I always go for the staffed lines because they do the job faster than I can do it myself. Especially for things where someone needs to look at your id, like buying alcohol - a cashier is faster than self-checkout.

Funny thing- when self checkout first opened in California you could buy alcohol from them. Unfortunately, the unions pushed hard to get that banned.

It's new, everyone wants to try it. If this becomes the norm, the line won't be an issue.

Self-checkout lines usually move much faster though.

That seems to be a function of the number of items that people bring to those checkouts rather than anything else. All things being equal, it's always been my experience that the self-checkouts are slower, not faster.

Sure, but there's one line for 4-8 self checkouts which makes the line move faster even if everyone is a technophobe.

Usually because they do the correct thing and have one line for 6 machines, while every other line is for one particular cash register.

Not to mention the self checkouts, at least from my experience, need to be staffed as well. One person can maintain maybe 3-4, so it's not unusual to see half the self-checkouts closed.

Self checkouts can just appear to be closed for no reason because of things like it's rejecting coins, or keeps getting coins stuck, or the weighing scale isn't correct. Faults with over complicated machines rather than a personel problem

Sure, problems with individual machines happen. But in my experience, it's almost always banks of machines that are closed due to staff limitations.

It's quite common for a single staff member to manage 10–12 self checkouts in Australia. This will improve given time for the general population to warm to the SCO process combined with improvements in the machines themselves.