Yes, it's the consumer's fault, not the giant corporation under-staffing their stores so they can hit another record profit quarter

I do the same. They chose to outsource a critical piece of their business to unpaid labor. They get what they paid for

We all love to hate on Walmart, but in my part of the world, it's got the closest implementation to what I consider acceptable self-checkouts.

The biggest quality of life feature is that they don't use the the weight sensors in the bagging area. You can use the hand scanner to scan every item in your cart sans weighted produce, as fast as your body will allow.

On the flip side, most of the chain grocery stores in my area have the bagging area scanners that need constant overrides, use AI cameras that lock up after every third item and require an override each time, slow machines that seem to have to compute the pi to the 10 sextillionth digit after each item is scanned before it will be ready for you to place it in the bagging area, and things of that nature. Those suck for sure.

Decathlon is a step back from that. They have Rfid tags but you have to put them in the box that scans them. They have a barcode scanner for items that are too big for the box.

Nope, not the way my store is laid out. Unless I wanna snuggle up next to them behind the counter. Which both they, and I, absolutely do not want.

That change was driven by the drastic expansion is quantity and variety of goods. A person couldn't reasonably verbally dictate what they'd like to buy in a modern grocery store. It's far more convenient to choose them yourself

The driving factor for self-checkout was solely profit, not customer convenience. I, personally, find it far more convenient to have a cashier do the checkout, because they're far faster and the responsibility of doing it correctly is on them, not me. I don't want police showing up at my house because the AI at my grocery store incorrectly decided I stole

Look at all the people in this thread complaining about how slow other customers are in self-checkout. It's clearly a widespread issue

Because you will be complaining to people who have no tangible means of changing the situation.

Walmart perfected it first. I don't go many places but Lowe's and Aldi have great checkouts. Home Depot used to be a damned nightmare but they seem to have got it together.

While I have only been to Walmart once in the last decade, it was a year or two ago and the experience was the exact opposite. All the grocery stores in my area figured out the 'unexpected item in bagging area' thing well before COVID and are easy to use with no issues, but Walmart still had the stupid weight issue for the two things I was buying.

So you disrespect the person doing the job? I won't insult them so.

receipt for opening the gate

What is that?

Please. By all means, go and try to complain to someone who has the ability to enact change. You will not be able to. Most staffing is done by an equation that penalizes any deviation from it. And the people who put it in place also put several layers of obfuscation so that you can't reach them.

This is actually pretty funny with the number of stores that offer the option to have stuff gathered by staff and ready for curbside pickup.

Curbside pickup is an inconvenient option. Screens are a terrible interface for picking groceries. Maybe in the future a VR option will be as, or more, convenient

I prefer the fastest and most convenient option. Picking out products in person is faster, and having a cashier scan the items is faster

Seems most people like self-checkout because they have anti-social tendencies. That's perfectly valid, but I don't have that issue. I actually enjoy small talk with strangers

It's not the cashier's fault, but why would I keep going to that grocery store

The big brained solution is to use curbside for stuff like canned items, chips, liquids, etc. and then go in to get the fresh produce/meats/whatever else needs to be picked through personally.

The people that complain probably have had far worse experiences with self checkout. I've been to a few stores where it was absolute hell between the machines working terribly and unhelpful staff, but on the opposite side all of the grocery stores near me solved the self checkout issues years ago and it is the best thing ever where it works well.

I was thinking of Decathlon. You're right, items must be placed in the box.

in front of me

Where I live it's single line to many self-checkouts. It's nice