Checking Out at the Grocery Store

[BeeZee]

@Katie Meadow, I have a similar methodology, but I write my shopping list with items sorted by the aisle layout since that is how my Mom did it. Supermarkets would be wise to offer a downloadable PDF shopping list arranged by aisle category. 

[Tropicalsenior]

3 hours ago, BeeZee said:

shopping list with items sorted by the aisle layout

I used to do that but stores down here like to change their layout frequently. It has something to do with impulse buying. The more you have to hunt, the more you grab as you go by.

The store where I do my main shopping is a chain grocery store. They have one store 5 minutes from my house that changes its layout constantly. There is another one that is 20 minutes from my house that has had the same layout for the six years that I have been going there. That's where I go. My favorite store also has a carousel for shopping bags and the other one doesn't. I really like the carousel system because the checkers seem to be less rushed and by rotating the carousel to the different bags they sort and pack them beautifully.

Going to my favorite store is a delightful experience and I always leave with a smile. Going to the other store is a chore and I just can't wait to get out of it.

[haresfur]

The major grocery chains here have gone all-in on self checkout. At the store I go to most, there is usually only one lane with a checkout person and that is the one at the counter where they sell cigarettes so they are constantly leaving you for the smokers. They have also made it very hard to pay with cash - I assume handling the cash and paying for armored transport costs more than the credit charges. Since they do such large volume I wouldn't be surprised if they negotiated a very low fee. 

 

Along with this they have been getting heavily into face recognition, AI monitoring to see if you were keying in cheap veg for expensive ones, and various methods to keep people from dashing out with their trolly. Like experimenting with ways to lock the wheels if they think you are stealing. Very dystopian. 

[liuzhou]

On 12/5/2023 at 7:13 PM, BeeZee said:

@Katie MeadowSupermarkets would be wise to offer a downloadable PDF shopping list arranged by aisle category. 

 

That would be the death of them.

 

They want you to stay in the store as long as possible hunting for what you want (and picking up stuff you don't).. Supermarket chains employ psychologists to trick you left, right, and centre. Expensive goods at eye level, cheap stuff at floor level. Go look for salt in your supermarket. Where is it 99% of the time?  At floor level. They make almost nothing from it; they're not going to place it at eye level.

 

Some supermarkets even control how quickly you push your cart through the aisles: slower in the luxury impulse buy section, faster in the boring staples. The vary the size of the floor tiles; we instinctively try to keep the clicks of the wheels even, speeding up or slowing down subconciously as we go.

 

And that 's only the beginning.

Edited December 6, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[FauxPas]

  

15 hours ago, BeeZee said:

Supermarkets would be wise to offer a downloadable PDF shopping list arranged by aisle category. 

 

Some local stores used to do this! I just loved it. A chain of stores mostly here on Vancouver Island had this feature.

( @MaryIsobelwill know Thrifty Foods as does @Ann_T and despite its name it tended to have slightly higher prices but it also had a great meat and produce department, a pretty good bakery and quite a bit of specialty or ethnic items). 

 

Unfortunately, it's been bought out by a national chain and it's not the same. But it used to allow you to create and save a list from the fairly lengthy online flyer and then you would pick the store and it would arrange your items by aisle and you could print that off or save it and take it to the store. Each store was a different size and arranged differently, so it was pretty cool. When I lived in Victoria I would shop at any one of several of their locations depending on where I was working that day and it was so nice to know which aisle had the different items without having to hunt them down.  

 

You could add other (non-flyer) grocery items to your list but I don't think it could sort those by aisle. 

 

Anyway, they got bought out and now you can print/save your list but it doesn't allow for shopping by aisle anymore. 😠 And they don't have the same range of products anymore either. 😠 And they don't contribute to local charities or community events the same way at all. 😠

 

A female friend of mine in Victoria loved those stores so much that when I told her they had been bought out by the big Sobey's chain, she broke down in tears. 

 

I'm sure there are other stores that allow for shopping by aisle. Canadian Tire and Home Depot give precise aisle and bin locations for products, but I don't know if they do a shopping list arranged that way. But those are different types of items, too. 

[Ann_T]

Moe's says I haven't met a grocery store I didn't like.

 

I love grocery shopping and I shop almost daily.  I've always shopped this way.

When I worked in Toronto many years ago,I worked downtown and lived along the Yonge Subway line.  

Lived in a neighbourhood where there was a Fruit and Vegetable store, a butcher, bakery and depending on which stop I got

off, a seafood store.    I got off the subway and shopped for dinner and then walked the rest of the way home.

 

I pass a Country Grocer on my way to work everyday and stop there every morning to pick up anything I might need for dinner or for

lunch.

 

They have a good vegetable/fruit department although other than chicken, I don't tend to buy meat there.   

Thrifty's is just five minutes from home so I will often go there in the morning and drop stuff off at home before heading to work. 

Thrifty's has both a butcher counter and a seafood counter.  And their beef is the best.  And the butchers are always happy to cut a roast or steaks for me. 

 

I don't like the Superstore's self check out, but the Duncan Thrifty's has a self=checkout and I like it.  The Mill Bay location doesn't have self-checkout.

 

@gfweb I loved Wegmans and when we lived in Dunkirk, NY  we were about halfway between Erie  and Buffalo and Jamestown.  A couple of times a  week

I would go to at least one of them.  It varied as to which location  depending on what other shopping I planned to do.    

 

 

[Alex]

From an informative article in the Atlantic:

The barcode as it currently exists is now 50 years old. It may well be supplanted soon by the QR code, which in addition to simply pulling up a link to a web page can now function as a barcode, but one than can encode much more information than a collection of lines. (It's actually the white space between the lines that encodes the information.) Of course, this would mean more -- much more -- intrusive advertising and marketing.

[chromedome]

Seemed appropriate to this thread: Amazon's abandoning its aspirations toward "just walk out" technology (because it, uh... doesn't work, and never did).

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/amazon-ends-ai-powered-store-checkout-which-needed-1000-video-reviewers/

 

On an unrelated note, at a Walmart in NS, I recently discovered that the self-check kiosk now maintains a watchful eye for items which are placed in the bagging area but not scanned (in this case, my bag). A clip of me putting the bag in the bagging area repeated on endless loop until the staffer monitoring the area came and cleared it.

[Tropicalsenior]

1 hour ago, chromedome said:

Walmart

I recently read, can't recall where, that Walmart and several other stores are completely getting rid of their self check lines. Unacceptable levels of shrinkage (i.e. theft).

[AlaMoi]

yes - self-check out theft has many possibilities and avenues for criminals to exploit.

putting something in the bag/whatever without scanning is an obvious.

weight checking flags that , , , most most items.  super light items, not so much....

more sophisticated methods are 'label swapping' or more sophisticated home printed 'fake labels'

 

I use self-checkout at the supermarket - mainly to pack the bags with the eggs on top . . . but anyway . . .

I often experience

"Please scan all items before placing them in the cart"

"Please remove the last un-scanned item from the cart"

and . . . what happens . . . after 10-20 seconds the "error" times out and

"Please continue scanning"

 

if the system stayed "stalled" until a clerk came and verified the transaction is proceeding honestly . . .

that would work much more better.

Perhaps Walmart uses that approach?  no clue, rarely shop there . . .

 

 

[BeeZee]

I can’t recall which store had this, but one of the scales/scanners had a camera (likely similar to the one Chromedome mentioned) that vaguely recognized produce, so if you put some apples on the scale, it prompts you with various apple options for the produce code…so that theoretically if you punched in code 4011 for bananas (less than 50 cents per lb.) rather than some kind of apple (more expensive), it might “flag”? I never tested it.

[liuzhou]

This may sound like a stupid question, but are your self-check outs "manned"? My local supermarket has six self-check stations and there is always one member of staff standing there, 90% of the time looking bored and 10% helping out the clueless like me. Whether she carries out any surveillance, I doubt, but she may be a deterrent.

 

Actually, I've only requested her (it's always a her) assistance once which was when one of my purchases somehow scanned twice when I only passed it over the scanner once. She cancelled one of them.

She also dispenses plastic bags if you request (and pay) for one. There is a button on the machine to  request bags of various sizes and prices.

 

From what I’ve seen, most customers prefer the manned, traditional check-outs. I go for speed and not lining up behind the idiots who always seem surprised when they have to pay, then spend forever trying to work out how their cellphone works! 99% of payments are made by cellphone in China. I haven’t used or carried cash for years.

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

3 hours ago, liuzhou said:

This may sound like a stupid question, but are your self-check outs "manned"? My local supermarket has six self-check stations and there is always one member of staff standing there, 90% of the time looking bored and 10% helping out the clueless like me.

 

Yes, there is usually a staff member loitering in the vicinity of the self-checkouts at the grocery stores in my area.  There might even be 2, gossiping and ignoring the persistent beeping from a machine needing their attention.  I can't blame them for being bored, if I were in their shoes, I'd much rather be manning a register than monitoring the likes of us, trying to do their job in the most bumbling way. 

[MaryIsobel]

I would gladly bid good riddance to self check-outs. In my area, it is rare to get through one without the machine beeping for some imagined problem. In our small town, I know most of the cashiers - a lot of them for 20+ years. I would hate to see them lose their jobs for a systems that has a lot of bugs. When I go to the neighbouring town and stop in the big grocery store there, I will use the self checkout if I have 3 or less items, only because they have about 10 self checkouts and only two or three cashiers working. 

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

I was in our local No Frills yesterday morning. It was moderately busy with 2 cashiers open with about 4 or 5 customers lined up at each.

There are also 6 double self check outs and there were 3 customers using them. 3 store employees (who I know are cashiers) were 'monitoring' the self check outs (but mostly paying little attention to what was going on).

Doesn't seem a very efficient way to run a business.