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posted by
martyb
on Sunday September 18 2016, @04:56PM
from the slowest-line-is-the-one-I'm-in dept.
from the slowest-line-is-the-one-I'm-in dept.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports on a former math teacher who claims to solved the question "Which checkout line up will be fastest?"
In a nutshell he has concluded that the number of people in the lineup is more important than the number of items a person has in their cart.
The critical factor, he says, is the average of 41 seconds that it takes a shopper to pay the cashier and engage in idle chit chat.
So a long line of people in the Express line, with two or three items each, will actual move slower than the checkout with one guy with a full shopping cart.
YMMV.
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Efficiencies in Supermarket Checkout Lines
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Do not use if foil seal is broken.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:07PM
when I self scan, who's the impediment?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:26PM
The failure rate per transaction across multiple stores and multiple types of stores indicates that even with small "express" sized baskets, the failure rate per transaction is 10% to maybe 5% and it takes so long to get stuff fixed that its faster to use a human cashier, on average.
Of course that leads to self selection so at home depot the human cashier has to hand count 72 paver bricks because she doesn't believe in the astrological numerology of arithmetic multiplication and of course the victim has no idea the UPC code or cost per brick or qty discount and it just all turns into a giant disaster. Times like that, I'll risk the self check, I mean it can't come out any worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:27PM
That stupid machine. The same one that's in every store, that shuts down and calls an attendant if you don't place the item on the scale within the required 5 seconds.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday September 19 2016, @04:18AM
I like re-packing my bags. The automated checkout things don't like that either.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:35PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @03:40AM
I ran into just that the other week.
They were running a special on cream of something soup, so I stocked up.
On their Mix-and-match,-Buy-5-to-get-the-special-price deal, my cooking oil rang up at the reduced price (even though I didn't buy 5 of those) but the soup rang up at the regular price.
...then i had to wait behind someone at the service desk.
So, yeah.
.
Heh. Back when I worked in a grocery store, ALL of the prices were entered with buttons on the cash register.
The afternoon there was a power outage, the manager broke out the cranks that fit into those electro-mechanical registers and the cashiers kept right on going.
I don't think that would fly these days.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday September 18 2016, @06:36PM
When you stare into the scanner, the scanner scans you. Take care when you self-implement scanners, lest you become one.
Supermarket tabloid version of Neitzsche
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday September 19 2016, @01:44AM
The shitty fucking scanner. Anyone who has ever worked as a cashier and then tried to use one of those inevitably ends up frustrated. They are crippled, apparently to prevent theft, but do nothing to prevent theft. Using a real register it would probably take me 30 seconds - 1 minute to scan, bag and pay for almost any order except the very largest or smallest purchases. Using those crippled POSs it takes about 30 seconds per item because they suck.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday September 19 2016, @09:43AM
perhaps all packaging should be generic? Nice an geometrical and marketing in a fixed place.
Hence all things would be easily scanned by machine...;-)
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday September 19 2016, @10:24AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday September 19 2016, @08:57PM
I love self-checkouts. I don't know why everyone else seems to have such a problem with them, but if they're available, I almost always use them. They're usually less occupied than the human-cashier lines (because too many people don't like using them), and if you know what you're doing they're quite fast. The exception, I've found, is hardware stores if you're buying anything weirdly-sized. If you're just getting a few items that have clear UPS codes on them and will fit on the scale, no problem. If you're getting lumber or bags of topsoil or other "weird" stuff that won't fit in a grocery bag or otherwise on the scale, forget it; just go to a human cashier. But for places like Walmart, self-checkouts are a godsend, especially at Walmart since so many of the customers are incredibly slow.
YMMV, however; not all checkout systems are the same, and if they're poorly maintained (the scanner glass is dirty or scratched up for instance) then it might not be worth it.