I would like to complain about the introduction of more and more self service checkouts in my local sainsbury store in Islington. There used to be a fast service area for baskets only with one queue for about 1 or more checkouts which moved very quickly and efficiently. This whole area and more of the checkout area has been replaced by self service checkouts. I find the increase in this deplorable what happened to ’service’ the supermarkets make huge profits and then expect us to serve ourselves. Fair enough maybe if they offered a reduction in your shopping bill if you do this but no the prices still remain the same. When I complained in store I was met with but we will help you use them – that is not the issue the lack of service is. They also implied that it was what customers want not any of the customers I spoke to and what happens to the staff who used to man the checkouts?
I seem to remember reading in the press that an english supermarket tried the same thing in the States and it bombed with people voting with their feet and not using the shops.
Bring back good old fashioned service with a smile the money these companies make the least they could do was provide me with a checkout service hey maybe even bring back people packing my bag and carrying it to my car – at least it would help with unemployment.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I can tell you one thing…. most supermarket staff do not smile!
In fact I may be one of the few but I quite like the self service checkouts, I am never met with rudeness, I even get a thank you at the end of my payment! something I noted was getting more and more rare in the whole shopping experiance.
Don’t forget, morrisons tried this many years ago (1994) with the scan your own shopping gun and it did flop because the system was too time consuming.
The problem arises that each one of these self service checkouts is a persons job, that is the only issue I have with them, it is apparant that those who don’t want to use them can use one of the manned, slower checkouts instead but I do have to take issue with you over how many people dislike them.. if this was fact, these checkouts would be empty but I think you will find they have the same number of people on them that other checkouts have.. just the people have less items which means you get through quicker.
While I can moan for the UK on my todd… I’m afraid this is the future, and this is the way shopping is going on the whole, embrace it… I fear you have no other choice.
Chris
Sainsburys staff are underpressure and all the customers do are moan and you do get loads of customers that are rude, its a 2-way thing if you are polite then the cashiers will be polite back. Those self service tills are very easy to use and it gets people through the checkouts very quickly, i wish they get them in my local store.
Hi
I am a HGV driver visiting the Sherburn rdc site regularly,the room in which drivers are expected to sit for several hours at the most has NO heating at all,i am sure that the people on the other side of the wall{employed by J Sainsbury}have heating!,and i am also sure that there is an health and safety issue re this.
I love the self service checkouts, they are quick and easy to use – only a moron would have problems. I for one usually don’t have time to make idle chit chat with check-out staff so DIY suits me just fine!! I say more self service!!
Well said Kate! And to correct Chris, each self service till is not one persons job. Every four self service tills equate to one cashier – and guess what, they still have that cashier overseeing the four self service tills. I know which option I’d rather have. Four fast and hassle free tills to one till?
I have had the most unpleasant shopping experience of many years this morning. I have been using my local Sainsburys prior to 8am, but recently they’ve not opened regular tills and have three people directing to self-service tills. I can assure you that self-service tills are nigh on impossible if you are partially sighted. I cannot find barcodes fast enough on items before I am informed that the machine has timed out. I had this bloody woman overseeing the machine who kept on telling me that I’d timed out and resetting the machine. In the end I walked out, abandoning my shopping. I feel quite depressed that I’ve been cut out of a process – the purchase of necessities – that was quite manageable. Who sets the timing of transaction on these machines – can it be overridden locally? I regret I was too anger to ask, in situ.
My husband and I are becoming increasingly disillusioned with Sainsbury’s intention of meeting customer requirements. The number of organic products on sale is reducing almost weekly, whereas the increase in Israeli and West Bank (also Israeli) produce is increasing daily.
The staff, assuming you are lucky enough to find any, are not interested in customers – full stop. They have no product knowledge and are not even effective at filling the shelves.
More and more we find ourselvs finishing our shopping trips at Tesco (which we don’t like), the Co-op (which is growing on us and it’s local) or Waitrose (a long way to travel);
We have shopped at Archer Road (Sheffield) since it was built, we have endured it’s various phases, as now, and we loved it. No longer. It’s very sad.
Waitrose’s slef-scanning system is by far the best. I suppose it may not work in other stores – Waitrsoe customers tend not to be thieves!
I have been working part-time at Sainsburys since september. In october 2009 we had a large re-fit in which self service were introduced. Having a tescos and an Asda in town (with 6 & 4 self service respectively) we are the most recent to have been given these machines. We have got 10, 6 basket sized & 4 lager ones. Before we got them I hated them. Now I spend most of my shifts working them and think they are brilliant! We have in the original space of four manned tills, 10 self service which only need 2 mambers of staff to run. They have been absolutely invaluable at dealing with the busy christmas period and other busy times. On monday evenings which I work if the queues get big we open up the four trolley ones which absolutely shoots people through. We have never had this many tills open, and not one member of staff has been lost, we have gained becuse of the increased capacity!
Besides, the amount of complaints that I get with people on them saying ‘I hate these, they’re useless’ is equal to the amount of people that fly through, no problems, no fuss. After all if you hate them, don’t use them. Leave the space for people that have the patience to learn how they work!
“Leave the space for people that have the patience to learn how they work!”
I am very frustrated about the lack of assistance that i received as a disabled person (partly sighted). See above. I am really upset about such complacency.
Nic
Ok, so during this terrible experience at your sainsburys, did you ask if they could either open a manned till for you or if they could put your items through because of your disability? I’m sure that your store would offer assistance if asked. On the self service there is an attendant mode in which the attendant scans everything. However the issue with this is that it cannot be used if other self service are being used as the member of staff cannot leave a self service in attendant mode. It would be worth your while enquiring about whether any of the options are availiable as we are so cold hearted and cruel that we wouldn’t help someone disabled.
Also I’m afraid that the machines are designed to time out in order to alert the staff of either abandoned items or nothing happening for a while. This can’t be changed.
p.s. I missed out a ‘not’ before cold hearted, no offense intended
we moved here from surbiton,nr kingston upon thames to SE19 3EW in july, and have been usinf sainsburys at crystal palace and the football ground one, but, the meat i.e. lamb,beef fro sunday soints are really unedible, the only thing we can rely on is the chicken, why is this? my daughters dogs are very well fed with this stuff…. please explain, pls dont say i dont coook it properly, cos am 58yrs old, granddaughter is training to be a chef!
thanks pauline
i think self services is a wrong innovation for the community for the long run. the more you have self services the more you have unemployment. The unemployed will have less money in his pocket, this encourges him or her to steal.
Tescos are just as bad – I am fed up with hearing ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ when I try to use my own bags (which Tesco’s encourage you to do) – I have to wait until I have paid for my shopping before packing it away which wastes my time and that of the people queuing behind me. I have to use the self-service machines as there are rarely staffed tills open in the London Metro branches I use and if there are, the queues are extremely long.
For those who are complaining about self service, who actually cares… The machines are extremely easy to use providing you are concentrating on actually putting the food through and just implementing general human initiative. Lazy and irresponsible people unwilling to make their own lives easier due to general ignorance and mass unconcsiousness should really get a reality check. It’s stumbling across pages as sad as this and ready through petty complaints about other peoples “extremely unpleasant shopping experiences” that really makes me see how useless the human race actually is.
Just for the record – cashiers never smile because they all hate their jobs – anyone who as ever been a cashier or worked in a large corporation will know this. The rest of the people winging should go out and try working in these situations before displaying their pure selfish and self righteousness.
Get a grip.
just seen what ahmed said and –
GET A GRIP!
honestly! are you stupid? there is no unemployment because of self service – if anything the staffing is exactly the same – the staff that would be sat at a till taking all kinds of shit from you idiots is now overseeing self service and having a more comfortable time of it. use your awareness…
Freud. You seem like just the sort of chap who would enjoy self service.
You say,
”The rest of the people winging should go out and try working in these situations before displaying their pure selfish and self righteousness”
They ARE doing the cashiers job. That’s the point.
And to say that some one who is partially sighted having problems with her weekly shop being mechanised proves to you the uselessness of the human race… well I can only assume you are young and healthy… and good luck to you.
Self service tills are sold to us on the idea of
”Don’t strand there in that SLOW queue… you could check out and be gone in minutes!”
But now there are no manned tills in my local, so now self service is the only option. Quicker? no just the same, with the occasional problem when an item won’t scan. In fact… just the same as before, when the cashier had a problem scanning something, but the difference? it’s SOULESS. And it’s a con. it’s no quicker. you’re just giving them money without them bothering to take it from you
But I don’t expect that will bother FREUD
OUTTA MY WAY! I’M IN AHURRY ME FIRST ME FIRST
I dont care if the cashier smiles or not. I don’t buy my shopping from a large vending machine. I don’t go there anymore.
Perhaps the next initiative could be we stock the shelves ourselves… or why bother? just dump the pallets in the middle of the shop and we’ll all help ourselves… those shelves slowed things down… and took up space!
Profits are up and we all win.
Those bloody disabled/slow people, well if they can’t deal with it, they can whistle.. FRUED will get his goodies quicker.
I’m glad I don’t live in your world.
As the person with the original complaint about the difficulties posed by the self-checkout machines for partially sighted people, I have further information that might be of interest. After gaining advice from various people, I talked to the management of the local store, we talked with people on the supervision of the checkouts: they accepted their responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act, people have changed position, and we’ve started to work together. For my part, I’ve accepted that early morning is not the best time to shop and I’ve rearranged my work pattern to a more normative pattern, when staffed checkout points are in operation (but the said store has lost a fair proportion of my custom as a result). Irrespective of Freud’s insults, there are serious short-comings with the self-service machines as they are currently installed; the ‘reality check’ is that many customers have been semi-consciously sidelined. On the ‘jobs taken away / not taken away’ aspect, perhaps the defining index should be ‘how long does it take for a supervisor to attended to a stalled process’. I leave you to work that out from the customer’s perspective. And finally, Freud, ardent disciple of time and motion as you are, fount of all wisdom as to ‘reality’, past poor victim of customer oppression, what do you do with all your saved time? In your self-absorption, something more Freudian? Please, grow up.
jude, 7th july 2010. 3.40pm
My daughter , was in Salisbury in south harrow shopping as all my family has for many years, she had her two boys with her one 10 and the other 1 year old who was crying, a woman told her to SHUT IT UP, my daughter could not believe what she herd an said what did you say the woman repeated what she said an my daughter said how dare you speak to my child like that, a argument started and the manager was called, the result was my daughter got put out of the shop, the woman denied what she said an smiled and waved when my daughter was put out, we are totally disgusted how the manager acted and will not let this drop till a written apology is sent to her.
I returned a container of coleslaw over 6 weeks ago that had a large sliver of glass in it. At the time I cut my gum cut and if my grandson of 3 had eaten it, ( and he often does eat coleslaw) it could have been very dangerous. The assistant manager at my local shop took all the details and sent it back to the depot but at the present time we have not heard any details of the outcome of their tests and I noticed that on my visits to the store that they are still selling the same product. Do you not think that a letter of appology could have been sent or that the store could have been notified, so that I could have been informed, as the store is only a small outlet and I am known as I use it 2 to 3 times a week.
It is not the electronic check out that is a bad idea, it is the fact it runs under windows that is the bad part of the idea. As a result you end up with a terminal that talks too much, sounds like my ex-mother-in-law, treats me, the customer like an idiot and is patently programmed to offend even the dimmest monkey from the zoo.
Though a good idea, and a way of avoiding “loyalty card” harassment by human checkout operators, the self service checkouts at the Sainsbury’s store on Great Portland Street, London, aren’t fit for purpose. The constant “unexpected items in the bagging area” warning every 30 seconds, and requirement for an operator login code, not only has led me to abandon the machine altogether in favour of one of their human operators on more than one occasion, but more seriously, amounts to an accusation of theft. If Sainsbury’s don’t trust me to accurately account for the goods in my shopping basket why do they have self service tills in the first place? If their store managers, or IT department, aren’t capable of setting up the “theft prevention” settings on these devices properly they should just leave these settings, or the self service checkouts themselves, switched off.
I am realy sad to see that my local Sainsbury’s store in Attleborough has installed self-service checkouts.
They have installed nine of the wretched things, leaving one checkout only for baskets.
I want to know
What happens when the computers go down or there is a power cut?
How are the needs of the visually impaired going to be served?
How will fraud be prevented? one assistant cannot watch five self service check outs at the same time, evidently somebody ran through without paying this morning.
How will the installation of these self-service tills affect unemployment levels ?
What will happen when there are long queues at the manned checkouts, with customers who do not wish to use the self-service tills?
This seems to me to be another move down the slippery slope, to everything being mechanised, with no human contact at all.
I for one have no intention of using the self service tills, I shall continue to use the checkouts that have the lovely friendly staff working them.
Helen Manwaring