For me it depends. If I have a shopping cart full, including typically, a bunch of produce, I'll go to a cashier. If I've got a half dozen bar coded items to scan, I'll probably just do self-checkout.
I use both, with an internal evaluation about which is faster. Self-checkout is always slower, because you must complete one item at a time, and I don't have the codes for the produce memorized. With the cashier he can scan multiples at a time, has all the codes memorized, and I bag while he scans.
So I look at the lines, the amounts in carts in the lines, who is in the lines, and make my guess which is faster.
If I have, say, 5 items or fewer I prefer the self checkout. There's usually no queue (as there are 8 or so machines) and scanning the items is only slightly less convenient than putting them on the belt at the human checkout anyway.
Self-checkout is fine for a few barcoded items. But a cart of stuff at a grocery store/Walmart? Even if you're fast at scanning, the space is just not setup to process half a cart's worth of goods.
Self-checkout has generally improved but some stores have basically eliminated too many human cashiers.
That depends on the implementation. E.g. Sam's Club lets you scan items as you put them into your cart and just walk past the registers.
In the local grocery store at rush hour, cashier lines are long and self-checkout tends to be quicker for buying 3 items. Taking a whole cart into self-checkout is slower than a cashier, because the self-checkout has like a 5% chance per item of going into "assistance needed" mode.
Most of the fruit and vegetables I get at the store these days have tiny barcodes on them that make the self-checkout easy. And the occasional need for intervention from the one staff person handling 4-6 self checkouts is almost always far less than the time I would have spent waiting in line for someone who's still paying for groceries with a personal check in 2018. I almost always prefer a self-checkout.
Self-checkout is mostly fine for a few barcoded items that don't require age approval (like alcohol). Even awkwardly shaped items at places like Home Depot work pretty well these days given hand scanners. But having half a cartload of groceries including a bunch of produce? I'd much rather have a cashier. Aside from the slow process of looking things up, self-checkout areas just aren't setup for checking out and bagging a big pile of goods.
I don't use a cashier if self-checkout is available.
Supermarkets where I live have 2-6 kiosks, and there is usually one employee overseeing it and helping people. Once in a while a kiosk will beep and the employee has to pick out a few random items and scan them. If they scan something you didn't pay for - you're in trouble.
To me, self-checkouts are best as replacements for the express checkout lane. You've got a few things in your hands, probably don't even need a basket or cart, and just scan them through, and you're out. When doing a full shop, a person is preferrable.
Yeah. This is one of the reasons why I really don't care for self-checkout in grocery stores. Sure, self-checkout is mostly OK so long as you're swiping small boxes of barcoded stuff. But get to produce and it's a mess. I basically won't use self-checkout if I have any non-barcoded merchandise. (Which basically describes every time I go to a grocery store.)
I always use the self checkout at my grocery store because its just faster than waiting in line.
They recently added a way for people to just use an app to scan barcodes while shopping and then just scan your phone at the self checkout but I haven't tried it.
I always use the self checkouts at Home Depot. You just drag every item across the scanner and then pay. If something is too large to scan, the assistant will hand-scan it for you.
At the grocery store, it's a totally different story. Every time I try to use the self-checkouts, I end up regretting it. I think the difference is that the grocery store machine attempts to make sure you don't steal anything by verifying that nothing is put in the bags without a scan, or that the weight of that something agrees with what is scanned. This never works, it always says "unexpected item in bagging area", and then you have to wait for a store person to clear it for you. It ends up taking forever. (Not to mention the vegetables without bar codes that the actual checkers have all the codes memorized for but that you have to search through a long list to find...)
Just some anecdata, but personally I hate dealing with self-checkout when buying fruits/veggies/buns/bread and other non-barcoded items. Cashiers are so much faster than me to deal with that. Maybe the shop in question have a lot of non-barcode items and it causes serious delay.
In 99% of cases I don't have time to wait because the cashier is so fast I can barely keep up putting the scanned stuff back in the cart. If I do self checkout I have to do both of those things myself, meaning I am guaranteed to be slower.
For me, if it’s a few things, like a single hand basket, self checkout is fine and I’m happy to go that route in most cases.
Anything beyond a hand basket, or where I know one or more items in the list will require human intervention regardless, and then I think it’s better to go through the regular line.
I always do self-checkout at Home Depot. It usually works perfectly, and when the attendants have to scan something large or a by-foot cut of something, it's usually quick.
At grocery stores, it's a different story entirely. Buying 3 things? Doesn't matter, you'd better put your bag in the "packing area" before scanning anything because it'll stop working when you try to pack something. Or pack it into the bag as you scan? Nope, it'll stop working. It does however make me appreciate the considerable number of memorized vegetable and loose-weight codes the cashiers remember.
Sounds like more work than I want to do to buy produce. And there's still the problem that self-checkout at grocery stores is really optimized around the person scanning half a dozen items.
I have no problem with self-checkout generally but I find it pretty bad for a "real" grocery shopping (as opposed to picking up a few barcoded items). I'm almost always picking up a fair bit of produce and other items that don't have barcodes and dealing with these is very painful compared to having a cashier.
Home improvement stores can be a pain too because of awkward shapes but, of course, it depends on what you're buying.
I prefer self checkouts to manned ones, even if the line is shorter at the latter. I like scanning my own groceries, and don’t really like someone else doing it for me.
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