Why Self-Checkout Is and Has Always Been the Worst

[MineralMan]

16. The movement from full service to self service has taken a long time

in the retail industry. But, the transition is inexorable. Very few of us remember how stores worked in the early years of the 20th century. Back then, you came in, asked for what you wanted, and someone went and got it for you from the dark shelves in the store. It was brought to the cash wrap or service counter, where you could inspect it and either accept it or ask for something else.

This was true in department stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, and almost everywhere else. Customers did not wander around, looking for what they wanted. They got personal service for their requests.

When you paid for your purchases, your money was sent to a cashier elsewhere in the store, using various methods, ranging from a page who ran your money there, to pneumatic tubes which carried it to the cashier. The front of the store personnel were not allowed to make change, provide receipts or do much of anything else. It was a matter of trust, I suppose.

That all changed fairly early in the 20th century. Stores began to display goods on shelves to allow customers to seek out and select their own goods. Why? To cut down on the number of employees, of course. Next, the remote cashier was eliminated and your transaction was completed at the cash-wrap counter. Again, this reduced the number of employees.

Once you had made a purchase, in the olden days, you could have it delivered to your home, where your household servants would accept the goods. Then, as self-service stores advanced, this was replaced by either the cash-wrap employee or another worker bagging your purchase in a bag that advertised the store. As grocery stores became supermarkets, some discount supermarkets stopped bagging customers' purchases, relegating that task to the customer as well. Again, fewer employees for greater profits and competitive pricing.

Now, the self-checkout system promises to eliminate the cashier altogether, giving the customer the job of tallying purchases and dealing with payment, using either paper money or plastic debit or credit cards. The systems to do this are still imperfect, and everyone who goes through the self-check lines has experienced issues. So, the store stations an employee to monitor several check-outs to deal with those problems. Again reducing the number of employees is the goal, making the customers, once again, work for the store with each purchase.

What's next? Well, the new Amazon stores don't even have checkout counters or cash-wrap stations. You come in, pick up what you want, and it is automatically charged to your account. You needn't interact with store employees at all in this new wave of self-service technology. Someone is, no doubt, watching over the store, perhaps from a remote security station, and you're being recorded on video at all times, but hey, it's fast, easy and you needn't even look at anyone if you don't want to.

We've all been trained, over the years, to accept more and more of the responsibility of serving ourselves. For a while, we miss the guy in the service station who used to pump our gas, wash our windows, and check our tires and oil. But, we got used to it, for the most part. We miss the baggers at the supermarket, but we got used to it. We've even been trained to like this new self-service system.

Soon, and even now, we won't have to go to the store at all. We can plug in our electric car in the garage and do all our shopping on our smart phones. Just click the Buy Now! button, and a vehicle will come to your door very soon and drop off what you bought. No need to leave your home. No need to go out of doors. No need to interact with other people. What joy, eh?