Northern English supermarkets remove self service

[Lilith7]

Several supermarkets in Lancashire have removed their self service checkouts after feedback from customers.


https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-67373472


"Supermarket chain Booths is axing almost all self-service tills in its stores in what it says is a response to customer demand.
All but two of the 28 stores run by the company, which trades in northern England, will have staffed checkouts.


The exceptions are Keswick and Windermere, two of its Cumbria shops.
The firm, which has 16 stores in Lancashire as well as outlets in Yorkshire and Cheshire, said the policy was driven by customer feedback.
Booths is believed to be the first UK supermarket to move away from using self-service tills, which have become increasingly common in recent years.


"We believe colleagues serving customers delivers a better customer experience and therefore we have taken the decision to remove self-checkouts in the majority of our stores," the company said.
Mr Murray added: "We are a business that prides ourselves on the high standards and high levels of warm, personal care.
"We like to talk to people and we're really proud that we're moving largely to a place where our customers are served by people, by human beings, so rather than artificial intelligence, we're going for actual intelligence."

[zqwerty]

They need to bring back more cash tills as well, less card.

[Zurdo]

They don't have them at my Countdown...they don't seem to have many checkout operators either. Just one yesterday. I used a self service at Bunnings today - duh, I need help with these things. I feel like a doddery old fart not being able to follow the simple onscreen instructions...does the card go here...or here...maybe here ?

[nzoomed]

Most of our self service tills don't even allow cash anymore.
A bit annoying when I have some cash in my wallet I want to use.

[Lilith7]

I only use cash too & some of the local self service checkouts in the supermarket only use cards, which would be annoying if I wanted to use one. Luckily I don't because I'd
rather people kept their jobs, so don't use the damned things.

Maybe this might catch on everywhere, across the entire world.

[SueDonim]

I've found supermarket self check reasonably OK once you get it figured out but I usually shop in a big lot at a time so rarely use it. I asked them once why it has a limit on number of items and it's because it's part of the emergency exit so has to be able to be cleared quickly.

In the article, I picked up on "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". Haha, even the staff here don't know which fruit is which. They are lost if they can't see the little labels we hate so much.

I hate the self-service at Kmart big time. I can have a happy shopping experience until I get to the Blxxxx Checkout. Then the confusion starts. Do I have/need a bag? No, I don't have a bag but also don't need one. Take items out of trolley to get ready for scanning. Then have to put them all back in because the items needing to be scanned don't fit in the place they are supposed to. Then same issue in the bagging area. Anything bigger than a t-shirt doesn't fit but the sensor needs to know that you have put it there after scanning. Then something has an unreadable barcode so the assistant has to look it up on the computer to print a barcode to use. And so on. The staff are great, but the they hate the system as much as I do. It's a pity because I recently discovered that Kmart actually does have some useful products. But my shopping experience always ends on a sour note.

One thing that I expected to see in newly built supermarkets is the system where the trolley records what goes in so that when you get to the checkout you just need to pay. It doesn't seem to have arrived in NZ yet but that would be good. Maybe it's too open to abuse to work here.

[Lilith7]

I've found supermarket self check reasonably OK once you get it figured out but I usually shop in a big lot at a time so rarely use it. I asked them once why it has a limit on number of items and it's because it's part of the emergency exit so has to be able to be cleared quickly.

In the article, I picked up on "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". Haha, even the staff here don't know which fruit is which. They are lost if they can't see the little labels we hate so much.

I hate the self-service at Kmart big time. I can have a happy shopping experience until I get to the Blxxxx Checkout. Then the confusion starts. Do I have/need a bag? No, I don't have a bag but also don't need one. Take items out of trolley to get ready for scanning. Then have to put them all back in because the items needing to be scanned don't fit in the place they are supposed to. Then same issue in the bagging area. Anything bigger than a t-shirt doesn't fit but the sensor needs to know that you have put it there after scanning. Then something has an unreadable barcode so the assistant has to look it up on the computer to print a barcode to use. And so on. The staff are great, but the they hate the system as much as I do. It's a pity because I recently discovered that Kmart actually does have some useful products. But my shopping experience always ends on a sour note.

One thing that I expected to see in newly built supermarkets is the system where the trolley records what goes in so that when you get to the checkout you just need to pay. It doesn't seem to have arrived in NZ yet but that would be good. Maybe it's too open to abuse to work here.

That could work quite well if they can cope with people putting stuff in & then taking it out again due to wrong size or whatever, & avoiding abuse too.