Cost savings for the store and fewer waiting times for customers: theoretically, self-service checkouts offer various advantages. But apparently the theory cannot be easily transferred into practice.
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As BBC reports, there is increasing dissatisfaction among supermarket chains in the USA and Great Britain. In their opinion, self-service checkouts could not provide the desired benefits. The hoped-for time and cost savings did not materialize. In some cases, work has already begun to dismantle the relatively new systems.
A major point of criticism is the complexity of the cash registers. Accordingly, customers repeatedly have problems using self-service checkouts correctly. As a result, employees are always needed to help you with use or to correct scanning errors. Real employees also still have to be used for age verification, which is needed for alcohol and tobacco, for example.
Added to this is the fear of theft. If no one checks the purchases, the inhibition threshold against letting something disappear into the shopping bag without permission is lower – at least that’s Walmart’s fear. The retail giant has therefore already partially said goodbye to the cash registers.
Is theft really a big problem? At least not in this country. “We are not observing any noticeable increase in markets with self-service checkouts,” an Edeka spokesman told Die Zeit just a few weeks ago. Rewe has not yet noticed an increasing trend either.
Personally, I can’t say anything negative about self-service checkouts. As a rule, things go faster and faster and the system has never caused me any technical difficulties. What about with you? Do you like to use self-service checkouts or do you prefer to use the traditional checkout to pay?
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