“Self-scan tills” – a convenience, a hindrance, or both?

“Self-scan tills” – a convenience, a hindrance, or both?

I came across the following article at the BBC News website today, and after reading it, it reminded me of something I wanted to write about.

Self-scan supermarket tills and the rows over their use

Stock image of a man using a self-scan

Self-service supermarket tills are supposed to make our lives easier but after years of scanning groceries ourselves, some shoppers are really missing the human touch.

The row over self-scan versus cashier bubbled to the surface this week, after 69-year-old Pat McCarthy started a petition calling for Tesco to “stop replacing people with machines”, swiftly gaining more than 100,000 signatures.

She argues that far from being effortless, her experience can be slow and confusing and she really misses a friendly chat with a cashier.

However, shopping at the same Tesco Extra in Osterley, west London where Ms McCarthy was struggling there is a 74-year-old self-scan supremo.

After reading our story, fellow customer Stefan Przedrzymirski got in touch to sing the praises of the tinny-voiced till.

“Self-service tills are brilliant, even better when you can use the portable scanner and checkout without unloading and reloading your trolley,” he says with enthusiasm.

“I wouldn’t dream of going back to cash and all the faff at the checkout.”

“Self-scan supermarket tills and the rows over their use” – BBC News

Now before I continue I’d like to point out that I am not a complete luddite, and am not totally averse to new technological innovations, and I have used these self-service checkouts myself, but I do have mixed feelings about them.

A few years ago now, I was visiting a relative in London, and I popped round to a nearby Sainsburys Local to pick up a couple of bottles of wine to go with the dinner that was being graciously prepared for me. Being a Sainsburys Local it didn’t have any regular checkouts as such, just a counter with a couple of tills. I’d picked up a couple of bottles of wine, and was waiting in a short line to be served. I had noticed the self-service checkouts, but as there was only a couple of people waiting in front of me, I didn’t mind waiting my turn, even though there was only one assistant serving on the counter.

As I waited in line, another store assistant started to usher me towards the self-service checkout “if that’s all you need”. For some reason, I obliged, though I think I’d already figured out what would happen next.

And I was right – I placed my two bottles of wine on the shelf, and proceeded to scan them. Oh, “age verification required – please wait for assistance” appeared on the screen.

The same assistant, who had seen me holding two bottles of wine but still encouraged me to use the self-service till, then came over and without saying anything – as she could clearly see that I was over 18 – tapped or did something to allow me to proceed with my purchase.

By the time I’d completed my payment, the queue at the counter had gone. So I’d have been better off waiting my turn and paying the human assistant on the counter. And at the time I thought to myself what a waste of time for that other assistant this was.

If she had been servng customers on the other till at the counter, instead of hovering around and badgering customers to use the self-service checkout, then there wouldn’t have been a queue in the first place.

Closer to home and more recently, I used to occasionally shop at the ASDA store in Kings Heath, popping in there after work for bits and pieces really. I’m not one for doing ‘massive shops’, simply because I don’t drive, so can’t carry huge amounts of groceries home with me!

Now at the time that store used to get quite busy. When your shop consists of a small basket of items, it didn’t make sense to wait at the checkouts to be served, not while you have customers emptying trolleyfuls of shopping onto the conveyor belts. So there the self-service checkouts were almost a godsend.

But even so, out of eight self-scan tills provided, on most occasions only half were working, so sometimes you still have people queueing to use them. And you always have staff “hovering around” watching over your shoulder, ready to assist when required.

When your ‘shop’ consists of a few Pot Noodles and pasties for lunch at work, I didn’t mind using these self-service checkouts to be honest, though it did feel like something was ‘missing’ from my shopping experience.

In comparison, I used to live near a huge Tesco Extra store in South Yardley, and I never used the self-service checkouts there, usually because there was either someone manning the ‘basket-only’ checkout, or I was lucky enough to find an empty main checkout to put my ‘bits and pieces’ through.

Call me old-fashioned, but it was nice to actually interact with a human being, and to at least let them serve their ‘purpose’, the reason they were employed to do their job.

If people prefer to scan their own shopping through a self-service checkout then that’s fine with me. Younger folks who are always in a hurry might prefer the ‘convenience’ of being able to scan and pack their own items. But let us not forget that not all folk are as ‘tech-savvy’ as them.

I don’t have a problem with self-service checkouts, as long as it is the choice of the consumer/shopper to use them.

However this article reminds me of a recent trip to Matalan in Stechford, as I needed to buy some new clothes one weekend.

I’d shopped at this store on numerous occasions before, it’s always been easy enough to travel to, and I’m usually able to get what I want or need., and the checkout assistants have always been helpful and friendly.

“Post-pandemic” though, and it’s a different experience now. Basically, unless you’re paying with cash, you can only use the self-service checkout. And its not even a dedicated self-service till, just the same checkout, minus the friendly staff to help you and bag your items.

It was an utterly bizarre experience, you were doing the work that the checkout staff were employed to do, namely to remove any hangers or security tags from the clothing items, and fold those items into a bag so you could carry them away.

And once again, you had some staff member hovering around and directing shoppers towards these improvised ‘self-service’ tills.

Please, at least give shoppers/consumers some choice, rather than trying to force them. Like I said, I’m not a complete Luddite, but I do wonder how many other people have been put off by this experience, I’m certainly reticent to physically shop in a Matalan store as a result of this.

I certainly found the whole experience very off-putting.

Of course, the other aspect to ‘self-service’ checkouts is that they are very much open to fraud. Now of course I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing and I wouldn’t encourage anyone to think about doing this, but when ‘self-scanning’, although there is usually someone hovering around, it would be easy enough to ‘forget’ or pretend to scan one or two items, and you could walk out with a freebie or two.

At the end of the day, its about saving companies money by reducing the number of staff they have to employ. And the ‘pandemic’ became a great excuse for shops like Matalan to introduce self-service checkouts, all in the name of ‘avoiding contact’.

People may think these things are a ‘convenience’, but next time you use one, just think about who may have lost their job. Because it could be you next…

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