But…they run the country!
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My local grocery store charges 5 cents per plastic bag. At the self checkout, I have been known to pay for one bag but take two.
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I appreciate that boing boing has the least annoying trolls around.
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You monster
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Have you been in a supermarket lately with a 50/50 mix of Human cashiers and self-checkout stations?
On any busy day, the queue for self-checkouts is always slower and nobody ever leaves looking happier.
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My local Stop & Shop now has a system that seems so berserkly rife with theft that I’ve no idea how they justify its use. As you walk in, you grab a barcode scanning gun from a big rack and scan your shopper card to activate it, then walk around the store, scanning your stuff and bagging it as you go; it even has a tiny printer built in. When you’re done, you head to a register, scan your card again, and everything you’ve scanned pops up on the screen — pay, and go. Nothing’s weighed, nothing’s checked.
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Infuriatingly, the Fred Meyer ones around here politely ask me if I have coupons, and if I respond in the affirmative, it locks down and calls the hall monitor attendant to enter them for me.
They also made them a lot pushier recently, so I’ve barely finished moving an item across the scanner before it’s shouting “PLACE YOUR ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA” like a bitchy, passive-aggressive Siri.
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Shoplifters 
you’re getting away with value
Panera seems to have some “flexibility” about their pastry sales. One night my 8-year-old and I had dinner there and took the 99-cent pastry add-on, getting the print-out for my daughter to chose dessert afterward. She bounced happily up to the counter, and, horror of horrors, they were out of her beloved cinnamon rolls! Faced with the kind of disappointment and pathos only an 8-year-old girl can muster, the employee grabbed a box and told her to choose everything she wanted from the case. She showed remarkable restraint and picked out three treats, one for her, one for me and one to bring home for her dad.
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Given that self- checkouts are stealing jobs, this şeems only fair.
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Most retail environments have accounting entries for “shrinkage” due to shoplifting and employee theft. Walmart actually got into trouble with some regulatory body–the SEC, I think–because they didn’t have such line items, basically inflating the value of the corporation. (That’s also why so many Walmart stores have inventory problems: managers don’t report “shrink” because corporate has its hands over its ears screaming “LALALALALA.”)
So, maybe it’s more accurate to say that most retail environments assume that a specific percentage of employees and customers are thieves. (Plus security cams.)
NB: not offering a justification to join the ranks of the light-fingered.
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Shoplifters, are you learning your lesson as we are also hopefully learning our lessons through sinning?
FWIW, when you bag produce or bulk items, and then weigh them for checkout, you are paying for the bag via weight. Same thing for our Whole Foods/Plum Market prepared foods section. We rarely shop there $$$ but went one time for some special items. My daughter wanted some stuff from the prep bar, which meant paying for the take-out box. When we checked out it came to $50.04 - I told the clerk I was trying to keep the total under my lone $50 bill… if it wasn’t for that damn box!! I said, to which the underpaid cashier replied “you sound just like me I usually put that deli stuff on a piece of wax paper or something I hate paying for the containers”.
Guess what I’m trying to say is life is a series of compromises. And I was hoping to get some good tips from the article or this comments section, and was sorely disappointed. Here’s one which I have not done but could easily be done at self-checkout - when they have apples or something where all varieties are the same price except for the BEST ones - like Honeycrisp, just put one sucky apple in a bag full of Honeycrisp and then ring up that code 4309 or whatever for the sucky $.99/lb apples while making off with a bag full of $3.49/lb Honeycrisp - a variation on the steak idea.
You’re welcome.
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to be fair, it’s not like the containers are free for the store… they have to buy them. It’s not a huge leap to see that they would attempt to get some of that back.
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The dirty secret of supermarkets is that the employees don’t do much in terms of stock and ordering. Sales rep comes in. Takes inventory. Does the order. When the delivery comes that sales rep stocks it on the shelves. Staff basically handle small restocks and check in the orders. Exceptions being meat, seafood and produce.
The back rooms are a lot stricter than up front. So I suspect you’re correct. Even with all the locked rooms and cameras I can walk back say I’m x sales rep. And get access to everything but the pharmacy cabinet. It’d be pretty trivial for some one to just walk out of there with whatever they want.
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You have a PAID SUBSCRIPTION to 10 Finger Discount Monthly?
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I’ve never stolen anything from a self serve checkout but I have abandoned them mid checkout more than once if no one is around and the thing starts complaining for any reason when I’m not doing anything wrong. I have zero patience for them.
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