CycleChat Investigates - Self Service Tills

[Alex321]

But by and large shops are running less staff where they have these tills. Just chat to the staff in your local Coop like I do - they'll tell you how they've gone from 5 to 2 at slack periods. Don't guess or suppose - ask them.

Lay offs aren't necessary in retail where churn is high anyway.

It's a cynical attempt to raise shareholder return by having customers do the work of staff, and it's incredible that people fall for it.

The same argument was made when supermarkets first came along, and you selected your own goods from the shelves, as opposed to shops where you were served by the staff.

 

[Mike_P]

Local Aldi closes the self service tills when it's not busy so I would suspect the no staff loses is correct.

 

[wiggydiggy]

My only grip with the Lidl Self Service is that some staff won't remove the security tags until after I've paid, and others will actively say hello as they've recognized me and remove the tags straight away. I know they do have an issue with theft as I've seen people thieving but as someone who definately gets recognized by the staff, and I've never thieved anything from them, its annoying.

On a more positive note there is an Aldi getting built near me, and it will be closer so I'm looking forward to going there instead!

 

[Asa Post]

Sainsburys and Tesco - scan items as I'm going round and use a self-service till at the end. It works great nearly all the time. There is the occasional till failure, or the need for a random check. On the whole, it saves me time and means I don't have to try to talk to people, so it's a good thing.
On the other hand, Aldi self-service tills are vile. They seem to be designed for people with a basket. They have nowhere to park a trolley while it's being unloaded. I need to put my own bags on the platform, and it seems to weigh items I've scanned as I put them into a bag to make sure I'm not stealing. It can't cope when a bag is full and I change it for an empty one. Something always goes wrong, and a staff member has to come and sort it out. I now only shop in Aldi if there's a staffed till open.

 

[ianrauk]

On about 60% of the occasions that I've reluctantly had to use them, they simply don't work properly. Were they dreamed up by Elon Musk?

That seems extraordinarily high. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I have had problems with self service tills over the past few years and I use them all the time.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Any loss of staff as a result of installing self-service checkouts into what are pretty small stores; Aldi, Lidl, and Co-Op (especially) would result in minimal loss of staff if any. The teams are not very large to start with and there is little room for manouvre, they might take out one low number part-time role at worst.

In very large footprint stores (100000 sq.ft - not too many this size in the UK but they exist) where staff numbers would be up to around 1200ish then a big bank of self service tills installed might cut (plucks figure from air) 10 jobs which is a negligible percentage.

Staff reduction is currently the name of the game in UK supermarket chains as they are one heck of a cost in what is a low margin business. The real reductions being made in store management costs and positions formerly involving a level of expertise.

Both ASDA and Tesco have massively overhauled their instore management team structure with reduced numbers and greater spans of control.

The above two retailers plus Morrisons (I don't have any contacts in Sainsbury) are also furiously closing the various fresh food counter offerings primarily as they are expensive to operate in terms of staff cost, plus the trades of butcher, baker (no candlestick makers!), fishmongers etc are dying, ergo difficult to recruit from a diminishing pool of expertise.

 

[Adam4868]

You could almost feel sorry for the big supermarkets....until you see their profits 🙄

 

[Drago]

I often feel sorry for the CEOs on their telephone number salaries as I tell staff I'm refusing to use the DIY till and patiently wait for a human till to open.

Mind you, I don't buy their filthy hydrocarbons any more, so that's a few shekels off their profits.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

You could almost feel sorry for the big supermarkets....until you see their profits 🙄

They are chunky numbers but a quite low percentage of turnover. Same as many large-scale businesses.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I often feel sorry for the CEOs on their telephone number salaries as I tell staff I'm refusing to use the DIY till and patiently wait for a human till to open.

Mind you, I don't buy their filthy hydrocarbons any more, so that's a few shekels off their profits.

I think that their salaries are reasonable considering the scale of business that they are ultimately operating. They are massively high-pressure jobs and a good CEO will leverage far more than their salary out of a business.

 

[AndyRM]

They've recently sacrificed two normal tills for a bank of 6 self service ones at my local Aldi.

I'm not sure what the thinking was, I assume to try and lessen queue's building up, but at busy times it really hasn't worked.

The scales are weirdly unresponsive which doesn't help, and only having one poor store assistant available with the means to sort out issues isn't enough.

They also have to guard carrier bags in addition to their till unlocking duties!

 

[Alex321]

You could almost feel sorry for the big supermarkets....until you see their profits 🙄

The issue is that people see £billions of profit, and think that is "greed", when it is only actually 2-3% profit margin, which is really rather low.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I like them for smaller shops, saves queuing and is usually quicker. For larger shops I prefer a checkout operator but you're usually waiting 5 minutes longer. Self service has to be done with an element of patience, and I often don't pack as I go, just pack at the end so you don't have bag weight problems

 

[Mo1959]

I like them for smaller shops, saves queuing and is usually quicker. For larger shops I prefer a checkout operator but you're usually waiting 5 minutes longer. Self service has to be done with an element of patience, and I often don't pack as I go, just pack at the end so you don't have bag weight problems

That’s the way I do it too. Just pile everything up, pay then bag. I only ever use them if I am just buying a basketful of groceries. Wouldn’t use them with a trolley.

 

[Adam4868]

The issue is that people see £billions of profit, and think that is "greed", when it is only actually 2-3% profit margin, which is really rather low.

Without getting too political in here and risking a rap on the knuckles from Spokey 😁...maybe have a look at the billions paid out to shareholders ?
They're still making huge profits,slashing jobs and squeezing suppliers...they're doing just fine.