly
Do you know what monopoly means?
a single supplier of a good or service, workers supply labour to those that want to purchase it.
Neither are true
AKA trickle down economics. Thats worked really well
did trickel down economics not promote the exact opposite of antitrust enforcement?