Your Aldi has cashiers? Ours will have at most one dude available but almost no one uses that checkout.

The duplicate scan is the only hassle I ever get.

They were awful at first, especially the ones with scales that insisted items weigh a certain amount and be placed a certain way. I'm not aware of any around here that do all that crap, and this is a relatively poor little town.

Some stores have scanning from a phone, but for most it is much more cost effective to prevent theft in one place instead.

I know I'm in the minority but I prefer self checkout so I don't have to talk to people. Same reason I quit customer service work. I do not want to hear about your day I want to pay for my shit and leave.

I disagree. These companies aren't total morons. I'm sure they've studied this thing exhaustively and calculated a slighter higher shrink and machine maintenance was cheaper than paying cashiers. Keep in mind, at the low end of the pay scale, the employer's total cost is nearly double the wage paid.

Some places may call the cops, but I'd bet that's a rare event. Look at it from the cop's point of view, they're going to get sick of that petty shit in a hurry, start slowing their roll when the store calls. Want an annoyed police force when your store has an actual emergency?

Most places in America, the big chains anyway, seem to have policies like I was trained with at Lowe's. No cops unless it's an emergency or they stole something huge like a $4,000 mower, and even then, call after they've left and give the cops the license plate pic. Never accuse a customer, not even an implication. Never block a thief from exiting or back them into a corner. They gave us some pretty slick tips on approaching someone we suspected, mainly consisting of chatting to make 'em nervous.

Always keep in mind when you see some crazy shit like the article you read, that makes news precisely because it's crazy shit.

Did that three times, got three times "random" checked, returned my customer card and buy in another store now. Solid 5/7, perfect experience

Pretty much the same. Though I have rarely been more than the 2nd person in line at an Aldi. That one dude keeps pace!

Most folks think their hourly wage is the employer's cost. By the time you add it all up, a $15 cashier actually costs $25-$30. For almost any employer, wages are the number one expense. If they started paying that again, you bet we'd pay more.

The last self checkout I used, a store associate took my things and scanned them for me....it was a strange self checkout experience

Why is everyone so adverse to talking to a cashier? Also, you have cashiers that wish to chat?!

They're hit-or-miss as a customer convenience because their actual purpose is to cut labor costs.

I mean if the job comes with disrespect people will stop taking it right?

Not that it's a nice thing to do but it does sound effective. Consumers don't really have much recourse when large companies adopt policies that hurt them. It's designed like that for a reason. You won't be mean to a person from your community so they make them the face of their bad policy choices. Then they can say oh sorry it's just our policy and the issue goes away

I prefer the human checkout and it's not for any of those reasons.

For one thing I have a family of 5 and scanning that many groceries at a self checkout is super painful.

Next the grocery store made its money off of the backs of their workers then when it wasn't convenient anymore they fired a bunch of them and replaced them with machines. Now you have 2 humans in the front of the store doing the job of 10. Their only motivation for adding them was money and not convenience based on how it's been implemented. I still have to wait in a huge line that wouldn't be there if they had cashiers and machines together.

I love the idea of them it's just not being implemented in the right way to make it super helpful for the customer.

I'm faster.

Old timey gas/oil pumps were manual, too. I can still remember a few stores with those. Especially if they had a pier with no electricity near by. Some farms still have them today.

sometimes I do, but if I'm having a really good day I like to see if I can spread it to the customer service staff.

walmart is trying to take over the local grocery business here, so we've got big mega walmarts and small local grocery walmarts in the region. one of the megas and three or four i can't remember of the groceries in my town specifically. the mega has it figured out. like twelve self scans that can be monitored by one or two persons, all of them have hand scanners, and a few lanes with cashiers manned for the folk who are desperate for human interaction or just don't use self checkouts for reasons. the grocery, they have like three self checkouts that are not quite so good and a bunch of cashiers. maybe they are still afraid of the banana trick idunno.

okay, nobody cares but sometimes we enjoy the show. like one time we were at HEB and there was this shopping cart these two sorority girls were sharing and they had to scan everything in the right order. like the first two or three minutes we were annoyed but after twenty we were cheering for them every time they got it right

Only time I had cashiers wanting a chat is if there is no queue otherwise its "Hello" and "Have a nice day"