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Comment by smackfu | Hacker News Reader

Around here, the grocery self-checkout works the same as the normal checkouts, mainly because they just replaced the normal ones in place.

(Also, self-checkouts suck. I bet their throughput is terrible compared to manned checkout lines. That teenage checkout girl is WAY better than I am at scanning stuff.)

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Ah, but you see, anyone who writes checks (hellooooo, slowdown!) and anyone who is scared of technology (I think the two groups overlap a lot) will go wait in another line. So at least at my store, the self-checkout lanes have a lot of young people buying one or two items and paying with credit cards, which works out to a pretty good speed. Occasionally you get somebody who sits and stares at each screen of instructions for a good 30 seconds, but in general it moves well.

I guess it depends on the quality of the self-checkout system. At my Stop & Shop, there are four or six self-checkout lanes staffed by a single person (Go go union job elimination!) If you get through a purchase without running into "wait for attendant", sure it's fast. But if you do have to wait, because their fundamental distrust of the customers makes the system get many false positives for stealing, now you are in a secondary line of people waiting for the attendant, and the time for checkout is terrible.

Wow, that sucks. My local store only ever does "wait for assistance" when you buy booze... and half the time the attendant will just gleefully press "ok" on his terminal without even checking my ID, so it goes even faster :)

Implementation details matter, I guess. (Pretend I made some interesting reference to Steve Jobs' managing style here)

In some stores if you scan alcohol the machine will freeze until the attendant turns the key.

In others, it flashes a light to alert the attendant. It allows you to carry on scanning, but the attendant must turn the key before you pay.

I just hope that isn't patented.

Yup.. the system tends to bump into that mode any time it notices a disparity between the weight of the bag you're filling and the items you've scanned. I had that trigger last night because I brushed the top of my paper bag while scanning the next item.

The short term problem is that there's only one attendant and many customers run into problems with the process - I was stuck behind an elderly couple that couldn't figure out the card payment terminal. All I needed was for the attendant to press one button on her screen so I could keep scanning. If they're going to switch to these new systems they should at least use 2-3 attendants for a while until customers get used to them.

As much better as the teenage checkout girl is than I am at scanning, it's nothing compared to how much better she is at pricing produce.

If they know what its. I've had a lot of checkouts turn into a game of "what's this vegetable." Or they just enter it as some other, more familiar vegetable.

If it's one that costs less, you win.

I found at my old grocery store that self-checkouts had much better throughput than real lines due to self-selection. People who have many items, or who have coupons / are paying by check / need special help, will avoid the self-checkouts.

Self-checkouts are not just about speed. They also appeal to specific kind of people.

I use them because I don't want to interact with someone just to get some groceries. I know, it's kind of sad, but I don't want to say 'Hi' and 'Thank you' and I don't want 5 bags when 2 would suffice and don't want to explain that, so I just do it myself.

You must be very popular at parties.

(Let the downvoting begin)

Downvote for what? Bad character?

To design is shop is not about math or throughput, it's all about psychology. You don't want lines to move fast, you just want them to appear like moving fast.

My point is merely that self-checkout is not only about speed, it's about personal comfort too.

"""Downvote for what? Bad character?"""

No, I was referring to me being down-voted, for my snarky comment.

"""My point is merely that self-checkout is not only about speed, it's about personal comfort too."""

Sure, could be, but the particular "irritations" you mentioned I see as belonging to persons too self-absorbed, being the very definition of "first-world problems" for the Monk types among us.

In my experience, the slow down is the cost of the extra features of the self-checkout system running on (I'm guessing) weak hardware. There is a rather large delay when choosing payment sources or in between bagging items.

Between bagging items, it has to wait for the scales underneath the bagging area to register a consistent weight. When choosing a payment source, it probably has to do a network call to the PIN-pad system. It's not like it's running on a slow CPU.

Good point. At any rate, there is room for improvement, especially considering the normal checkout systems appear to perform more quickly.

Because cashiers are trusted and customers aren't. There's still the delay during checkout, though.

Self-checkouts don't have to suck, though. The version where you scan all your items at a single location is clearly crap, but there are systems where you get a small hand-held device when entering the store so you can scan your items as you go along.

> Self-checkouts don't have to suck, though. The version where you scan all your items at a single location is clearly crap, but there are systems where you get a small hand-held device when entering the store so you can scan your items as you go along.

This is presumably much better for throughput, but much worse for making sure that what you're leaving with is what you purchased. (Also, how does it accommodate a decision to put something back? I've never seen such a system.)

> This is presumably much better for throughput, but much worse for making sure that what you're leaving with is what you purchased.

Admittedly, yes. But there are usually random checks.

> (Also, how does it accommodate a decision to put something back? I've never seen such a system.)

You press the "put back" button and scan the thing you want to put back.

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