Most people who read Hackaday have positive feelings about automation. (Notice we said most.) How many times have you been behind someone in a grocery store line waiting for them to find a coupon, or a cashier who can’t make change without reading the screen and thought: “There has to be a better way.” The last few years have seen that better way, but now, companies are deciding the grass isn’t greener after all. The BBC reports that self-checkouts have been a “spectacular failure.” That led us to wonder why that should be true.
As a concept, everyone loves it. Stores can hire fewer cashiers. Customers, generally, like having every line open and having a speedy exit from the store. The problem is, it hasn’t really panned out that way. Self-checkout stations frequently need maintenance, often because it can’t figure out that you put something in the bag. Even when they work flawlessly, a customer might have an issue or not understand what to do. Maybe you’ve scanned something twice and need one of them backed off. Then, there are the age-restricted products that require verification. So now you have to hire a crew of not-cashiers to work at the automated not-register. Sure, you can have one person cover many registers, but when one machine is out of change, another won’t print a receipt, and two people are waiting for you to verify their beer purchase, you are back to waiting. Next thing you know, there’s a line.
These systems aren’t cheap, which surprised us. A four-kiosk system might run upwards of $100,000. But that cost would be quickly absorbed if you could fire your cashiers and get customers to do their work for free. Faster? Some studies suggest that’s perception. Because you have an active role in the checkout process, it seems faster, even though it is often actually slower. Waiting in line or waiting for a non-cashier to approve things makes it even worse.
But Why?
So why is this a problem? Is it that the technology isn’t ready yet? Is it just poor implementations? Or do we need new strategies? After all, we’ve seen tech like videotape make false starts before catching on. We’ve also seen plenty of new products killed by poor implementation. New approaches are a bit more difficult, though.
One problem may be the whole idea of a checkout station to start with. Sometimes tech changes require you to approach problems differently. For example, Sam’s Club already lets you scan items as you put them in your cart using your smartphone. You pay on your phone; a human spot-checks you on exit. However, they are rolling out an “arch” you pass through, and cameras take pictures from all sides, verifying bar codes and items they can identify. Presumably, it will reject you if you have something extra and pass you if it can validate a certain percentage of your order. Amazon has famously fielded stores where you identify when you enter, load up, and leave. The store figures out what you bought and automatically deducts the cost.
ATMs have all but eradicated bank lobbies and tellers for all but the most complex transactions. But think about this: ATMs rarely fail. Sure, sometimes they are out of service or know they don’t have enough money or network connections and tell you that. But when was the last time an ATM gave you more or less money than you wanted without telling you? Imagine if you had to repeatedly scan your ATM card before it took and then, sometimes, it would not know if you had enough money, so someone had to check on it or you might have to go inside to get the 8th $20 bill of your $160 withdrawal because it only gave you seven bills. You probably wouldn’t use ATMs.
What do you think? Can self-checkout be saved? How? Will it sink beneath the waves only to resurface in 20 years with robo-AI cashiers? Let us know in the comments.
Of course, if you make your living as a cashier, this might not be at all amusing. While we think retailers are missing out by not “gamifying” self checkout — you win 10% off! — we don’t think competing for speed is the right game.
Banner Photo: “Self-checkout not-so-high-tech” by [Anj Simmons]. (WinXP!)
Too many different and confusing user interfaces.
Every shop has a different system with a different layout, different workflow, different UI.
Often you have to switch back and forth between the main screen and the cash terminal.
Some of them can do NFC payment, others require signatures.
Do shops really expect their customers (especially the old ones) to remember the workflow of 10 different self-checkout systems?
Unless there’s a standard that everyone follows, this will continue to fail.
If I have to do the labor for self-checkout, there should be an embedded discount to my grocery bill! But if shrinkage is worse with self checkout lanes, then I don’t see the logic to have them. Cashiers make mistakes too, but probably far fewer than what happens in self-checkout isles. For one system here in my area, any disturbance of the bagging area results in a failure. Like if your wife takes a full bag of scanned items off the platform to put into a cart so you have more room to place new items… These were originally “express” checkouts but now people try to do an entire cartload. Especially if there is only 1 or 2 “real” checkouts open. And the poor person trying to monitor all of the stations is run ragged trying to correct the problems.
In 2006 when I got a job at Kroger’s, they were just starting to implement the self-scan checkouts. Now in 2024 when I go-to Kroger’s, they often have only 1 traditional cashier lane and the rest are all the u-scan/self-scan. It’s horrendous when it’s busy… At other stores it can be the only option. Some Walmart’s in Michigan have only the u-scan machines with 2 humans watching over everything. At local Meijer you can weigh produce & print a barcode which has the UPC & price on it which speeds up checkout at the scanner. Overall I generally only like the u-scan/self-scan when I’m buying small loads of groceries. Every store has a different system which is annoying as heck. Some require coupons to be given to the “human” attendant, others require coupons to be scanned & inserted like cash, and other systems don’t take cash at all! … It makes grocery shopping into a massive chore.
You didn’t mention another issue: People will put 2 items in the bag, but will only ring up 1 !
I won’t use them because they track everything you buy and require a credit card. I always shop with cash because it is private.
So much nonsense and incorrect information in these anecdotes (sorry, I mean comments). I actually work in the industry, but I’m not getting into debating facts with people who are already convinced that: 1. self-checkout systems are going away, 2. that they’re all the same, 3. that retail theft isn’t punished in the US, and 4. accidental theft is prosecuted and punished in the US. Otherwise, it’s been a fascinating insight into how, even in such a distinguished and technologically astute group of folks, people’s personal experiences can so easily overwhelm their reasoning and logic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing that these systems are good, or desirable, or effective, or reliable, or ethical, just that there are so few relevant facts present that, ordinarily, this group would be a little more hesitant to make sweeping proclamations about topics they’ve never studied. It might make an interesting psychological study.
I’ll check back for a couple days to see if anyone has any actual questions about the systems or operation of such that I can answer without revealing proprietary information (from a retail grocery cashier/self-checkout worker with technical expertise with the largest US grocery chain), but I’m not here to debate personal experiences (all are valid, many are incorrect).
>my conflict of interest is more accurate than your direct observations
Same game the news media plays. No thanks. I’ll trust my lying eyes.
How would being a cashier present a conflict of interest in this scenario? I really am curious: if anything one would think the opposite- that I’d have a vested interest in seeing self-checkouts fail… In fact, my “facts” are simply observations as well, but from a whole lot closer to the technology, so I could describe the cameras’ computer-vision systems and their apparent prioritizations, or my observations of the guest frustrations, or the amount/frequency of false-positive errors, or (in broad terms) the company policies, etc. If having a set of eyes that’s closer to the subject than yours isn’t valuable to you, then just admit that you’d rather complain about things than discuss the technology.
Here is a question for you, as someone who knows how all this stuff works. Does a supermarket chain track what I buy using my payment card as an identifier? Do they know I buy house-brand cereal every other week?
Another question: does a self-checkout system handle SNAP (f/k/a food stamps) and WIC product eligibility in a way that maintains customer dignity?
I often buy at Sam’s Club. (One needs to be a Member to shop there.)
Once I was notified that a cough syrup purchased months before, now had a Recall of certain Lot Numbers. The cough syrup I had purchased was not one of those affected by the Recall.
So, at least for that particular company, purchases are recorded.
Previously, I had a Safeway frequent shoppers card. I think using that also allowed purchase tracking/customer preferences, otherwise what benefit would that be for Safeway?
I prefer self checkouts. I think it’s stupid for me to just stand there while somebody in front of me does something I could easily do.
I guess sometimes you can bag while they scan, so I supposed there can be an advantage. I still prefer the self checkout.
I’ll admit it was very annoying in the early days when the the software was extremely rigid about scan->place on scale->wait 1 second ->scan. But they’ve relaxed that, and now I can scan a whole cart as fast as I can put stuff through the scanner and it rarely complains.
I don’t see self checkout going away, and I don’t see any reason that it should.
The increasing theft and corresponding decrease in social trust in our society *is* troubling. We need to do something about that. Perhaps breaking into more cloistered communities where people know each other?
So, can we conclude that either British people are just plain stupid, or British self-checkouts are genuinly crap, or both? Here in the Netherlands self-checkouts are everywhere, and nobody seems to have any problems with them. Yes, shrinkage is a problem, and yes, customers now replace cashiers, but the advantages are high (especially when you can scan with a hand-held scanner during shopping) as check-out is quick, and for introverts and other people that don’t like dealing with people it’s a blessing.
At one point in history customers didn’t even touch the items they were buying until they paid for them and a store employee passed them across a counter. Customers stood in a kind of square corral with the counter blocking them from accessing the items on shelves.
We’ve kind of gotten back to that business model with submitting orders online and having parking lot pick ups. I think there may be room in the market to have stores that only deal with customers this way. Highly automated warehouses that “shop” for customers’ orders, package them in easy to handle bundles, and deliver them to a pick up queue. Humans in the loop would handle accidents, broken packaging, and pickup snafus.
First off, they’re not actually any faster. The one or two remaining cashiers scan items faster than I can manage to haul them back into my cart, no matter how fast I’m trying – to the point where I intentionally tend to place an item (fresh pastries in a paper bag) I KNOW they have to open and look at manually at the middle of my stuff JUST to slow them down enough for me to catch up with them. On the other side, self-checkout customers fumble with their stuff an order of magnitude longer. Nothing gained there.
But worse than that, alcohol is not supposed to be sold to minors here – which a self-checkout machine apparently can’t verify, regardless of needing a credit card to pay; and since I basically NEVER exit a shop without having bought SOME amount of it, any attempt at self-checkout invariably ends with the machine locking up with a “wait for supervisor” message and me waiting for some store staff to show up – and there is NEVER any of those readily available around, because if there would be, they’d be working the MANNED checkout lines instead of passing time chatting back in the warehouse. So I don’t even bother because the experience is just exponentially worse.
Whatever happened with the idea from not many years ago that every item would have an RFID tag, and somehow your cart would give you a total and bill your credit card? This would also bypass the bagging delay and problems. Just bag or box your own items at your tailgate in the parking lot. Somewhere in there, you should be able to see an itemized receipt with prices on your device.
The system fails because they expect you to lie. They ask me if I checked everything on the bottom of my cart (I have never used the bottom of my cart) Since I don’t have anything there, I respond no, and won’t let me continue untill I lie about checking something I don’t have
There’s more comments on this thread that practically all of the others.
A flood of bad takes on prison, crime & punishment, economics, business and supply chain.
Now that you are willing to allow people to add virtual signalling to their names, please also allow an ignore button.
Are you trying to “evad” the issues?
B^)
I use almost entirely self-checkout and actually avoid shops without it. But here in Denmark it is done differently as you scan the items with the phone as you move along in the shop. You are even allowed to put the items directly in your bag. When you are ready, you scan a QR code near the exit and swipe to pay. Then a receipt is shown on the phone which you show to the cashier. Sometimes you are automatically picked for a manual checkup in which case the cashier will scan a few of your items. I have only been taken once with a basket that didn’t match my scanning – I actually cheated myself as I had scanned an item that wasn’t
in the basket! That is BTW one of the reasons for these manual checkups as it happens more often than you think that people scan items they don’t put in the basket. Either because they just want to check a price and forget to remove the item afterwards, or because the barcode scanner is so darned sensitive that it often scans goods you just pass by.
I really love self-checkout, especially in very busy hours with long queues where I just walk out of the shop.
Because you often still have to wait for a person:
In a store here (Vienna), they have a 50% discount in the evening for ready made food, which should not go to waste. But this 50% sticker cannot be scanned by the self checkout machine, a person has to come. Often the one working at the cash desk which is busy with other customers. The same is when you buy alcohol, even beer. They do an extra age verification. With cigarette vending machines this goes automatically with yout bank card or credit card. You use the same cards for paying at the self checkout, but there this has to be done manually.
In the Netherlands, self-checkout is fine in various supermarkets. In my regular/favorite supermarket it is especially great. They offer hand scanners, The carts even have holders for them. Alternatively, you can manually scan items at self-checkout terminals or use your phone as a hand scanner. While I prefer the hand scanner, using a phone is a nice option, because it allows you to use one device to scan groceries, pay and open the little gate to exit.
Obviously I’m paying with all the data I create while using their system, but I’m ok with it for now.
I regularly notice new features on the handscanners and checkout terminals. They have this thing where you can pick five out of ten options for personal discounts /coupons each week. Recently I noticed a new tab on screen of the handscanner that shows those picks. You can even make a grocery list in the app or the website that will be instantly visible on the hand scanner on a separate tab. As expected items you scan, will automatically be checked off.
I’v used delivery from Albert Heijn almost weekly for three years now. I’ve had allmost no problems with it. one undeliverable produc, two times a piece fo fruit was bruised. One time the driver was late.
Single best thing about self-checkout is that I can take stuff off the shelves and put it directly into shopping bags, rather than having to repack at checkout or at the car. That alone saves me a significant amount of time, and lets me pack the bags so they’re actually logically-related stuff rather than being whatever fits. I’ve even been known to just toss a large rubbermaid bin into the cart, fill that, and transfer everything into the bicycle trailer in one swell foop (though that can get heavy enough to be awkward).
I remember the days when RFID was envisaged as the way to achieve “disintermediated checkout” — if everything carries an ID chip, you could theoretically poll the cart directly for its contents; no chance for mistakes. But putting a chip in every cereal box was never cheap enough, and dealing with reliably capturing a hundred chips at once might have called for serial numbers and retries and things too fierce to mention.
If you’ve tried the Amazon grocery stores, the camera mesh really does work. I’ve never been over- or under-charged.
This idea has existed in limited use for a while in other countries (Japan, Philippines, Northern Europe).
I think the biggest kill in the U.S. for self checkout, aside from people not wanting to do things themselves, is the move to preorder.
They really need to make the screen on conveyor checkouts rotatable, then you could quickly shift it from self-service to assisted service, all registers always open, and they can staff them on-demand with minimal effort.
A likely cause though, is that for many people using self checkouts a kilo of beef costs the same as a kilo of onions.
The trolley scanners failed in my homeland in the late 90s / early 2000s, no idea why though.
This whole “self checkouts are failing” thing reeks of astroturf. These machines have been around for what? 20 years? They work fine. Sure, it’s nicer when someone else adds up your items but its not that big of a deal. And its a bit of a stretch to blame them for shrinkage- you can ‘not scan’ a hacksaw at a home depot self checkout just as easily as you can ‘not show’ your item to a cashier by hiding it in or under something bigger. I’ve seen at least a dozen articles all over in the last month decrying self checkouts. This is the grocery unions fighting back, plain and simple. More power to ‘em.
cw
It’s bad enough that I have to walk all over the store to get the things I want and carry them up front. Now I’ve got to learn every store’s cash register (they are all different) all while being given the stink eye by someone whose sole job is to make sure I don’t steal anything? No thanks. I didn’t go to college for 8 years to be a cashier!
About a month ago I did some shopping at Ikea in the Netherlands. They only have self checkout. and after going though the motions of scanning price tags the machine started nagging me with questions about postal codes and such. I just stopped and walked away.
I know multiple people accused, arrested, jailed, and prosecuted for shoplifting for supposedly intentionally incorrectly scanning or failing to scan items, worth less than $20 at Waldo-mart. People that I know well, that I know would not do that. 3 cases eventually dropped, but not until after spending the night in jail, paying bond, and many many court appearances, hassle, and intimidation, stress, and time wasted (and tax dollars). 1 case still pending. Worse, Waldo-mart did not want to prosecute but the state attorney’s office went thru with them anyway.
I’m late, as always. But I’ll say one quick thing
No self checkout, no purchase.
I know where the barcodes are. I know what the cost should be. I manage coupons competently.
I don’t like bags, I have produce trays I reuse for months.
And I don’t put a case of water on top of my eggs!