Should We Eliminate Self Serve?

It seems a lot of the shops near me are putting barriers in after the self serve tills. Problem with this is a staff member has to press a button to open them and it can take ages. Kind of defeats the purpose of them

I prefer self-service till checkouts. Despite an increase in shoplifting, supermarkets are unlikely to get rid of them, especially in smaller express style stores, as they don't take up as much space as conventional tills. Supermarkets are currently looking for ways to simplify and speedup the checkout process, such as Amazon Fresh ‘Just Walk Out’ stores and Tesco's GetGo trials - www.thegrocer.co.uk/tesco/tesco-trials-scan-free-self-checkout/685332.article

Nope. I like self service as I don't have to people. It's easier. Cba with people

Hah.They thought they would save money lol.I would be glad to see the back of them.

Stores took into account an increase in theft when Self Serve was originally introduced , but that had to be balanced with the saving made in staffing, and all the costs associated with employing staff . To be fair most staff don't like working checkouts anyway as it's boring tedious repetitive work and they are on the tills for hours before getting a break.

I think there should be one or two just for when buying a few items but the majority should be proper staff checkouts. M&S have done away with all staff and just machines so puts me off shopping there.

YES YES a thousand times yes. The poor staff having to cope with too many customers at the same time. It's all horrible. Not enough space. Loosing a service without paying less. Get rid of them now

Technology has taken over and ruined the World. This has been happening for years. If you use them they are going to stay, but If you don’t use them they will maybe take them out. Not all of us will stick together In not using them. We never do. Shoplifting has always happened. You can’t change that.

Our Waitrose has just installed self service tills. Obviously they don’t think it’s encouraging shoplifting.

Self-serve for restaurants where you're allowed to eat as much as you want, I don't mind them.

However, self-checkout machines are something I don't use anymore because it's the job of the store's employees and those dang machines every once in a while run into problems and you have to wait for a human to fix it. Ironic they replaced self-checkout machines with humans only for it to rely on humans.

I don’t like them , never have , especially now that they are stopping people to look at their receipts.

I love them ,huge queues in Lidl and I can whiz through in no time with my 7 items at the self service ones

Yes, definitely we should get rid of them. They simply remove humans from jobs - one checkout equals one member of staff. 6 - 10 machines equals one member of staff overseeing problems etc and dealing with customers. A bit of no brainer really - if shops have increased shoplifting that is their fault for trying to reduce costs by eliminating staff. The way I see it they can't have their cake and eat it - pay for staff or lose profit through shoplifting.

I believe you should get a discount if you use self service. You are doing a job that qualified staff usually do. I have heard how many shoplift using these so I do reckon the stores are losing money

Just used one they are very convenient in Lidl when they got several people in queue and on 1 till open. The people who are saying theives use them ust know how to do it as i can't see how, if i was to scan one item and put 2 in the bag it would warn you and you have nothing else to put them in. If i had a bigger shop i would use the main till, but a few items this is good and as someone else said 2 tills and 1 person to oversee no more.

Self service tills …. It‘s equivalent to being asked to pay a 20% service charge at a buffet restaurant

I worked on A till 24 years and made friends with many people.A lot of elderly people came in and for many I was the only person they got to speak to. Why take the human touch away from people.I loved the contact and banter as much as they did

Personally, we should not have many. We're taking away jobs and basic human interaction. That pensioner who came in today was forced to use a self service till, which a human had to come over to clear, probably has no interaction with another person at all. Such a sad lonely life, and we make it worse having no contact with another person. What an awful society we life in.

Yes I think self serve SHOULD be ELIMINATED. People need jobs. Self serve does away with jobs. Employers get more profits. People loss out.

I work in a store with 7 of them and would say no there great to have yes there not great for people trying to shoplift pretending to pay for items but them sort of people stand out there easy to use even before i worked in a store with them I used them all the time the trouble is people don't read the signs or look what there doing most of the time

Went to Asda today 2 checkouts manned by staff the rest are self serve. Shocking! I like to be served by a person this seems to get rarer and rarer!

Nobody ever considers those of us for whom they are a bonus. I suffer from severe anxiety due to PTSD, which stops me from being able to speak to people in public. I often have extreme panic attacks that cause my arms and legs to shake uncontrollably and require me to be sedated. If I know a shop has a self service option I will choose to spend my money there rather than in a shop where I may be forced into a situation that is distressing for me, and those who witness me sat on the floor shaking. Many of us do not wish to interact with other people because of our mental health issues.

Online shopping has created new jobs such as pickers - those people that block the aisles in the supermarkets and drivers. Otherwise, i would say that online shoppers have put people out of a job as they are not visiting the store. Self service is good when there are just a few items to pay. It also allows you to check the price of items when scanned - you can't always see the price when an assistant puts it through the scanner unless you get a printed receipt . Some Sainsbury's now get you to scan the receipt before you can exit the area so that should restrict the opportunity to shoplift. I much prefer self service

I dont mind the idea of self serve tills but think there should be a much better split between the two - Our Asda we are lucky to have more than one or two manned tills to about 20 self serves which is really annoying. even half and half would be much better so you actually have a fair choice. The manned tills are usually so much quicker as the staff know what they are doing. Asda usually only has one staff member manning all the self serves - so you often have to wait each time something doesn't scan properly - which is pretty much most shops!

Yes!

I personally don't understand the hate to be honest. People claim that they take jobs, but we can say the same for many other things. Internet banking, pumping your own petrol, online shopping just to name a few. It could be argued that those things also take jobs, but they don't get anywhere near as much vitriol.

We started shopping at Aldi because the fruit and veg are much fresher than Asda, we cant get everything from Aldi so go back to Asda every couple of weeks to stock up and we find Asda's checkout till staff painfully slow so we use the scan and shop thing which is great. Asda don't have half the stuff we go for most of the time which is annoying.

Hate the things, then you get place's lik B&Q who have six self-service checkouts but only one for cash, I hate being dictated too, it's not just shoplifting it's people wandering around the store eating there way through the basket, the whole of society has a think they can do what they like