Real People Check-Outs

I use the self service tills every time and the scan as you shop if I'm doing a "big" shop. I don't get the big objection to them, they're pretty simple to use.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
I use self check out 100% of the time where possible. Ideally I will use self scan as well so that when you get to the checkout you are just paying - Asda and Tesco do it. In your example even if the manager had to stay there the rest of his career that is still going to be cheaper than having a checkout assistant on every till, so in reality they will still go down that route.

Checkouts wont be around much longer imo - companies wont be able to afford not to use them because all the competition will be. Nice story, but with Booths having 28 branches they are a drop in the ocean.

Also from that article:
"We stock quite a lot of loose items - fruit and veg and bakery - and as soon as you go to a self-scan with those you've got to get a visual verification on them, and some customers don't know one different apple versus another for example," he added.
Frankly bizarre - at pretty much every supermarket I've used these on, there are machines in those areas that you push a touch screen and it weighs and prints a label which you then scan. No-one has to do a visual verification, and customers pick the item that they've just literally picked up - there's even a picture to help.

"There's all sorts of fussing about with that and then the minute you put any alcohol in your basket somebody's got to come and check that you're of the right age."
100% does happen but you usually have 2-3 people covering about 14 checkouts, age verification takes about 20 seconds to do and remove the alarm device.

Lets say a checkout assistant is on £20k, so with pension, benefits and everything added in we might give them a fully loaded cost of approx. £32k. If you have 14 tills, then you need 14 people to staff them. That's half a million pounds for 14 tills - but obviously them people aren't working all the time, they phone in sick, theyre on holiday or its their day off, so you need more than 14 people to man 14 tills at peak, as well as quieter periods where you have unused tills not being used so taking up floor space.

Them 14 tills covered by 3 members of staff costs £96000 - there's of course the cost of the self checkouts, but regular checkouts don't come for free so its fairly comparable. There's also no cash for errors to be made or staff theft as its all counted, someone cant pull a knife on a self checkout machine, and they're all recorded.

It is unhaltable progress - they've already gotten vastly better over the last few years, that will continue.
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A checkout assistant on 20K a year, really? I think I've met both of them, both of them working in Waitrose in St. Helier.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
As for self-service, I don't believe for one moment they will get rid of them but I've never met anyone, other than yourself, who thinks they bring something to the party.
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I use self service pretty much every single time unless I'm doing a really big shop. It works and is faster 99% of the time. Sometimes there is something that doesn't go through right but it's really not that often. I don't mind using the cashier at Aldi or Lidl but everywhere else is unnecessarily slow.

It doesn't make sense for me to take something out of my trolley, wait for it to move along a belt, have someone else beep it, send it down another belt and then I have to pick it up and pack it when I can just beep it and put it straight into my bag myself. Then there is further delays because the cashier wants a chat because their job is boring.

I'm all for keeping people employed but employing someone to do something that doesn't need doing instead of finding something more useful/interesting doesn't have to be it.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
you're gonna be upset when you realise that Aldi pay £12.30 an hour which is £23k a year 😂

The minimum wage for over 23's in the uk is 10.42 which is £20319
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If they can get a full time position.. ( which might not be possible, cos of , you know, self service tills )
At least Maureen in her 50s will be able to retrain though .. 🙈
Automation sounds great , until it's your nearest and dearests jobs getting made ' superfluous '
 
outoftown said:
If they can get a full time position.. ( which might not be possible, cos of , you know, self service tills )
At least Maureen in her 50s will be able to retrain though .. 🙈
Automation sounds great , until it's your nearest and dearests jobs getting made ' superfluous '
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That's not automation though, what you are describing is progress, there is a good chance that your job and the jobs of most people you know replaced someone else's job at some point in time, or has elements of it that would be done by other people. The device you are reading this one will probably have been made in china instead of a Sheffield factory because it's cheaper to do so and people also wouldn't pay the price if it was double or more.

Ever used an alarm clock? 'Cos Maureen may have had a stable income tapping on people's window for a penny at 5am staying up to make sure she's awake to do so... but then someone invented a bloody clock that makes a noise, at a set time, poor Maureen. or perhaps a fridge? She could have been slogging ice out of cellar or cave. She doesn't have much luck, does she? You probably don't mind that unions brought workers rights so we don't send kids down mines anymore and we have better working conditions.

perhaps Maureen could have had work delivering telegrams or even postal work. She could even have joined the army and been helping chuck stones into catapults if some hadn't invented the missile. Or maybe she could have been a seamstress. Pesky looms!

Like nano said above, you can't keep doing a thing when there is a better way just to keep people in work, the world does not work that way. Everyone else will, and you'll be the only person that doesn't do it, your costs will be much higher than everyone else's and you'll stagnate. When your business closes Maureen won't have a job at all which isn't as good a having less jobs available.

Supermarket will still need staff for stock, customer service, maintenance, security, cleaning etc but there will also be additional jobs for design, maintenance, programming, efficiency etc and those jobs will be paying much better albeit less of them. But that's always been the way of things - 60 years ago there weren't a huge swathe of programmers, IT engineers, cybersecurity analysts, penetration testers, business analysts and so on a it was very niche but now people of all walks of life can get into it. When I used to work at Barclays they had runners - people who were literally employed to take stuff from one team to another as we didn't have emails. The older ladies and gents told stories about how credit card transactions used to be processed - you'd be sat with stacks of tickets in massive piles, you'd process them on a computer with one hand, with a fag in the other and an ashtray on the desk. The good old days - paper, lit cigarettes and clouds of smoke - glad i missed out on that.

On my team we have a 19 year old graduate automation analyst and we have a 60 year old woman who has just moved into a business analyst role with no experience of the job, but a wealth of experience in the industry and the business. It really isn't that hard to learn to process map especially when you know the processes inside and out

50 year olds by and large aren't thick and they certainly aren't incapable of retraining for another role, and a lot of people do work full time hours for supermarkets, so yes many will be on 20k, and with overtime and shift allowances even more. Plus many will make use of friends and family staff discount, usually 10%, saving money off the bottom line. Many supermarkets struggle to fill positions and retain staff because it's for many a starter role to get some experience or something to do before uni. Others just enjoy it and do it as a career. Our local Tesco is always advertising in store and on our town Facebook group.

I've been made redundant twice. Both times I've retrained and used it as an opportunity, and the jobs I've gone into have been better both times. I've not got a degree and struggle with structured learning, didn't get great college grades either, so if I can learn something new I'm sure Maureen can have a go. It's what people have been doing as long as there have been jobs. I could have applied for another job if I was just happy plodding along, no shame in that as not everyone is ambitious - I'm quite happy where I am now and don't want any additional responsibilities, but I am glad I got to this point as I now earn over 4x what I used to earn, and my work is much more interesting and engaging.

About 50% of our team were Maureen's. Finance changes a lot. 20% are grad students, most of which stick around after the course. the rest career change people.

Used to be a lot of contractors but we've had better success paying people to go to uni and offering them a role once the course is completed, and taking people from the customer facing roles as they have business experience.
 
I prefer Self scan with a trolley using your own bags to pack as you shop its so much easier. I tend to avoid tills with people i cant stand the chit chat but i can appreciate it might be the only chat some people get in a day. I absolutely hate the way aldi and lidl scan your stuff and fling it at you at a 100 miles an hour
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
That's not automation though, what you are describing is progress, there is a good chance that your job and the jobs of most people you know replaced someone else's job at some point in time, or has elements of it that would be done by other people. The device you are reading this one will probably have been made in china instead of a Sheffield factory because it's cheaper to do so and people also wouldn't pay the price if it was double or more.

Ever used an alarm clock? 'Cos Maureen may have had a stable income tapping on people's window for a penny at 5am staying up to make sure she's awake to do so... but then someone invented a bloody clock that makes a noise, at a set time, poor Maureen. or perhaps a fridge? She could have been slogging ice out of cellar or cave. She doesn't have much luck, does she? You probably don't mind that unions brought workers rights so we don't send kids down mines anymore and we have better working conditions.

perhaps Maureen could have had work delivering telegrams or even postal work. She could even have joined the army and been helping chuck stones into catapults if some hadn't invented the missile. Or maybe she could have been a seamstress. Pesky looms!

Like nano said above, you can't keep doing a thing when there is a better way just to keep people in work, the world does not work that way. Everyone else will, and you'll be the only person that doesn't do it, your costs will be much higher than everyone else's and you'll stagnate. When your business closes Maureen won't have a job at all which isn't as good a having less jobs available.

Supermarket will still need staff for stock, customer service, maintenance, security, cleaning etc but there will also be additional jobs for design, maintenance, programming, efficiency etc and those jobs will be paying much better albeit less of them. But that's always been the way of things - 60 years ago there weren't a huge swathe of programmers, IT engineers, cybersecurity analysts, penetration testers, business analysts and so on a it was very niche but now people of all walks of life can get into it. When I used to work at Barclays they had runners - people who were literally employed to take stuff from one team to another as we didn't have emails. The older ladies and gents told stories about how credit card transactions used to be processed - you'd be sat with stacks of tickets in massive piles, you'd process them on a computer with one hand, with a fag in the other and an ashtray on the desk. The good old days - paper, lit cigarettes and clouds of smoke - glad i missed out on that.

On my team we have a 19 year old graduate automation analyst and we have a 60 year old woman who has just moved into a business analyst role with no experience of the job, but a wealth of experience in the industry and the business. It really isn't that hard to learn to process map especially when you know the processes inside and out

50 year olds by and large aren't thick and they certainly aren't incapable of retraining for another role, and a lot of people do work full time hours for supermarkets, so yes many will be on 20k, and with overtime and shift allowances even more. Plus many will make use of friends and family staff discount, usually 10%, saving money off the bottom line. Many supermarkets struggle to fill positions and retain staff because it's for many a starter role to get some experience or something to do before uni. Others just enjoy it and do it as a career. Our local Tesco is always advertising in store and on our town Facebook group.

I've been made redundant twice. Both times I've retrained and used it as an opportunity, and the jobs I've gone into have been better both times. I've not got a degree and struggle with structured learning, didn't get great college grades either, so if I can learn something new I'm sure Maureen can have a go. It's what people have been doing as long as there have been jobs. I could have applied for another job if I was just happy plodding along, no shame in that as not everyone is ambitious - I'm quite happy where I am now and don't want any additional responsibilities, but I am glad I got to this point as I now earn over 4x what I used to earn, and my work is much more interesting and engaging.

About 50% of our team were Maureen's. Finance changes a lot. 20% are grad students, most of which stick around after the course. the rest career change people.

Used to be a lot of contractors but we've had better success paying people to go to uni and offering them a role once the course is completed, and taking people from the customer facing roles as they have business experience.
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When I was still welding in the 90’s, I worked for a company (Pre-Star) in Cambridgeshire that made the chassis for the Vauxhall Vectra. The company struggled to calibrate the robot’s to weld the chassis’s and no matter what they did the robots kept on getting it wrong and they would fall inspection (human error I know).

I spent roughly 6 months doing this job before taking a less paid job at home due to the wife about to give birth to my youngest son. A few of the lads I traveled with spent over a year working on that line.

There was four sections on two 12 hour shifts welding the chassis and each section welded 12 per hour and each shift completed 576 per shift. That makes 2,880 chassis per week for each shift. The majority of chassis on the Vectra were hand welded to meet Vauxhall’s demand at its Bedfordshire plants.

What I am saying in a long winded reply is, automation doesn’t always work and you need that human element to work alongside it and knock on the windows to wake people up.
 
I tell you what boils my p1ss

The Tesco in my town (which has a monopoly as it’s the only supermarket in the town) has recently redesigned the checkouts.

Theres about 10 manned checkouts 8 of which are never bloody open.

So everyone has to go through the self scan.

So I go down there at lunchtime for my Tesco meal deal and I have to stand queueing for half a bloody hour waiting for Doris and her daughter, and Fred Bloggs all putting through a their full trolly loads on the self scan.

I use them but self scan tills are yet another gradual reduction to our quality of lives if you ask me.
 
Scan and shop is miles quicker, but self service for a trolley shop is just irritating and takes twice as long as it should because of constant issues with the tills detecting the weight of the items.
 
We are all different so there should be a range of ways to pay for your shopping depending on the type of person you are.
If you're the type that continually tuts, aggressively nudges the person Infront you in the queue with your trolley or hovers over the cash reader when the other shopper is paying then you should have the option to self scan as you career around the store or fly through the self scan tills.
If you're not in a particular rush, be that because you're not as spry as you used to be, don't like all the new tech or simply want a more personal experience then you should have the option to use a manned till.
The problem seems to be when shopping type A and shopping type B described above end up mixing.
I'm a bit of both, as well as the sort of person who will actively go out of my way to slow down if the person behind me is trying to jab me with a trolley, complaining about the staff or the elderly person infront of me at the manned till 😁
 
Nobby_Barnes said:
I NEVER EVER use the self service checkouts out of principle, I don't care how long I have to wait for a real person to serve me....

If you use self service you are doing people out of jobs....👍
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Unless you work for a company that builds, installs and maintains the self service tills 😜
 
Norman_Conquest said:
When I was still welding in the 90’s, I worked for a company (Pre-Star) in Cambridgeshire that made the chassis for the Vauxhall Vectra. The company struggled to calibrate the robot’s to weld the chassis’s and no matter what they did the robots kept on getting it wrong and they would fall inspection (human error I know).

I spent roughly 6 months doing this job before taking a less paid job at home due to the wife about to give birth to my youngest son. A few of the lads I traveled with spent over a year working on that line.

There was four sections on two 12 hour shifts welding the chassis and each section welded 12 per hour and each shift completed 576 per shift. That makes 2,880 chassis per week for each shift. The majority of chassis on the Vectra were hand welded to meet Vauxhall’s demand at its Bedfordshire plants.

What I am saying in a long winded reply is, automation doesn’t always work and you need that human element to work alongside it and knock on the windows to wake people up.
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Automation doesn't always work but the majority of time it does. Manual labour doesn't always work and is often hugely inefficient.

Guessing you don't pay someone to knock on your window to get you up for work because a few quid for an alarm clock does the job better, and now people have alarms on phones, or voice assissabts, so entire factories of people that used to make alarm clocks are now doing other jobs because demand for them is probably far lower.

Scanning shopping definitely isn't welding either.

TeaCider said:
Scan and shop is miles quicker, but self service for a trolley shop is just irritating and takes twice as long as it should because of constant issues with the tills detecting the weight of the items.
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This is why scan and shop will eventually replace many original self service tills as that way by the time you get to the till you've already packed. Less "unexpected item in baggage area" etc.

When we go to Tesco and Asda it's just a trolley with bags in, stuff gets scanned and immediately bagged. Get to fill, scan barcode, get any refracted items approved and contactless payment - done in 60 seconds.

Even if there is a service check, which is rare after you've had a few, it's a random 10 item scan.

Amazon has stores that auto charges items as you put them in your basket or trolley, no need to "check out". Apple lets you pay for smaller items like cases or chargers on their app and walk out. No employee required - that frees up employees to deal with more complex and higher value transactions and reduces wait time for everyone.
 
Rarely use an actual check out these days, usually a longer wait time which doesn't work for me.

There's a small local Sainsbury not far from me that only has checkouts still, must be a rarity these days.

Amazon Fresh is surely the model going forward anyway? Scan in, take items, auto pay. Soooo easy.
 
I'm more annoyed by the reduction in ability to pay by cash at the self service tills. Tesco southbank has around 10 self service tills only 2 of which now accept cash as well as card. Queues form as those who can only pay with cash are stood waiting whilst people paying by card go ahead of them, surely this is discrimination. Always feel guilty when I go in front of a cash payer, feel like Iam queue jumping.
 
I very rarely use self check out and if there's not a sales person at a till I'll normally pop to the next shop that has one.

I'm rarely in that much if a hurry to get back in to the message board so I can have a natter to other shoppers in the queue and the till assistant.

Time is valuable, I don't want to waste it doing an unpaid job for a supermarket.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Automation doesn't always work but the majority of time it does. Manual labour doesn't always work and is often hugely inefficient.

Guessing you don't pay someone to knock on your window to get you up for work because a few quid for an alarm clock does the job better, and now people have alarms on phones, or voice assissabts, so entire factories of people that used to make alarm clocks are now doing other jobs because demand for them is probably far lower.

Scanning shopping definitely isn't welding either.


This is why scan and shop will eventually replace many original self service tills as that way by the time you get to the till you've already packed. Less "unexpected item in baggage area" etc.

When we go to Tesco and Asda it's just a trolley with bags in, stuff gets scanned and immediately bagged. Get to fill, scan barcode, get any refracted items approved and contactless payment - done in 60 seconds.

Even if there is a service check, which is rare after you've had a few, it's a random 10 item scan.

Amazon has stores that auto charges items as you put them in your basket or trolley, no need to "check out". Apple lets you pay for smaller items like cases or chargers on their app and walk out. No employee required - that frees up employees to deal with more complex and higher value transactions and reduces wait time for everyone.
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Having a chat with a self service scanner is pretty one side though
 
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