These days many supermarkets here have self-scan systems where you scan each item yourself with a handheld machine before putting it in your cart or bag, and at checkout you just put the scanner back, scan your store card and pay. Once in a while, a worker has to scan random items from your cart (I assume it's based on heuristics that try to determine whether you might have had a possibly suspicious behavior like cancelling items from the scanner often) but that's quite rare.

It's fast, there are no lines, it's less work for everyone.

Many of the 'self-checkout' machines are really bad at what they do. Put the items on a scale as you scan them, but don't put your own bag on the scale ... so you can bag the item after it's scanned, saving repeating that motion for each item ... or it will bitch at you. Repeatedly. (And the 'watchperson' comes over sounding accusatory.)

The store can damn well afford to pay someone to scan and bag the items, while I do the loyalty-card, payment-card cha-cha. The store isn't paying me to do all this shit.

Do you really find that to be a hurdle? The first time I used one, the scale warning surprised me. But it's trivial to avoid, and now self checkout feels super efficient to me

I'm tall, and the scales are nearly at floor level. And if I walk into a grocery store and buy a single bag of milk (which doesn't need another bag because it is a bag so why would I put it in the bagging area?), having to stoop down to put it on the scale is an inconvenience I'd rather avoid. Some stores let you select "no bag" every time and let you proceed to payment, but most don't. Being treated with so much suspicion is also not pleasant.

My solution is to avoid self-checkout at stores with crappy machines, or avoid those stores altogether. If Home Depot can do good self-checkout, why can't everyone else? That's the primary reason I frequent HD over Lowe's.

It can be a hurdle for people who aren't already familiar with the machines and their arcane rules. That quickly becomes a problem if the store doesn't have enough staff to dedicate an employee to the self-checkout area.

I've been seeing this more often in the past few months at understaffed low-cost retailers. When there's nobody around to override the machines, people get frustrated and move on to the next open machine without understanding what went wrong.

Five minutes later, the entire self-checkout area is offline, and the would-be customer sometimes feels sufficiently annoyed and neglected to walk off with their groceries.

> It can be a hurdle for people who aren't already familiar with the machines and their arcane rules.

Right, like I mentioned, it was a very weird first time experience. But my question was addressed to the parent commenter, who is clearly not a first-time user and is aware of how these systems work.

I was asking how it remains a hurdle to someone who's already familiar with it, because this is very far from my own experience. I honestly don't even notice the scale requirement anymore, because placing things on the scale has become subconscious

Wal Mart gets it perfect with Wal Mart Pay too.

What is Wal-Mart Pay? In Canada Wal-Mart's self-checkouts are as bad as the rest. Actually, worse, because they force you to walk through this longaze before you can even get to the machines.

You scan a QR code to pay with your saved card. You can also use "Scan & Go" and scan all your items with your phone before you get to the checkout. The self checkouts here work great, no annoying weight sensor or anything and there's a detachable scanner.

("longaze" should be "long maze".)