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Comment by the-dude | Hacker News Reader

My favorite supermarket has regular and 'quick' checkouts. I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

I love the quick self service checkouts and will line up for them even when a regular staffed checkout is free. I’m just the opposite and instead dislike interaction I guess.

One implicit benefit of the self-service checkouts is that there's often one line for multiple machines. Any student of queuing theory will know how much this reduces waiting time compared to the one queue per cashier that's otherwise common.

This one gets me every time. I’ve only ever seen a couple super markets or stores implement this for human-operated check out stations. Ross has this, and Best Buy used to during the holidays.

Trader Joe’s does it also, at least in LA.

that’s odd, none of the trader joes’s i usually go to in LA regularly have a single line. i’ve seen it irregularly, and seemingly temporarily (when especially busy perhaps).

I've seen this in NYC too

Ironically, some smaller stores near me have implemented this just the past few months. The covid-19 rules that stipulate only a few people in the stores have created a single queue outside the store, for all cashiers!

I would honestly be fine with making that permanent. It's so much easier to pick the things I want with fewer people between me and the shelves. All in all a much more efficient shopping experience.

Can't stand Ross in downtown SF for this reason. You get placed in the same queue as the high-hagglers who have nineteen dozen coupons and constantly argue with the checkout agents. They then clog up all available slots.

At least at Safeway I can spot the kind of person who looks like they value their time and it'll usually go faster.

I'll literally never shop at Ross again because it takes forever to exit their damned queue.

The model works better at Trader Joe's in SF where it's mostly people who value their time. You can then be confident all the counters won't be used by slow people.

Speaking about friction on leaving. That's one of the big reasons I don't go to the Walmart near me anymore. They added aggressive receipt checkers.

That's a good point. Trader Joe's appears to use this approach even for their human cashiers.

> [one que for multiple cashiers] reduces waiting time compared to the one queue per cashier

Is this really correct? Shouldn't one grand queue just decrease variance, not average?

I Think the intuition is that queuing time is asymmetric around the median, so when you increase variance you also increase the mean.

Put another way: if the median is 1 minute, then half the time you'll wait less than 1 minute. The other half you might wait not just for 2 minutes, but significantly more. They won't "cancel out" to preserve the mean.

Whenever I use self service checkout, it always takes much longer time for me to get through. I guess I am not so good at quickly juggling and locating bar codes at each item as the staff working at checkout are. So I leave it to professionals.

I’m slower also, but I still think it’s worth doing myself to avoid interaction.

In addition to avoiding interaction, I also prefer not standing there awkwardly while people work for me. I can't help the checkout clerk scan my groceries faster, and (if there is one in that lane) I'd just get in the way of the baggers, so I just have to stand there letting them serve me. I don't like that feeling of power/superiority/(not quite sure how to phrase it). It's the same reason I don't like mani pedis.

Alternative viewpoint:

They'd really rather you not get in their way, anyway. It isn't awkward for them until you try to help. They enjoy the feeling of power/superiority they have over you. That's why they smile while you stand there naval gazing.

Agreed. I find it easier to interact with people in service situations if they're responsible for the whole experience. The point of going to a restaurant or a barbershop or getting take-out is that you're leaving the whole process in someone else's hands.

A checkout clerk just feels like a weird adjunct to the whole process. I walked to the store, pushed the cart around and grabbed all my items, yet somehow someone else has to do the quickest and easiest part for me?

Resident in Sweden here and heavy user of the self-checkout. My experience is that self-checkout is slightly slower than the serviced one. For a serviced checkout I try to put all bar-codes towards the cashiers scanner (it is a nice thing to do, the cashiers do not like juggling either) when putting stuff on the belt and I will need to unpack from my basket, pay and pack it to my bag. The same is operations needs to be done for the self-checkout but even the best setups needs some managing of the machine that the cashier would have parallelized in a serviced one. Usually it is slightly more fiddly to do packaging and scanning on a self-checkout system than on a serviced larger belt.

However, considering that there are usually many more self-checkout terminals available with much less queue it means that the total time spent is less than on a service one. My local store, open until 23, usually closes down the self-checkout terminals the last hour since there are too few people to make it worthwhile and you rarely have a queue to the serviced station.

So I totally agree that the serf service checkout is slower for that actual station but considering that the store can cram in much more of those in the same space and they need much less personnel to manage it saves everyone time and money to use them, unless there is no queue to the serviced checkout (and personnel is manning it at the moment).

that’s my experience too: because i am serializing unloading, scanning, paying, bagging, and reloading, the checkout process itself is longer, but when buying only a few items and including line wait times, total time is usually shorter.

> serf service

Typo or deliberate?

Here in the UK some stores offer a handheld wireless scanner at the entrance to the store (and some chains offer an app so you can use your phone too)

You then scan items as you pick them off the shelf - if you're really prepared you put the item directly into a bag you brought with you.

Payment is then a case of walking up to the till - human or machine - and scanning one final barcode. Your order is presented to you for a final review then you tap your card and leave.

Arriving at the till and paying instantly means my entire queuing experience is over within 5-10 seconds

(Unless you get subjected to an infrequent random poll of your items but these are worth the occasional hassle)

Hopefully you get something similar implemented!

QFC tried this in the Seattle area. I actually never tried because it feels more cumbersome than just scanning everything at once.

Also, scales to price veggies and fruits are at checkouts in the states. If they had them in the veggie area, like in much of Europe, things might be really different.

Do the scales potentially have to be there by weights and measures laws?

No idea. In Europe you put weigh them in the veggie section, type the code in, put the sticker on your bag. In China, the same thing happens, except there is an attendant to do it for you.

The USA, this is always done at checkout. If it was a law making that happen, it would have to be at the state level.

This does exist in many bigger stores in Sweden too, and it's bliss.

> I enjoy the interaction with the employees.

If you want to pay for someone to be social with you why not do that separately to shopping? Seems funny to try to mix the two.

Efficiency. Chat and shop. It’s a twofer. And if you like interaction but not having to get to close, it’s great.

But it's not efficient, is it? These people could be doing something more productive with their time than staffing a checkout in order to make small talk.

They are. It's called building goodwill.

Actually at my favorite supermarket these people are not only staffing checkouts, they are running the store : there are no managers to be seen.

I enjoy seeing this group of young people given such a broad responsibility and I acknowledge them and their stellar job. And they acknowledge me.

But who am I, I just enjoy Old Europe.

I have heard from employees at supermarkets that shrinkage with self checkout is elevated to the point it does not really matter.

You mean theft? Isn't shrinkage just term for employee theft?

I do mean theft. I am not a native speaker and thought shrinkage applied to both.

My understanding is shrinkage typically refers to the sum total of all product received but unsellable, whether from theft, spoilage, or or breakage.

Shrinkage is.. "an allowance made for reduction in the earnings of a business due to wastage or theft."

More efficient for the company, perhaps (though self checkouts are typically still manned, though at a reduced rate). But much less efficient for the customers.

Who do you optimize for? IMO, ideally not the company.

> But much less efficient for the customers.

I don't know what your experience is, but I always find self-checkout massively more efficient for me and I'd always prefer it and would choose shops that offer it over those that don't.

I can just breeze through with my AirPods still in listening to my podcast, not having to wait for anyone else or have anyone else wait for me, not having to say anything, and just get on with the rest of my day and what I really want to spend my time doing.

Is it really more efficient (faster, lower effort, etc), or are you just busy (as opposed to idle)?

It’s faster because there’s 20 open machines and I don’t have to wait in a queue.

It’s lower effort because talking is a bigger cognitive burden for me than scanning a few items. Over time with experience, you get as fast as an employee would be anyway.

I’m not aware of any decent services that let you be social for only 90 seconds.

I like human cashiers because they are faster than me+robot. So I tolerate the chitchat for their efficiency.

And I never really want to optimize for typing in codes for the price of lemons and whatnot.

You are stretching things out of proportion. I am not paying them for the interaction.

The casual interactivity is what I would call the 'gravy' of society. They know I recognize/know them, and I know they recognize/know me.

It's not only that, it's the fact that the stores have externalised the checkout process to customers themselves.

I could never understood why should I, as a client, do the work that someone else can do for me (and more reliably, of course)? It's win-win, I'm not stressed at doing something wrong, I can do something else while my products are checked out and that person doing the product checkout also has a job.

But because it sounds tech-y and more automatic-y lots of tech-literate people fall for all of this, I don't see what's more automatic in me doing the same work that another person used to do.

> I can do something else while my products are checked out

But the point is we don't need the 'while my products are checked out' step. We could skip that. You save time, save more people handling what you're buying, save them having to staff a checkout and freeing them to do something else instead. That's the real win-win.

> freeing them to do something else instead.

Yes, the'll be busy looking for other jobs.

I think it's demeaning to employ people to do something that is so clearly not necessary. If we want to create and possibly subsidise jobs for people let's create useful, productive jobs.

Like what, "door dasher"? "uber driver"?

The economy is developing in the wrong direction. We are not on track for happy automation.

Hopefully something more useful to society. We still need better mousetraps.

In these stores, cashiers are waiting around most of the time. That's the issue. They couldn't stay in business because they had to pay for the cashier to checkout as well as wait around. By letting customers checkout, there's no more wasted money spent on employees waiting around.

Also, the stores that are most promising don't require checkout at all, so that's an entire category of human effort eliminated, for better or worse.

Most stores keep one person up front when they are not busy, the rest of the checkout clerks wonder the store looking for things out of place, stocking shelves, finding or customers to help. Each store has their own set of duties but for the most part there are plenty of tasks to do when people aren't waiting in line.

Analogously, I don't see a reason why I should be forced wait in a queue for one of the limited other humans to help me do something that I can do myself in one of the 8 self-checkout lanes whenever I'm ready to do so.

People who want the assistance of an employee can go that route, but I prefer the self-checkout process for the reduced waiting and self-service nature.

if you want someone to ring up and bag your groceries for you, go to a high-end grocery store. meanwhile, I'll be paying less and getting out the door faster than you anyway.

I don't recall getting a discount for self-checkout.

> I don't recall getting a discount for self-checkout.

I don't think I've ever seen a discount for it?

The cost is included in the prices you pay for the products.

You're paying it whether you use it or not!

Pay for someone to be social with you? Like RentAFriend[1]?

1. https://rentafriend.com/whatis

Do the employees enjoy the interaction with you, I wonder?

I enjoyed interacting with customers when i worked as a cashier. But i was also a young person with lots of energy.

they seem (or pretend) in: costco, whole foods, trader joes

not so much in: walmart, target

Yes, HEB is probably the best at this too. Maybe along with Costco.

If they are not, they are pretty good at faking it.

And some are greeting me outside of the store. They have no obligation to do so.

I was recently at a CVS and the cashier shouted out that she’d help us as we walked towards the self checkout. She was very friendly and wanted to talk about everything from the upcoming time change to the vaccine. Some people just crave interaction and with the current pandemic they may be too isolated.

Pretty often, they do enjoy people who act like the whole thing was pleasant. If you force them into long chat they will dislike it, but if you smile, are nice to them, thank and say one socially appropriate thing, they tend to like it.

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