Do you swear at self-service checkouts?

Unfortunately I am a disabled pensioner, and canot stand or walk for very long. My lovely husband does the main shopping [mostly] at our local Morrisons, Being slow but liking to have a look at what is on offer I will use a basket balanced on my rollator. But when I get to the dheckout myself I find that there is no longer a checkout for baskets only. Not wishing to hold my husband up any longer by waiting behind people with loaded trolleys – and standing so long a problem too – i feel forced to use the self-service tills. BUT I find this very difficult, eyesight problems, hands difficult and so on – so I ALWAYS call for staff assistance. If everyone did that who knows what the supermarkets would do !?

They are good and bad. For instance, bad: why couldn’t all the supermakets standardise things so you put your goods to the left or right and stick to it, ie where the baggage area is. As it is, it is different in each case.

Good: you can take your time to offload all your copper shrapnel change into the machine and lighten your purse/wallet whereas you might hesitate to take the time to do that with a real person and a queue behind you. Social awkwardness takes over.

I find the Tesco ones good and the Morrisons ones poor. Which is a shame since I prefer shopping at Morrisons. But I must say I hate them and usually look for an attended till. I must be a rare saddo because I once spent ten minutes in a Morrisons store trying to use one of these, eventually getting down on my hands and knees trying to find the various slots and things to put my money in. No-one helped so eventually I spent another ten mintes in a checkout queue for an assistant – just to buy a pint of milk. Must say that was a rare experience because I normally find Morrisons staff brilliant.

I used to avoid these horrible machines because I thought it would do people out of a job, but now I am not so sure – there still have to be employees standing by to help the uninitiated.

I once swore at the machine at my local Tesco, and although I didn’t say the words out loud a shop assistant read my lips perfectly. Her eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped. This shamed me into not doing that again. I now approach these machines when I need them with calm and equanimity…

I do use the machines in a few of the supermarkets and find some shops have a member of staff at hand to offer support these shops are great and helps to keep the lines moving.
I support adults with learning disabilities who wish to use these machines,the problem is the machines are confusing as there are so many different ways to scan and where to put the cash.

I avoid them where possible. If a member of staff tries to direct me to one I refuse politely. I prefer to queue and deal with a person, particularly if I am using my own bag!! I also find I am calmer about waiting in a queue and being served efficiently and courteously than I am about instantly being confronted by a machine that gives out confusing messages and waiting for a store member to key in a security code so that I can continue.

I’ve given up using our local B&Q. They have several of these machines that never seem to work efficiently and there is a queue for them all the time. The one girl standing with arms folded at the sole operative till says she is only there to deal with complaints and refunds. When I said I wanted to complain about the machines and wanted her to take my money, she said to take it up with head office. I dumped my intended purchases in front of her, said “Ok, you can put these back on the shelves instead” and went to Homebase where they have real people at the tills (and were cheaper too).

i use the self serve tills when I have a few items, but when they have a self scan handset that allows me to scan and pack as I go round, i use that, they are brilliant, i have never had to wait for a self scan point to come free and so no queuing,

It wouldn’t be so bad if the prices came down to reflect that we are doing the staffs’ jobs for them. I had one silly young woman boast to me, when I complained about them, that she had been employed because the machines had been installed. More and more, in all stores, there are less staff on checkouts forcing you to either queue or do it yourself.

I sometimes use those machines, although I cannot say that they are not a headache. I always thought that they would make life easier, but I notice that I am not the only one who gets irritated by them.

My feeling is that, once a supermarket has installed self-service checkouts, they then drag their feet when it comes to providing enough staff to keep sufficient checkouts active. Also, when buying one item of, say, lunchtime sandwiches, once the store has a self-service checkout, then it will no longer allow the purchase of general groceries at the ‘fags and lottery ticket’ sales counter,
It’s all about coercion; and that’s what people quickly realise and come to resent.

Todays news these firms use self service tills and Tesco sales fell by 3.7% in the 12-week period, while Morrisons dropped 3.3% and Sainsbury’s 2.5%. Asda was the best performer of the “Big Four” with sales down 0.2%.

In contrast, these Don’t use self service tills Aldi sales grew 25.5% and Lidl 16.8%

people voting with there feet