Supermarket checkouts and longer queues, what happened, and why ?

[PeteMorris]

Yesterday, whilst at the till trying to pack my shopping away and feeling frustrated and guilty at holding up the Q (because there`s no longer any where to do that which doesn`t stop the Q moving......) I said out loud that I thought it stupid they`d got rid of the movable divider, and everyone, including the checkout girl agreed with my. So the question remains, why did all the supermarkets get rid of the movable dividers at the checkouts ? ?What do the supermarkets actually gain from it, apart from annoying their customers ? Does anyone know the answer to this ? ! ?

 

Cos basically, the dividers were a pain. Ok, if both people at the end only had a basket of goods, but when (as I've seen countless times, and especially towards xmas) two people have huge trollies packed to the gunnels with enough food to feed an army, then the divider thing is a complete nightmare with odd shaped or bulks items (toilet rolls for instance) spilling over the barrier onto the other pesons stuff. Then there's the issue of where do people stand to do their packing when there's 2 people trying to fill their carrier bags. One has to stand at the wrong side of the checkout and inevitably blocks the aisle to next doors checkout. It's just pandemonium! There is a logic to my argument, if you think about it.

 

On a slight off tangent. I really HATE thos self checkout things. If I only have a basket of stuff I'm often asked by a 'friendly' member of staff if I'd like to use the self checkout. I always say no. But last night the helpful woman more or less dragged me there. She said "I'll tell you the secret" of how to scan it all without those annoying "unexpected item in the bagging area messages"..... So she stands there and scan all of the items, and says, just don't bag it until you've finished. Good theory. Then she sods off somewhere else, and then I have to struggle on a 12" square platform with enough items to fill 2 bags, which took me ages to do. I'd much rather do it at a manned checkout, then I can bag it while it's beeing scanned, and by the time it's all scanned it's all bagged too.

 

RANT OVER

[davyboy]

Poor old Justin,you've probably taken more time off your life span getting so wound up over 5 minutes waiting in a q.

How would you have coped shopping before self service came in?

 

Example

Walks into shop, joins q, waits to get served.Reads from list your Mum has given you

pound of sugar please.

Assistant goes off and gets the sugar from the shelf, unless it was before individual packets when said assistant weighed it from a sack.

 

pound of butter please....off she goes again. may be pre-packed or probably cut from a block.

Pound of cheese please...again off a block...etc etc etc

Pays for goods and tries to remember your Mum's co-op number.

Was it Grays CS or London CS?

Then over to the bacon counter q where the bacon was sliced from a large lump.

Pays and exits shop.

Don't forget everyone in front of you in the q has gone thro' the same procedure and the ones behind are really peed off cos you haven't got quite enough change ready.

You don't know how lucky you are..............5 minutes wasted!

You could spent the time thinking of..............well anything really

STAY CALM AND CARRY ON!

Edited April 26, 2012 by davyboy

[WeX]

checkouts are small these days to give more space for more products. In the past the area where your purchases would be pushed to for you to pack was huge, not its no larger than a single shopping bag.

[Mrs Overall]

Aldi's the worst place on earth for going through the till. I think their checkout folks are told " chuck em through as fast as you can" there's a tiny little excuse for a shelf at the end, your stuff is pileing up and falling on the floor if you're not quick enough lobbing them into the trolley, you've no chance of filling your bags at the checkout...

We're exhausted by the time we've done..

 

Mind you can get some good bargains in quality food there...

[poppins]

My local supermarket gives options for checkouts , you can do the self checkout or go through the checker that's bags for you , or use the scan gun and bag your own while shopping, then there always the jiffy checkout, 12 items or less.

 

I have them bag in the supermarket plastic plastic bags then transfer them into my own bags insulated bags that I keep in the car , easier to tote into the house

[ECCOnoob]

Aldi's the worst place on earth for going through the till. I think their checkout folks are told " chuck em through as fast as you can" there's a tiny little excuse for a shelf at the end, your stuff is pileing up and falling on the floor if you're not quick enough lobbing them into the trolley, you've no chance of filling your bags at the checkout...

We're exhausted by the time we've done..

 

Mind you can get some good bargains in quality food there...

 

You are supposed to go away from the checkout to the bagging area. That's why they rattle the goods through into your trolley. They dont want you stood their trying to bag as they come through.

 

Maybe all supermarkets should do that. That would solve the OP complaint.

[gnvqsos]

I must say I don`t really follow the logic of that one at all, I think you`ll find it`s retired people who have more time which, to be fair, tends to make them more patient.

 

I can as you make Victor Meldrew sound like Happy Jack.

[Thatstheway]

Sundays tend to be the busiest days of the week.

 

 

You can shop at 2am, but you will quite likely find that there are no checkout staff, and your only option is to use the self-service checkout.

 

Self service checkouts should be boycotted, if it catches on it will do people out of work... If people think that prices of goods will go down as a result of doing away with till staff forget it because they wont.

[Justin Smith]

Whilst stood in the queue for an Asda checkout today I had a thought, a cynical thought I grant you, but a thought none the less.

Do you ever get the feeling that supermarkets are trying to force people to use those awful "self checkouts" ?

So why would they want to speed up the queues for "normal" checkouts ? They`d prefer to do quite the opposite, "make them queue for longer so they checkout themselves ! "

You know it makes sense.

[Justin Smith]

You are supposed to go away from the checkout to the bagging area. That's why they rattle the goods through into your trolley. They dont want you stood their trying to bag as they come through.

 

Maybe all supermarkets should do that. That would solve the OP complaint.

 

A What happens if you haven`t got a trolley ?

 

B I`ve never seen anyone with a trolley just put everything in and "bag it up" somewhere else. Quite apart from anything else these days most supermarkets seem to have got rid of their packing tables.