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Self checkout machines at a No Frills store. Their use was not motivated by improving customer service: retailers were giddy to take a blowtorch to labour costs, writes Vinay Menon.
On Black Friday, kiss that self-checkout machine goodbye.
Who knows if it will still have a job next Black Friday? Retailers are now rethinking the cost-benefit of turning customers into cashiers. On Wednesday, the CBC reported several big box stores, including some Canadian Tire and Walmart outposts, are ditching self-checkout machines and bringing back humans. It’s about time.
Earlier this month, Booths, a British grocery chain, announced it was giving pink slips to most of its machines. CNN reported some Costco outlets are also “dialing back” on DIY cashing out. The Atlantic declared: “Self-Checkout Is a Failed Experiment.”
I have never used the self-checkout at a grocery store for two reasons: 1. I do not want to contribute to retail job losses. 2. I am unnerved by the prospect of weighing olives or inputting a cucumber or ensuring the flyer discount was applied to my chicken breasts.
So I wait for a trained expert with a badge to close my transactions.
But in other sectors, retailers have made it close to impossible to not be your own cashier. I started using the machines at Shoppers Drug Mart because I can never geolocate any humans. There’s usually just one clerk dealing with a conga line of bumper-to-bumper carts filled with potions and ointments. So I can wait forever in the tinny haze of ’80s soft rock and cheap perfume. Or I can scan my shampoo and be on my merry way.
But I don’t need Visine. There will be no red eyes when the machines are gone.
Get rid of those abominable self-checkout kiosks. Enough of the patronizing prompts and soulless point-of-purchase buzz kills. We already spend too much time on screens. Human contact was the most underrated part of in-person shopping. You know what the world needs right now? More pleasant small talk with strangers.
The day before Halloween, a sweet clerk at Sobeys informed me I was out of luck. They were sold out of pumpkins. While she expressed regret I’d have to pumpkin hunt elsewhere, she was also happy because unsold gourds end up in a dumpster every year.
I had never considered that. A machine can’t educate me in such seasonal ephemera.
When the self-checkout trend gained traction more than a decade ago, retail execs sounded like preachers. The hard gospel was on the promise of convenience. No more lineups! No reason to check the bill for errors in the parking lot! You are in full control!
The retail execs were lying through their bleached teeth. They were not motivated by improving customer service — they were giddy to take a blowtorch to labour costs.
Machines don’t make hourly wages. Machines don’t need lunch breaks.
So when these same execs now claim they are scaling back on self-checkout because that is what customers want, the barcode in my brain flashes an error message.
Something else must be the reason. Could that something else be theft?
Retailers clam up about stealing. But the honour system only works if everyone is honourable and not tempted by five-finger discounts. It just takes one bad apple to spoil the barrel — especially when that bad apple is a shopper who does not scan their apples.
A survey this month by LendingTree found that nearly 70 per cent of shoppers believe self-checkout is contributing to shoplifting. Presumably, this is because they have witnessed shenanigans. And get this: 31 per cent of Gen Z and 21 per cent of millennials admit to bagging items without paying. And they don’t feel guilty.
They rationalize their criminal behaviour by the high cost of living. It’s nuts. I find the MSRP on a Porsche unjust, but that doesn’t give me the right to hot-wire a Panamera.
I think we can all agree inflation is out of control. That doesn’t mean you get to pilfer sirloins or speakers, which then only jacks up prices for the rest of us. But in that LendingTree survey, 44 per cent of respondents said they plan to keep stealing.
And that’s a wrap. While other surveys have found shoppers enjoy the convenience of self-checkout, the technology is simply not sufficient to deal with the bad apples.
My wife dragged me into Costco the other day. She swears by that place. To me, it’s a living hell. It’s always busier than an airport during March break. Yes, prices are fantastic. It’s the volume that’s unsettling. As I’ve said to my wife, what are we going to do with 50 mini muffins? La Tomatina does not go through this many tomatoes. Sweetheart, we do not need a bottle of Worcestershire sauce big enough to fill our bathtub.
Anyway, as we were leaving, there was a second line after the first line. Two clerks in reflective vests were checking bills and giving carts a once-over. It was so hilariously futile. If someone did swipe something, this half-assed sleuthing would not crack the case. To achieve true loss prevention, stores would need to give all exiting shoppers a polygraph test: “Sir, take a deep breath. Did you pay for these bananas?”
Since that’s not going to happen, it’s time to end the self-checkout experiment until new technologies emerge. Right now, there are too many ways to scam the scan.
Bring back human cashiers. Bring back human contact. Bring back honesty.
As a species, we can’t be trusted to be our own cashiers.
*****
Credit belongs to : www.thestar.com
