|
I wonder what the stats on self-checkouts actually are. Like if they save any time at all, how much money they cost + how much theft they are enabling, and so on.
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 15:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 17:03 |
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:I wonder what the stats on self-checkouts actually are. Like if they save any time at all, how much money they cost + how much theft they are enabling, and so on. I can guarantee you someone has run those numbers and decided that it's worth it to eliminate 6+ cashier/checker positions + however many baggers.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 15:58
|
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:I wonder what the stats on self-checkouts actually are. Like if they save any time at all, how much money they cost + how much theft they are enabling, and so on. Real checkers move more customers per hour than self checkouts, but the owners are trying to kill the unions
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 16:21
|
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:I wonder what the stats on self-checkouts actually are. Like if they save any time at all, how much money they cost + how much theft they are enabling, and so on. Capital costs for self-checkouts aren't very high to begin with so it's not like it's a risk most retailers aren't willing to shoulder. got any sevens posted:Real checkers move more customers per hour than self checkouts, but the owners are trying to kill the unions This too. As some retailers have come to realize experienced checkers make a big difference in speed and customer satisfaction, but any idiot can monitor the self-checkout kiosks.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 16:30
|
|
|
Grocery is seen as safe because it's hard to buy it online (and Amazon's prices are generally not good), but:quote:All this competition has come amid an historic bout of food deflation. Grocers have engaged in a price war that has been a boon for consumers while weighing down on corporate earnings—and those trends will only get more intense once Lidl opens its doors in the U.S. The company has long battled rival German grocer Aldi in markets across Europe. Both companies have taken on entrenched grocers and eaten into market share with their low prices and no-frills stores. Aldi, which has more than 1,600 U.S. stores, has spent the past couple years preparing for Lidl's arrival by aggressively expanding in Southern California and spending $1.6 billion to spruce up its locations. That has put pressure on Wal-Mart and the dollar stores in the competition for budget-conscious shoppers. Wal-Mart Stores, which generates more than half of its revenue from groceries, has been working to improve its fresh food offerings. The retail giant's low grocery prices have made things tough for Kroger Co., the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-04/why-the-retail-crisis-could-be-coming-to-american-groceries The circle is beginning to look like Amazon will simply replace brick and mortar with more brick and mortar, after devouring its enemies.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 16:53
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:Where do you live? In Oregon and Washington, I first saw automated checkouts in 1997 as an experimental thing, and now, every larger grocery store has 8-12 of them (2-3 pods, usually with 4, sometimes 6 checkouts each). There are always a few problems with them, but they've mostly been fixed. I thought this was a standard technology, and had been for at least ten years? Is this still catching on in places? New Hampshire. The company actually closed the store in town in February. It's regional competitior has said they will never install self-checkout machines. The only place I can think that actually has them is the Home Depot in town.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 17:24
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:Where do you live? In Oregon and Washington, I first saw automated checkouts in 1997 as an experimental thing, and now, every larger grocery store has 8-12 of them (2-3 pods, usually with 4, sometimes 6 checkouts each). There are always a few problems with them, but they've mostly been fixed. I thought this was a standard technology, and had been for at least ten years? Is this still catching on in places? At alot of Albertsons and Safeways in the Northwest they actually started pulling out the automated check stands in recent years. While I don't have stats I guess from talking to people at stores they break more often, are slower increase theft rates etc. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 17:33 on May 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 17:31
|
|
|
OhFunny posted:Ya one store near me tried some automated check outs and took them out due to theft. Sounds like it was a store that thought adding self check outs = we can fire a bunch of cashiers. You can't do that, you need to retain staff to keep an eye on poo poo both to maintain adequate service speed and to look for accidental or intentional shoplifting. Famously, Wal-Mart tried this in a lot of their stores, the "just put in a bunch of self checkouts to replace like 8 cashiers with one guy" and got absolutely terrible amounts of theft, intentional or unintentional. dont even fink about it posted:I wonder what the stats on self-checkouts actually are. Like if they save any time at all, how much money they cost + how much theft they are enabling, and so on. When I was working at a supermarket years back, our union local researched this. They found that optimal implementation of them involved barely reducing anyone's hours (because they don't really replace a cashier, they change a cashier's job), but sped up customer throughput most of the time and didn't increase theft by a noticeable amount with adequate supervision. The equipment didn't really cost much more than normal lane equipment.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 17:41
|
|
|
There are a couple problems with self-checkers. For a small basket of items, they are generally pretty good. For anything else, they're not. Many of them are set at a height that makes them a literal pain to use if you're an average sized guy. They often scan a bit more slowly than the standard cashier point of sale system, because they're a cheap piece of poo poo, an old piece of poo poo, or because they've got to communicate with the guy monitoring them.If they encounter a problem, they often require human assistance to sort things out, which can be something of a pain when one person is managing multiple stations. Nobody wants to be in a grocery store, except the people that have nowhere else to go. A cashier will get you out a bit faster- and they'll do all that work for you. They know where the barcodes are, they have some knowledge of produce codes, what's on WIC, they can help you take items off, get replacement item for something that broke; they can deal with every frustration that a machine simply cannot. But I guess you don't have to pay them or give them health insurance, so there's that.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 17:42
|
|
|
NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:There are a couple problems with self-checkers. There's plenty of other models of self-checkouts out there that have a whole loading belt and the machine in general placed higher which is more comfortable, just by the way. Again though, stores that actually try to use the self-checkouts to replace workers usually end up with massive theft and slowdown issues. You need to keep about the same number of workers in the store to avoid that. So you don't actually get the "benefit" to the company of not paying a salary unless you really luck out with highly efficient and conscientious customers
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 18:04
|
|
|
OhFunny posted:New Hampshire. Ah...in general, places on the East Coast are slower to adjust to technology and change. I wonder if that is the same in other East Coast states, like Florida, Arkansas, Wisconsin, etc?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 18:33
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:Ah...in general, places on the East Coast are slower to adjust to technology and change. I wonder if that is the same in other East Coast states, like Florida, Arkansas, Wisconsin, etc? I'm in Oregon, and I have yet to see a store remove self checkout. Over the past decade every store I go to has either expanded self checkout, or at least updated the machines.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 18:48
|
|
|
Beowulfs_Ghost posted:I'm in Oregon, and I have yet to see a store remove self checkout. Over the past decade every store I go to has either expanded self checkout, or at least updated the machines. Yeah, as I mentioned, this post was originally about the continuing expansion of retail, not its downfall, and I wrote it coming out of Oregon and Washington, where retail is still getting better and faster. I think willingness to adapt to technology is one of the reasons for that. When I left Vancouver, they were introducing the first curbside pickups for online orders to the Fred Meyer in Orchards.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 19:02
|
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:All this competition has come amid an historic bout of food deflation. Grocers have engaged in a price war that has been a boon for consumers while weighing down on corporate earnings
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 19:27
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:How terrible. I would say this means they're less likely to give their employees benefits and stuff, but they're just slashing the poo poo out of everything anyways. My last employer got into a fight with our union over, among other things, a raise of 25 cents an hour, at a time when their shares were soaring and they were absolutely crushing it in their market. Corporate posted some notice by the time clock about how well, golly, they'd love to give everyone more money and stuff- but it is a very competetive market and if we did that, we might have to raise our prices. Please think of the customers and the greater glory of Food Co. That was the moment that pushed me to quit. Now I work for another retailer that pays me slightly more while providing no benefits.  Every retail store I've worked at has some heinous amounts of turn-over and real problems with accomplishing anything because 75% of the people there know they're underpaid, underworked, and hosed at every opportunity. It has to cost them in training hours, productivity, etc. It seems very short-sighted.fishmech posted:There's plenty of other models of self-checkouts out there that have a whole loading belt and the machine in general placed higher which is more comfortable, just by the way. Yeah. The new Wal-Mart grocery ones are like this, and they're pretty OK.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 19:42
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:Ah...in general, places on the East Coast are slower to adjust to technology and change. I wonder if that is the same in other East Coast states, like Florida, Arkansas, Wisconsin, etc? Arkansas and Wisconsin have pretty much nothing to do with the East Coast. Florida is still having ludicrous growth so it doesn't matter much if old stores aren't changing things, new ones are constantly being built anyway, and they're not going to go out of their way to buy old stuff.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 19:51
|
|
|
Jack2142 posted:At alot of Albertsons and Safeways in the Northwest they actually started pulling out the automated check stands in recent years. While I don't have stats I guess from talking to people at stores they break more often, are slower increase theft rates etc. Stats for self checkout deployment are actually really hard to come by, but everything I've ever found shows a steady increase in adoption over the last several years. I'm only mentioning this because "[some store] near me is rolling back their self checkouts" is a thing I've seen people say for, like, probably a decade, but it doesn't actually seem to be the case in aggregate. Anecdotally, several stores near me removed their self checkouts a few years ago and now they've almost all brought them back. Stats like this make me thing that self checkouts definitely aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 20:35
|
|
|
A new Kroger owned store opened nearby recently, they've got self checkouts at each side of the front, with normal checkouts in between. They always have someone supervising the self checkout and usually have no shortage of people working the regular lines. I've been there when its really busy and never had to wait too long.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:16
|
|
|
The grocery store closest to me has a bunch of lanes. Fully half of them are automated checkouts that are in the style of a regular checkout (has a belt and everything, and sometimes someone will come by and bag your stuff). There are two small self checkout express for people with baskets/12 items or less. For all of the manned checkouts, only 2 or 3 are open at any time and they are all slow as poo poo.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:36
|
|
|
Doctor Butts posted:The grocery store closest to me has a bunch of lanes. Fully half of them are automated checkouts that are in the style of a regular checkout (has a belt and everything, and sometimes someone will come by and bag your stuff). There are two small self checkout express for people with baskets/12 items or less. Well the manned checkouts are always going to attract all the people who need to do specialty transactions which can't be done at the self-checkout, and also people who physically can't handle packing their own stuff and thus are going to be slower to checkout. That's kind of the "ideal" situation really, the self-checkouts covering most normal transactions and the manned stations for old/disabled customers and customers with other special needs to cover. Like say, redeeming bottle deposit value in states that do that, or when someone's buying stuff with age restrictions, or weirdos who insist on paying by check.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:44
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Well the manned checkouts are always going to attract all the people who need to do specialty transactions which can't be done at the self-checkout, and also people who physically can't handle packing their own stuff and thus are going to be slower to checkout. Well you're never going to see a family of five doing their biweekly shopping move through a self-checkout either. Self check-out has diminishing returns, and the long-distance hope is to have a system that reads what you are leaving the store with and charges your card then.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:46
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Well the manned checkouts are always going to attract all the people who need to do specialty transactions which can't be done at the self-checkout, and also people who physically can't handle packing their own stuff and thus are going to be slower to checkout. No, the cashiers themselves working the lanes are slow as poo poo.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:51
|
|
|
What ever happened to RFID tagging everything instead of using barcodes? That would make self-checkout and automated checkout a lot faster and deal with some of the theft issues. Are RFID tags just too expensive?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:58
|
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:Well you're never going to see a family of five doing their biweekly shopping move through a self-checkout either. Ya if I carry a basket with me I use self-checkout, if I am doing a big groceries trip and using a cart, I go through a normal lane.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 21:59
|
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:Well you're never going to see a family of five doing their biweekly shopping move through a self-checkout either. What? I see that all the time. The nearest supermarket has the high capacity style self-checkout lanes, with huge bagging areas and a belt. hakimashou posted:What ever happened to RFID tagging everything instead of using barcodes? RFID signaling has a lot of issues with consistent reads and mistaken multiple reads. Customers absolutely hate getting overcharged from the latter, and the retailers hate when undercharging happens from the former. Plus, while it'd be easy to get RFID tagging integrated to simple standard items like pre-packaged goods, how are you going to do it for stuff like freshly cut meat, fresh baked things, loose produce, etc? That's a major chunk of most supermarkets' business.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 22:05
|
|
|
dont even fink about it posted:Well you're never going to see a family of five doing their biweekly shopping move through a self-checkout either. Man how I wish this were true. Okay, maybe a slight exageration. But self checkout around me is slow as hell because both everybody does it and Safeway makes sure they have exactly three less people than they need on the registers to ensure that there is a healthy line at all hours of the day.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 22:07
|
|
|
fishmech posted:What? I see that all the time. The nearest supermarket has the high capacity style self-checkout lanes, with huge bagging areas and a belt. Makes sense.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 22:08
|
|
|
glowing-fish posted:Ah...in general, places on the East Coast are slower to adjust to technology and change. I wonder if that is the same in other East Coast states, like Florida, Arkansas, Wisconsin, etc? Did you just say that Wisconsin and Arkansas are on the east coast? 
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2017 22:11
|
|
|
arkansas and wisconsin are both lovely enough that you can mistake them as being in the same part of the country as florida... and the amount of people that have not purposely bagged up some really nice expensive (or organic) fruit, and used the plu from a cheaper variety, (oh look, i looked up bannanas, these bannanas are totally .58/lb, not 1.58/lb.) in a self checkout is vanishlingly small. Most people won't outright steal from the store, but most people will cheat the system because they can.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 04:22
|
|
|
Doctor Butts posted:The grocery store closest to me has a bunch of lanes. Fully half of them are automated checkouts that are in the style of a regular checkout (has a belt and everything, and sometimes someone will come by and bag your stuff). There are two small self checkout express for people with baskets/12 items or less. In defense of those cashiers... retail is terrible. At my last store we had two types of cashiers. We had the high school kids that hadn't yet gotten fired or quit, and they generally left within a few months. On the other hand, we had geriatric ladies who had over a decade in and weren't going anywhere. Some of the old guard were good. Some of them would do poo poo like putting hot chicken on raw seafood, in the same bag. We couldn't attract anyone else, because pretty much everyone started at minimum wage. No benefits. No guarantee of hours. Our store was slammed all the time, but we had chronic manpower issues that definitely cost us money every drat week. You could go six hours without a break. You might go longer. Some people went over eight without one. Sometimes the only way people could take their breaks was by just walking away. The point of sale systems were all ancient garbage with a clumsy interface. The only way to learn was by doing, and most people just weren't around long enough to get the hang of it. At my new store, most cashiers have almost enough hours to get by, we've got brand new point of sale systems, and we're paid enough that the turn-over rate is significantly lower. All this, and we do less business than the other store. Our cashier's average is around 20 items per minute, and a number of those are significantly higher than that. tl;dr stores get the labor they pay for. If you're at a store and it seems like they've got lovely employees that don't care, try shopping somewhere that treats them better. You'll have a nicer experience.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 04:53
|
|
|
Doctor Butts posted:No, the cashiers themselves working the lanes are slow as poo poo. It's because you're that guy and they hate you.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 05:02
|
|
|
got any sevens posted:Real checkers move more customers per hour than self checkouts, but the owners are trying to kill the unions You can, however, jam half a dozen self checkouts into the same space as a couple of manned ones. As well as into spaces that otherwise can't take a checkout, such as the front wall of the store. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 06:16 on May 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:14
|
|
|
fishmech posted:What? I see that all the time. The nearest supermarket has the high capacity style self-checkout lanes, with huge bagging areas and a belt. I've actually never seen that! All I've seen is pretty small-scale here (Seattle).
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:20
|
|
|
ultravoices posted:underarmour took it in the shorts when they decided they wanted to be their own retail player. They apparently went out and bought a ton of fitness apps to diversify their brand. I'm not ever going to give UA any money for those apps (which are yearly!) but they can show me ads.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:39
|
|
|
fishmech posted:What? I see that all the time. The nearest supermarket has the high capacity style self-checkout lanes, with huge bagging areas and a belt. The current hope is that machine learning algorithms + a camera will replace scanning - at which point you can just point a camera at a thing and product match it. If they can get that working you could ditch the checkout counter entirely. I'm sure it won't play out cleanly though as much as I'm sure that grocers learned nothing from the overstated promises of self-checkout.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 06:54
|
|
|
incoherent posted:They apparently went out and bought a ton of fitness apps to diversify their brand. for me UA reads as fetish gear, which is not something I need a fitness app for.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 14:14
|
|
|
For me it reads as Unknown Armies.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 14:22
|
|
|
I live a block away from a Thriftway in Seattle and even though their prices are higher than QFC or Safeway, they know that people want to get the gently caress out of there ASAP so they staff up to be able to literally open every register if there are more than 3 people in a line. I recently realized how much I appreciate not being held hostage by lovely self checkout software (Target has it and it's awful, ditto Home Depot).
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 15:16
|
|
|
The goodwill I work at has to explain that there aren't any other cashiers to put out like five times a day. Its dumb and lovely and telling us all to work harder to cover the dwindling staff is having the opposite effect. Though I don't feel too bad for the people they spend hours here loitering but suddenly they're in a big hurry when they want to check out.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2017 16:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 17:03 |
|
|
Abercrombie is looking to put itself up for sale.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2017 01:01
|
|