
Kroger to expand program that cuts checkout lines - smacktoward
https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/12/26/kroger-to-expand-program-that-cuts-checkout-lines.html
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esaym
Fun fact: I ran into an older man at a Perl conference back in 2013 or so that
told me about how the Kroger rewards cards, once scanned at the terminal,
talked to a Perl CGI powered back end that was hacked together by him in the
early 2000's.

But on another note, I can't help but wonder how theft of merchandise will be
handled. On one hand, you won't have to pay cashiers so you can "afford" to
have more stuff stolen. But on the other hand, I know people that just love to
get away with what ever they can. Case in point is this old man friend of my
grandfathers that used to tag along every time we went out to eat. He would
always order a glass of water for his drink (free). And then go over to the
fountain drinks and dump it out and fill it back up with Sprite. He thought he
was real slick. He used to be a crew chief on C130 gunships. But now he ain't
around no more.

~~~
imroot
Generally speaking, one cashier watches over six or seven payment locations.
The backend process takes the "suspended" transaction from the surePOS system
and recalls it on the live u-scan system for payment tendering. At that point
in time, based on a few factors, such as, is this your first U-scan purchase
with your Kroger Plus card, do you have any high shrink items, does the weight
of your bagged items vary greatly from the calculated weight of your scanned
items, is this a 'random loss prevention' scan, is your Kroger plus account
flagged for "high audits", and a few other factors, the cashier will be
prompted to go over and do an item for item audit of every item in your
purchase.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Stop & Shop has this in some stores and I've never seen it in use. Sounds like
regular self-checkout at the register is preferable to being treated like a
criminal "just in case".

~~~
sashk
I've been scanned several times -- they scan 5-10 items and then let you
finish checkout process. Not a huge deal...

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ThePadawan
Interesting to see how this develops internationally, and how dependent it is
on standard wages.

Here in Switzerland, the two top supermarkets (which basically form an
oligopoly) have had this system operating in every supermarket I have entered
within the last 3 years.

This is obviously motivated by the fact that Swiss wages are really high
compared to the US, even adjusted for cost of living.

I'd be interested to hear how far along this tech is internationally.

~~~
jdietrich
Self-scanning was first launched in the UK in 1995. It's still available at
some branches of Tesco, but it isn't particularly popular.

[https://www.marketingweek.com/1995/04/28/shelf-service-at-
sa...](https://www.marketingweek.com/1995/04/28/shelf-service-at-safeway/)

[https://www.tesco.com/scan-as-you-shop/](https://www.tesco.com/scan-as-you-
shop/)

~~~
justincormack
Not sure why its not more popular, its much quicker. I havent used anything
else for ages

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webkike
Somewhat unrelated, but dear God do I hate self checkout lines. When I was in
college a grocery store replaced two regular checkout lines with four self
checkout stations and my god it resulted in the largest slow down I've ever
been a witness to that was caused by a single action. If your care about your
customers, please don't go self checkout

~~~
Veen
I dislike the ones where you take all your products to the checkout bay and
scan them yourself while you bag them. But my local supermarket recently got a
much better system with a portable scanner you take with you. As you choose
products, you scan them and put them straight into the bags. When you're done
you go to the checkout bay and put the scanner in a cradle, pay, and you're
done.

~~~
u801e
In Sam's club, their self-checkout has a handheld scanner and doesn't require
putting items in the "bagging area". So, while I'm shopping, I make sure to
place the items in the cart such that their UPC labels are exposed. At the
self-checkout station, I simply scan all the items in the cart without
removing them. I suppose this works because they don't provide bags for one's
purchases.

~~~
jachee
I used to do exactly this. People make appreciative noises when you're beep-
beep-beeping rapid-fire while they're waiting on their cashier.

However, to level up my game, though, I've switchted to their app (on iPhone,
at least) where you scan things _as they go into the cart_ , then pay directly
from the app, and show the electronic receipt on the way out.

Only one line, (the one to get out.) minimal muss and/or fuss.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
> However, to level up my game, though, I've switchted to their app

I guess you like being spied on.

Sam's Club Scan & Go permissions:

Location:

precise location (GPS and network-based)

Camera:

take pictures and videos

Wi-Fi connection information:

view Wi-Fi connections

Other:

receive data from Internet

view network connections

full network access

prevent device from sleeping

~~~
jachee
Or... point-by-point:

> Location:

> precise location (GPS and network-based)

So it knows which store I'm in. See also: scanning my member card before
checking out.

> Camera:

> take pictures and videos

So it can scan barcodes.

> Wi-Fi connection information:

> view Wi-Fi connections

...but not control which ones to which you're connected. How often does your
list of Wi-Fi connections matter when you're at the store?

>Other:

> receive data from Internet

Download item info?

> view network connections

Make sure it _can_ get to the internet.

> full network access

Two-way communication about your purchases and payment to them.

> prevent device from sleeping

So that you don't have to wait for it to wake up between aisles.

These all seem reasonable for a self-scanning app. But then, a paranoid person
could find reasons to be afraid of water:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax)

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teh_klev
Tesco in the UK have had this for a few years now. The only issue I have with
it is that you need to have a Tesco Club card to be able to activate the
handheld scanner. Despite this it's a very convenient way to get your shopping
done.

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sashk
Stop&Shop here in NJ has this and it's mostly convenient and faster than
regular self-checkout. They occasionally stop you on checkout in order to scan
some items to confirm you didn't "misplace" something. Unfortunately, this
doesn't ease lines, as self-checkout lines are still long and you have to wait
for your turn in these lines in order to pay.

The only problem are missing shopping bags and scanners which are slow, still
running some flavor of embedded windows, I believe made by motorola.

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eps
This was commonplace (along with self-checkout terminals) in Switzerland few
years ago. A friend of ours used it and it was in fact very convenient and
worked really well. The only caveat is the "spot checks", whereby they would
flag some purchases for validation and have a shop employee rescan N random
items from the bags. It's still faster than the regular checkout, but messes
us the bag packing.

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syphilis2
How does this work for weighing produce? In France the scale would print out a
barcode. Overall I'm excited to see scanners become widespread, though the
technology never really seems to match the ideal form. Self checkouts are
still plagued with minor annoyances.

~~~
ghshephard
Can’t speak for the OP, but in Singapore they have these super fast and
convenient bar code printers all over the place that lets you
identify/weigh/print/tag your produce in <5 seconds item. Fastest bar code
printer I’ve ever seen. I’ve used self-checkout 1000+ times in the last three
years - and I’m struggling to recall if I’ve had any issues. Makes going to
the grocery store a couple times a day _much_ more enjoyable.

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madengr
I’d like to see this at my local grocery store. Then again, online ordering
has free delivery for $100 minimum order. Even for stuff you buy at the store,
it caches that in a history list for online ordering (assuming you paid with a
debit/credit card).

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chrismcb
do I get a discount? Or do they expect me to work for free?

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ilaksh
I guess the next step is paying with your phone so you don't have to stop on
the way out.

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Overtonwindow
I hate self checkout and refuse to use it. Perhaps I am in a minority. I'd
reconsider if there was a discount but that discount would likely be made null
by some accounting in the price of groceries. I don't think they do anything
for the customer, but more for the profit margins.

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Overtonwindow
I would prefer if they did away with most self checkout.

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Kadin
My local grocery store (Giant) has a system like this. The hardware is IBM
branded, I believe.

I used it quite a bit when it was first offered, and saw a number of other
customers use it as well, but now I rarely use it and I rarely see others
using it either. The scanner guns are still there near the entrance to the
store, but now there are carts piled in front of them so they'd be hard to get
to even if you wanted to get one. Nobody cares, and I suspect they'll
disappear at some point soon.

Honestly the whole system was just not reliable enough, IMO. The scan-it-
yourself guns are not as fast as the laser barcode readers used on the actual
POS systems; there's a noticeable and extremely irritating 1-2 second delay
per item, which doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty annoying when you are
trying to scan a dozen cans of cat food or something. Oh, and you can't do a
[scan x quantity] entry, you have to scan each individual item, so for e.g.
those cans of cat food, there's a disincentive to buying too many.

The real killer was the integration with the POS payment system though. When
you get up to the front of the store, you go to a self-checkout line -- so
right there, you might _still_ have to wait in line, because there's no
dedicated self-scan payment kiosk. One supposes they could have one if there
was demand, though.

When you do make it up to the register, there's a complex dance that you have
to go through to link the scangun you used to scan your items to your account,
and then to the register you're paying at, so that the items will flow through
and total up correctly. You have to scan a barcode on the self-checkout
system, and then scan your "Giant card" (loyalty card), except sometimes this
doesn't work, or sometimes it works but only if you scan them in the opposite
order.

And of course if anything isn't working correctly, which happened way too
often, you end up just having to re-scan all your groceries again, manually,
at the self-checkout. I don't know about anyone else, but once I had that
happen a couple of times, that was the end of using the scangun system for me.
If I might just end up having to do the work twice, forget it -- I'll do the
way that I know is just going to result in me doing it once. I hate lines, but
what I hate even more is rework.

So I hope Kroger has worked out some of the kinks from the Giant system. It
was a promising scheme, and I really wanted it to work, but it seemed like a
90% solution and what they really need is a 99.9% solution. Having the system
fall flat on its face and force me to re-scan all my groceries even a few
percent of the time is a non-starter IMO. That needs to be an outcome right up
there with having the whole thing just catch on fucking _fire_ , in terms of
never being allowed to happen.

~~~
imroot
Giant made the Loyalty integration Mandatory for the Self-Checkouts.

Kroger doesn't make their Kroger Plus Mandatory for the Self-Checkouts, but
they do make it Mandatory for the U-Scan system.

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SamReidHughes
That's really neat, but difficult in places like California where there's a
bag fee.

~~~
chrisseaton
In the UK you just get asked how many bags you've used so they can charge the
fee.

~~~
zimablue
To be fair, the Tesco I use most has found some really irritating middle
ground where the bags are held by a specific employee that you go and ask for
a bag from, slowing everything up massively.

Every time I go in I have the same thought that it's such a waste of someone's
life to spend most of it standing motionless with the sole purpose to reduce
theft of plastic bags.

~~~
evgen
Same thing at some large Sainsbury's, very annoying. They are also the medium-
weight plastic bags instead of the light ones; I suppose people like to feel
they are getting something of value for their five pence, but I find these
bags far less useful for re-use at home. At some point I am going to have to
figure out how to order a 50-pack of Waitrose bags just for scooping the cat's
litter box...

