I often can't stand the Apple Store model. I walk in to buy headphones and stand around like an idiot waiting for one of the employees to be free to ring me up. Just give me a line to wait in, please.

This problem has improved significantly in the past couple of years, I imagine due to Angela Ahrendts takeover of the stores, but I still find it annoying.

Why wait? Just use the self checkout and get on your way...

Same experience here. I stopped going to Apple Stores because the experience was so stupid.

Not sure the roaming employees with handhelds is all that efficient but self-checkout sure is.

For whoever's downvoting: for starters, no paper receipts, no bags, no cash. With self-checkout that's all my choice. Not so with Apple checkout.

Self-checkouts are common in all big (and many medium and small) supermarkets in the UK - the exception being Aldi and Lidl, where queues are often long at the tills.

The self-checkouts are mostly for basket-only shoppers.

It would have been interesting if they'd thrown the self-checkout option into the mix. I suspect people self-scan much slower than a cashier, but given that self-checkouts occupy less space than a full till with conveyor belt, (hence a lot more terminals), I suspect overall they're still faster than using that space for normal tills.

The self-checkouts in the UK don't seem to let you scan stuff as fast as a cashier.

The machines also have a pressure sensor that detects that you have placed items on it after scanning, if you don't allow time for the sensor to settle the machine will give an error and require a cashier to reset it.

Tesco do a "Scan as you Shop" service in some stores that use a handheld laser scanner that allows you to scan whilst you shop.

Interestingly the same scanners can be used for the online order picking.

I don't know the brand of the self checkouts here in New Zealand but they are horrible to use. Lots of options that 1% of people would use, dumb menus and the need for a cashier if buying certain items. It's quicker to queue.

I was specifically referring to Apple self-checkout where you use your own phone to scan the barcode and pay.

They works great when you have more employees than customers. Not many businesses can do that.

I'm very much not an Apple fanboy (Linux has paid all of my bills > 10 years), but have you ever been in one of their stores? Gonna guess no by your comment.

No, his comment is exactly right. As long as there are more employees than customers in the store, every customer is quickly approached by an employee and can make their purchase. As soon as the number of customers starts going over the number of employees, the employees basically start selecting which customer to approach next. Instead of a line where everyone knows their position in it, everyone's just standing around hoping they're the next one, or trying to form pseudo lines near a busy employee.