Technology

Ok now I am curious where you live that you have to provide ID to shop. Here in the US we scan the items and then swipe our payment card, the ID is only used to check your age for tobacco and alcohol purchases which can’t be sold to minors. An employee has to come look at the ID to make sure a minor hasn’t borrowed someone else’s, so it doesn’t even get scanned. Employees just swipe their work badge and confirm that they checked your age.

As for the pain, a lot of self checkout systems have very limited space and can be awkward to run all your items through. Manned stations have the conveyor so you can unload multiple items from your cart at a time to be scanned. They also have more end space so you can have room to bag everything if you are doing a big shopping trip.

Is this not how it usually works?

I want to shop without them generating a profile of me. I want to pay with cash. I don't even want them to know who I am. And I don't want random checks....

Fortunately, I have never seen your scenario in Germany where I'm living.....

Not for me. Take in consideration that I don't do a lot of shopping. Two of the maybe four times times I used a self check-out last year;

1. So I go to the self check-out. One of my items is on clearance. I scan it. It shows full price. turns out I needed to scan a different bar-code for the clearance. However, I can't remove the already scanned bar-code from the list, so now I need to call assistance.
2. My kids drink a lot of coke zero, so when it goes on sale I usually buy a lot of it. In this case, I took all that's left in the store. I scan one bottle, do a quick count and adjust the number of bottles accordingly. I place the bottle in my cart and realize I've counted one too many. I can't take it off, and now need to call assistance.

Wait, you don't have to scan every item at the checkout?

It works like that for me too. Even better if your list is short enough to avoid getting a cart.

I bet it depends heavily on what stores you frequent and where. Also which country ofc. In from the Netherlands and have similar experience, some stores even have portable DIY scanners.. so I scan while I shop and just hand in the scanner and pay.

Are you Dutch? I recall an old NJB video describing how Dutch supermarkets worked like this. (Plus, Martin is a name I associate with the Netherlands…)

But no. Most often, you put stuff in your trolley or basket, then when you get to the checkout, you scan the things and bag them yourself one-by-one, then pay.

Here in Australia, one of our two main supermarket chains in the last 2 years rolled out something similar to what the Netherlands has had for at least half a decade. You use their app on your phone and scan things with the app as you go, before paying through the app and scanning a QR code at the exit.

The other main chain, and the two main smaller chains, have made no moves to follow, so you're stuck with a long line for a small number of open checkouts, or the self-checkout where you have to scan everything after you get to the checkout.

My local shop around the corner doesn't even require scanning a card or anything like that. Just get the handscanner at the entrance by pressing the button on the screen. Scan your shit and put it in the bag, go to the self checkout, put the scanner in the machine, touch your phone to pay and it's done. I love it, I can be in and out in about 1 minute if I only need a couple of things. They've put in about 10 self checkout machines in the place of 3 old fashioned checkouts. Usually there is only one oldskool checkout open with a large line of old people.

Only irritating thing is people with like 100 items scanning all their shit at the checkout (if you don't want to use the handscanner), it takes forever. I don't get why people do that, but luckily there are enough self checkouts there is always one free.