OT-ish B&Q automated checkout

[The Medway Handyman]

It annoys me when to operator selects the option; "customer is clearly over 25".

Be nice to be given the benefit of the doubt :-)

[Clive Page]

The checkout staff presumably don't like these automated tills at all, as if the things catch on in a big way they will all be out of a job. One wonders how easy it is for them to sabotage the things, perhaps just a bit, to make them difficult and unpleasant to use? Or maybe those who design them make them so awful that there's no way of making them worse?

[Mike Barnes]

Martin Brown :

WIWAL they used to say "nobody goes to Marks & Spencer, because of the queues".

[Dave Plowman (News)]

At my local Tesco, Beck's Blue - totally alcohol free - has to be approved too, since it comes from the drinks area.

[Mike Barnes]

Clive Page :

The evidence suggests *very* easy.

[polygonum]

Or, in a different shop, buying a magazine with a freebie advertorial - which doubled the weight from usual..

[Mr Pounder]

Next time you go to Asda etc count how many checkouts are closed. Do this as you wait in line to PAY. Customer last as always. {I am no longer taken shopping}

[The Natural Philosopher]

One of the stores I rarely frequented after I discovered proper builders merchants.

And would not miss one jot.

[alan]

On 12/04/2013 17:23, Phil L wrote: it starts squawking, 'put the item in the

It's deliberate. it's to make you pack faster to make room for the next customer. It's the same with "eat in" take-away food outlets. The seats are just about comfortable for 10 minutes.

[alan]

I said that's OK I'd rather to stay in this queue and she asked me why, so I said I don;t want to see you loose your job, and a look of shock came over her face.

Some supermarkets in the UK have adopted the policy of any staff member doing every job from cleaning floors,shelf stacking and on busy times operating the tills (including managers/supervisors).

The big supermarkets would probably save 10s millions by simply stopping silly card and voucher schemes at the tills which add 1 minute for every customer (or on my recent trips to Tesco - 5 minutes per customer)

[polygonum]

If they want us through faster, handle the tills as quickly as Lidl do.

[Nightjar]

That would mean importing more East Europeans to operate them.

Colin Bignell

[F]

They use them because they make money for them...

[John Williamson]

They're all British at our local one. And they're *fast* on the till. The fastest I've suffered there is one of the managers. He can scan it faster than I can throw it into the trolley, never mind stacking it.

[Bill Wright]

I discovered builders' merchants before I ever went in B & Q.

Bill

[Nick]

Try wine boxes, earplugs and sunglasses :)

[F]

That's a 'me too' for our local Aldi. All British and shifting things off the conveyor belt faster than we can get them into a trolley. We end up just sliding them across the desk area and letting them fall into the trolley.

[John Williamson]

You've been watching me for hints, haven't you? :-)

[PeterC]

I use Morrisons but I won't use those damned machines. Part of the reason (other than I hate them) is that I use a rucsack that weighs about 1.5kg - for some reason the machine nags me, but I'm not using carrier bags except occasionally. I sometimes walk the last 2 miles home and the rucsack is just a tad better than 15kg of shopping in placcy bags.

[polygonum]

When first installed, they seemed better than JS or Tesco. But they have deteriorated severely. The lit note accepting slot is no longer lit (on any of them). The coin accepting trough takes what seems like a minute for each coin - if it accepts it. The display amount left lags by ages. Most often half of them are not fully operational - cash only, card only, or broken. And they seem to be even less well attended than the others.

I hate them ALL.

The only supermarkets which are regularly acceptable to me are Lidl and Waitrose (obviously, we do not have branches of every UK supermarket).