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Comment by j5eb6ach | Hacker News Reader

Grocery stores figured this out years ago with self-checkout. Scanning each item can be tedious (looking up produce codes, etc.), and yet many customers prefer to scan their own items.

I do not mind at self-checkout when an employee helps to put everything into bags, though.

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really? it's funny, I'm mildly human-avoidant, and I generally avoid the self-checkout unless the lines are significantly shorter because it takes me quite a bit longer to check myself out. First, I've gotta scan everything, and not being a professional, i'm slower than the checkout guy is. Next, the machenes just plain suck. "Unexpected item in bagging area" etc... it takes twice as long, at least, to get through the self checkout than to get the human.

Really, I think 70% of the problem is that the machines, as currently implemented, suck. The other 30% is that scanning barcodes quickly is something of a skill.

I find I tend to use the self-checkout only as a replacement for the express checkout, i.e. I only have a small number of items, that will probably fit in one bag, and that won't require keying in a bunch of product codes. I find in this situation self-checkout is the same or faster than regular. For large numbers of items, however, regular checkout is much better.

Interestingly enough Costco (wholesale consumer goods) removed its self checkout option.

Perhaps since the average transaction there is around $200 with many large sized items (30 rolls of toilet paper).

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