this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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I've said this many times, but self checkout as a thing isnt inherently bad. They are a perfectly viable alternative for people who only grabbed a couple things, or something they find personally embarrassing and don't want to have a cashier see, or dont want to be social/deal with people.
What made it bad is that these stores replaced 90% of their checkout lanes with self checkout, then refused to have anyone operate any of the checkout lanes. Which sucks for anyone buying more than a couple things. If you have a full cart for your monthly shopping, going through self checkout is like a 40 minute ordeal cause theres no counter space or anything (and i shouldnt be expected to do that much work to check myself out unless you are giving me like a 20% discount for doing it).
I'm glad to see them reducing the number of self checkout lanes, but i hope they keep at least a couple.
Yeah, it really should've been kept as a 15 items or less lane.
I would say even less, really. 5 items or less.
I'd say instead make an aisle and cart design for the store such that the store's shopping carts would not be able to enter the self-checkout. Essentially, each shopper would be limited to what they can carry in a basket or two, with the added limitation that the checkout bagging area is only big enough for 2 baskets that cannot be removed once you start.
Thats way to much of a stretch. Cause no ones gonna invest in new shopping carts for every store, and to make it too narrow for a cart to enter would be uncomfortably narrow for people.
and its unnecessary, just have maybe, depending on the size of the store, 2-4 self checkouts. and have a cashier on hand at all times to handle cart loads. 2 or more for high traffic hours. a lot simpler solution.