Self-Serve Checkout Scanners And "Shopper-Cards" Really Bug Me...

[arwalden]

I questioned some "supervisor-type" fellow at Home Depot about the self-serve checkouts. I asked if this was the equivalent of laying-off four cashiers or not hiring new people.

He explained that nobody had been laid off but that it allows Home Depot to have "more people on the floor helping customers". -- If this was true, I certainly saw no evidence of extra help.

Also... is Safeway's "frequent-shopper-card" an invasion of my privacy? Or just a gimmick? Why don't they just go ahead and give me the friggin BEST PRICE they possibly can without making me jump through hoops to get them?

-- Allen

[alcuno]

1. I got into a BIG discussion with the checkout girl at Baby Gap.

She just would not take a polite "no" for the answer. I remember at one point loudly saying, "I am sick and tired of having someone ask me for my phone number or zip code every time I want to buy something."

Self-service checkout at Home Depot is great.

[arwalden]

2. Q: "Phone Number?" --- A: "Unlisted"

Q: "Zip Code?" -- A: "I don't know" / "why?" / "make up something"

I hate that too. I've found that it's pointless to challenge the minimum-wage cashiers. They are just following orders and doing as they have been trained to do. I'm sure they haven't a CLUE as to WHY they are doing it.

Likely, they are equally clueless when a customer expresses their reservations and dislike over the practice.


-- Allen

[hayu_lol]

4. Here in Oregon, Fred Meyers is also doing the self-service...

checkout system. One thing you dont get with self-service is a discount on the labor they are not paying. Please refuse to go through the self-serve machines.

[Armstead]

3. I just say "I'm sorry I'd rather not"...

...when asked for personal info at a check out counter. I say it very nicely.

On the rare occasions that's not good enough, I ask (nicely) whether they'd rather have my phone number or a sale. Usually that settles the matter.

[JewelDigger]

5. Wanna hear something REALLY scary....

....I just found out a coupla weeks ago that you can use any/all of those 'special customer preferred cards' interchangeably (i.e., meaning that they are all tied into the same database perhaps?!?!?!)

I work p/t at one of the grocery chains and have been checking it out and, so far, it's proved true! Some people have TONS of those cards on their keychains and I grab different ones from different stores and scan and 'viola' they work!

Really not sure what to make of it.

[Melsky]

7. That is really creepy

Like we are all tethered to some mysterious database somewhere. I don't use those things anymore.

[mlawson]

6. Our huge supermarket chain here got cards last month.

Ingle's had been the last big chain to not have them, so far as I know. Of course, the discounts are exactly the same, but now we must use cards to get them.

But when I filled out the questionaire for my card, I simply handed it back to the lady with only my name on it, saying, "You really don't need my phone number, or the other stuff on here." She whispered that she agreed, and immediately issued me a card. It works just fine.

[JewelDigger]

8. Just had a thought....

...do your own 'test'. Give the clerk a 'different store card to scan' and see what happens - what the heck (just for fun)...see what happens - insist upon it. Then a few more people might be 'enlightened'.

[arwalden]

10. I Think Safeway's Has ONLY A Mag Strip On It...

And it won't scan with the barcode reader.

In any case, it doesn't make me loyal, it makes me angry. While traveling out of my area I stopped into a "ShopNSave" or some such grocery store that ALSO hat a loyalty discount card.

Obviously, I didn't have the card and wasn't inclined to wait in line at the customer service desk to get one either.

So I picked up the OTC medicine I needed and headed to the checkout. The cashier asked me if I had my "shopper card" and I sternly (but politely) told her that I was just a tourist to the area and that she would just have to charge me MORE than they charge the locals. The woman behind me overheard and said, "here hon... use mine!".

So I did. I saved a dollar... and now her account shows that she probably suffers from the same ailment that required me to purchase the OTC medicine in the first place.

Ain't technology wonderful?

[jmowreader]

9. We didn't lay anyone off either...

And our hiring for the front end has picked up since the FASTLane system went in.

My store got FASTLane last October. We were one of the first to get it, in part because we're one of the highest-volume Home Depots in the company. When we put it in, we went from 16 lanes to 10 standard lanes and the FASTLane system, which is four terminals attached to a central cashier. We like it for two reasons: with fewer lanes in the same space, there's more room between them (when someone comes to Register 7 with a cart full of 12-foot lumber, you appreciate that), and with fewer registers, you don't have any that are closed. Before FAST (I think it means "front-end-area service transformation") we had cashiers sufficient to man eight registers, leaving eight closed. Now we have enough people to open all of them.

Yes, of course the Safeway frequent shopper card is an invasion of your privacy. Any store that has one of these cards is doing market research, trying to correlate customers to their shopping habits. (By now, they must have come to the conclusion that I exist on cat food and zucchini--that's all I buy there. My wife does the people-food shopping and we have separate card accounts. And yes, the zucchini is pet food too--I have a 15-inch Plecostomus catfish.)

[arwalden]

12. So I Try The "Fast" Lanes At Home Depot...

I scan the first (and only) item and put it in the bag. (Some foam weatherstripping.) Then I'm told to put it in the bag. Please put the item in the bag. <GRRRR IT IS IN THE BAG!!>

I'm not an idiot. I can figure things out pretty easily. I used to be a cashier. --- But this time I needed help from the fastlane monitor.

How embarrassing! Never again!

[NoMoreRedInk]

11. I think self service check out is great, but....

if you want to scare yourself about invasion of privacy, check out this thread:

http://www1.seisint.com/products.html

Those grocery stores, and just about any other business, will combine their own data with data they buy from this company and can paint a scary good picture of you as a consumer.

It is truly frightening.

[JewelDigger]

13. geez, sometimes I could just kick myself....

:kick:

[grasswire]

14. give false info to Safeway

You don't have to give them the real info. Make up a name, make up a phone number. I use area code-555-1212 (the number for information!). It works. Use any number.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. The friggin BEST PRICE is the last thing you'll get from Safeway.

They use their Club Card specials to draw people in but if you buy anything from them that's not on sale you'll pay more than you would at any other store.

[Clete]

16. I with you. I don't want to deal with coupons either

or any other "savings". I just want to get the best gimmick free price available for my purchases.

[grasswire]

17. it's the better off people who can save anyhoo

The best way to save money is to stock up on the sale items and hit several different stores for their sales. People who can afford to stock up and never buy full price do well. People who have time to shop several different stores can save money.

But the poor shmuck with twenty bucks to last the week has to buy what he has to buy even if it's not on sale. He can't wait for eggs to be on sale for 99 cents, he has to buy them for $1.79. Etc.

It seems to me that the people who do the best with the sales systems are well-off seniors. I see them on the last day of the sale loading up. Six big packs of sale TP and nothing that's full price.

[sleipnir]

18. Here's what I do!!! (It's kinda illegal)

I just register them to Sammy Sosa c/o Wrigley Field, I give them the address: 1060 West Addison Street, Chicago, IL 60613...kinda like in the Blues Brothers.

Funny how no one ever checks to see what you write on those things...

I had a, uh, friend, yeah, who had this amazing scam in late, late 90's where you could easily pilfer goods through the self-service just by acting like an idiot or really confused. It worked, until they got better scanners and more people watching the things.

[LiberalSailor]

19. Recent There

Was standing in line getting kinda annoyed that there was one cashier for 6 people in linle and had a guy checking receipts(never understood that job) offer to show me how to use the auomated check out line. Now being a self professed Nerd/Geek I felt absoultely weird seeing as i could design the system if i was bored/paid enough(so I exagerrate a bit) I had to explain to him how I would rather wait in line and save his job and support HD's union and didn't want to go to a HD were there was only one clerk in the whole store. I still ended up sitting thru his little orientation which he got managed to mess up (damn odd shaped items) That i felt bad ofr him and the people that will lose jobs over this "advancement".
I'm sorry I may like progress but I still like a personal touch when at the store and feel this takes away from what little the big corps' give to the community.

/half rant offf

/edit on reading about the interchangeable club cards i have been using my dead grandmothers card for a good 3 years now, I wonder how much junk mail she gets?

[MaineDem]

20. I detest the store cards

Why do I have to register to get better prices? That's one of my biggest pet peeves!

I like the idea of making info up on the application. Maybe I'll try that. My local chain (Hannafords) doesn't use the frequest shopper cards but the Shaw's markets do and I avoid those stores as much as possible.

[peekaloo]

21. Please place scanned item in bag

Please place scanned item in bag.

Please remove bagged item.

Please remove bagged item.

Unauthorized item removed from bagging area. (replace bag)

Unscanned item in bagging area.


:eyes:

[trogdor]

22. Self-serve checkouts SUCK (but not because of labor concerns)

The reason they're not as widespread as management would like, is that you need just as many cashiers - if not more - just to educate customers on how they work, supervise the site to prevent leakage, etc. On top of that, few customers consider this to be a convenience, and will line up ten deep for a real-live cashier before using one. It's a waste of money.

Shopping cards, OTOH, are an abomination - PERIOD. I'm not terribly concerned that John Ashcroft might find my consumption rate of hummus interesting, but somebody once told me that the whole purpose of these cards is to find out what high-markup luxury items upper middle class twits like me buy, so they can concentrate on just those items. What the bottom half buys (you know, the ones who don't have any money) becomes irrelevant.

[geniph]

23. The vast majority of stores that use those cards

will let you have a card, and use it to get the discounts, without providing any actual information other than a name, and most are perfectly willing to let you use a name like "Mickey Mouse." However, if you use them with your check or debit card, you're giving them the information anyway; they can and do link purchases made on a given card or checking account to the barcode number of the 'club card'.

The self-serve machines are a mixed blessing - there's some stores (the local Fred Meyers are an example) where most of the clerks are horribly underpaid and incredibly SLOW, and it can take half an hour to buy a quart of milk. The self-serve checkouts CAN be faster - if the person ahead of you understands that everything is weighed to make sure nothing's put in the bag that wasn't first run across the scanner, or tries to buy a bottle of beer, or tries to use food stamps, etc. Anything even remotely out of the ordinary isn't going to work well at the self-scans. Some of the stores are doing it pretty well by having one clerk monitor four self-scans from a central terminal put in the middle of the four of them. Others have no one assigned to the self-scan, or they have the same clerk who's selling cigarettes and lottery tickets doing it, which means anyone with a problem stands there for 20 minutes waiting for help.

I suspect it's just another way for stores to try to replace higher-paid, better-trained help with minimum-wage drones, and that's never a good thing for working folks. If they truly passed on cost savings to consumers, I might feel differently, but all any savings do is further enrich the CEO's and stockholders.