The failure of self-checkout technology

Re:The failure of self-checkout technology by mrbadguy on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @07:26AM (#39012541)

I think the self-checkout suffers from a fairly common fact: it doesn’t actually save any labour, just now the customer does the scanning instead of an employee. Of course, the argument goes that you can have more of them as opposed to staffed tills but that doesn’t actually seem to be working out as per TFA since they’re expensive to install.

One thing that I have seen actually adding value is where there’s a scanner that you carry around and scan items as you pick them up (some shops can let you do this with your phone's camera). This does save time and you simply pay at the end and don’t need to scan and bag everything since you’ve been doing that on the go.

Of course, these days I use the delivery service and get groceries delivered once a week so that’s kind of the ultimate convenience ;)

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Re:The failure of self-checkout technology by shellfishgene on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @01:44AM (#39024095)

Why would stores invest so much into the self checkout tech if it does not save labor/cost?

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Re:The failure of self-checkout technology by dekleinewolf on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @04:24AM (#39025385)

The point is that the labor is moved to the customer (and is now unpaid labor). So it's not 'less labor' but it is definitely 'less labor costs'.

Think 'serverless' technology - there is still a server, it's just no longer owned by you.

Seeing how the customer had to wait for the labor to be executed anyway in the past, I see this as a win.

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Re:The failure of self-checkout technology by thanatos519 on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @06:19AM (#39026290)

I end up with better-packed bags at scan-at-the-end self-checkout than with scan-as-you-go or clerk-and-conveyor.

I wander around putting things in the cart, and then at self-checkout I sort and balance it all into bags. If I was scanning as I went, I couldn't carry everything. If I put it on a conveyor belt for staff to scan, then I don't have time to sort or balance when repacking.

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Re:The failure of self-checkout technology by randomAlex on Saturday January 20, 2024 @02:47AM (#39065528)

-- : it doesn’t actually save any labour, just now the customer does the scanning instead of an employee. Labor - yes, but a customer still need to be present all the time while cashier does the work. So self-checkout allows only 1 person to "waste" time

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