Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Grocers

netbuzz writes "The law of unintended consequences is taking a chomp out of grocery chain profits as more stores transition from human clerks to self-service checkout technology, thus reducing the time shoppers spend in line and under the temptation of impulse items. That's the upshot of research being released tomorrow by IHL Consulting Group in Franklin, Tenn., which provides market analysis to the retail industry and its IT vendors."

Comments

Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs

[PresidentEnder]

I work at Home Depot, as a cashier. I can back up all of parent's statements; people lose about fifty IQ points when faced with the self checkout. That's why ours have a cashier supervising them.

Think about it. When you're in the self-checkout, you're focused on getting things done, scanning your items (or staring at the barcode wondering what's wrong); when you're at a regular cashier, he's the one doing the work. You sit there and... what? Look around, listen to his dumb jokes, and (more importantly) notice the overpriced altoid knock-offs and useless 37-cent clamps.

That, or it could have something to do with the fact that there usually aren't any impulse items right next to (or in front of) the self check-out registers. Just maybe.

Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs

[synaptik]

Both you and the GP forgot to mention: the assinine weight scales on those infernal self-checkout machines. I get so tired of hearing "PLEASE PLACE ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA!" when I've ALREADY PLACED THE FRICKIN' SCANNED ITEM IN THE FRICKIN' BAGGING AREA! You also hear this one when you've filled up all the space on the weigh-scale, and need to move those filled bags back to the shopping cart, to make room for the rest of the crap you've still needing to scan.

Nor did you mention its complement, "PLEASE REMOVE ANOMOLOUS ITEM FROM BAGGING AREA!" just because it thinks the last thing I put there weighs too much.

Damn, those are annoying! It is impossible to get any reasonable throughput on those $#@! self-checkout stands. It routinely takes 2x-3x longer than necessary-- especially if you're buying those little packages of 5 washers-- because of that stupid weight scale. (Yes, I know about the "skip bagging" button, but (a) that's almost just as annoying, and (b) in many retailers, if you hit that button too often, the machine locks up until a human can come make certain you're not trying to steal.

Seriously... just migrate to RFID already, and be done with this weight-scale nonsense!

Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs

[Anonymous Coward]

The local grocery store here has self-scan checkouts, and they STILL have cashiers standing at the bag-area in order to prevent you from shoplifting. The store has also used the existence of the self-scan area to actually reduce the number of cashiers on duty, so the regular lines are pretty long.

Many times I have been standing in line at the cashier, and the 'wandering' cashier will come up to me and say "You can take your stuff to the self-scan". I use the usual reply:

"Do I get a discount for using the self-scan?"

Of course, they say there isn't, "Well, then I'll stay right here then".

As far as I'm concerned, if you want me to do your job for you, I get a discount. Otherwise I'll stay in line and make you run every piece of crap over that scanner. All the self-scan is is an excuse to not pay cashiers. Demand a discount if they don't want to pay people to checkout your stuff.