Adult Children by Stephen Beals for September 04, 2023

Lard to like

Our scanner scans from 2 angles, it can find the upc by itself if you wave the box around long enough

That customer makes a good point. If you’re doing the cashier’s job, you should at least get his discount.

It’s funny that customers think all us retail employees, get a discount!

All of the stores I’ve seen still have the attended lane option. She can have the patience to wait in the cashier’s line or deal with the machine. Her “discount” is the time she expected to save by using the machine.

I actually like the newer smarter self-checkouts.

“Do I get an employee discount for using the self checkout?” has become the new “If it doesn’t scan it must be free” joke repeated ad nauseum.

Target and Walmart have seen a 50% increase in shoplifting since they went to self-checkout. The Target CEO blames lax crime punishment.

When I lived elsewhere the nearby grocery store had self checkout. I was shunted to it when the cashier closed her register and the other lines were long. 6 – 7 in the two open lines. It was a Safeway and it’s parent company had an advertising catch phrase, “Three’s a crowd.” which meant that if a checkout line was 3 or more they would open a new one. The lines got longer. I took my cart to the self-checkout and took my discount. And every time I came back to that store until we moved.

I didn’t realize that she works at Walmart.

That’s why self checkout lanes are slow. They’re manned by inexperienced, inefficient and slow people called customers.

If self-checkout really saved the store money, then Aldi would adopt it in a heartbeat. Aldi is relentlessly searching for economies (no free bags, 25 cent deposit on carts so they don’t have to chase the in the parking lot, mostly store brand merchandise, limited choices to shave inventory cost, etc.). But I’ve not seen a self-checkout at Aldi. (Let me know if I’m wrong.) So I suspect shrinkage eliminates most of the savings from self-checkout.