After many supermarkets and mini marts installing self checkouts, one supermarket has finally taken the decision to stop the rollout and installation of such machines.
Reported by Sky, “Supermarket chain Booths is to remove self-checkouts from stores – saying having staff at tills is better for customers”.
I saw this reported a couple of weeks ago and had to agree. Tonight when using the self checkout at a well known supermarket, the experience was the usual annoying experience. Scanning items to be told to put items back and rescan. You then require an assistant to help and then to top it all, a machine telling you that they are recording.
A serious review of the self checkout experience needs to happen. Walking out of a store frustrated by the self checkout cannot be the intended experience. And when you need help, many of these stores have less staff.
CNN reported “According to a 2021 survey of 1,000 shoppers, 67% said they’d experienced a failure at the self-checkout lane. The stores also struggle with them because they’re expensive to install, often break down and can lead to customers purchasing fewer items”.
Most times I have used self checkout, I have needed to call for assistance with shop floors empty of staff. My wife also advised that she constantly has scanned items checked for accuracy by certain supermarket stores.
Ways to improve the technology and how it operates needs to happen. Hopefully a larger supermarket will come to their senses with others following. But for the foreseeable future it appears to be that we may be stuck with self checkout machines offering a poor experience.
