Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Grocers 697
netbuzz writes "The law of unintended consequences is taking a chomp out of grocery chain profits as more stores transition from human clerks to self-service checkout technology, thus reducing the time shoppers spend in line and under the temptation of impulse items. That's the upshot of research being released tomorrow by IHL Consulting Group in Franklin, Tenn., which provides market analysis to the retail industry and its IT vendors."
"Item Removed From Bagging Area" (Score:2, Informative)
And how is fighting with these machines like this supposed to save time?
Re:Absolutely... (Score:3, Informative)
"Law of Unintended Consequences" origin? (Score:2, Informative)
"She could still hear Siuan going on about what she called the Law of Unintended Consequences, stronger than any written law. Whether or not what you do has the effect you want, it will have three at least you never expected, and one of those usually unpleasant."
Re:Breaking Unions is priceless (Score:3, Informative)
I would say that the Union to which he belongs plays a significant role in what he makes.
Re:I RTFA, and here's a glitch (Score:1, Informative)
Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs (Score:5, Informative)
Stop & Shop [boston.com] here in New England has exactly that. You have to prove that you could successfully use the system, including having your purchases quickly double checked by a human, before you could use the system unsupervised.
You scan as you shop. Checkout consists of placing your scanner into the holster. Relatively painless. I wish more stores had it. My local Hannaford's doesn't.
I do agree, however, that shoppers should get a discount for using the system, because we're saving the store labor costs.Re:Cash and Carry (Score:3, Informative)
And difficult to use your own bags, too. (Score:3, Informative)
This is just one of the reasons (that loud, annoying voice is another) that I won't use the self-checkout if I'm buying more than two items. In fact, I also lodge complaints about them with the cashiers and store managers while I'm at it. Not that it makes any difference, I'm sure. *sigh*
Re:I hate self checkout lines (Score:3, Informative)
It scares me that people out there actually think like this.
This line of thinking is discussed in The Parable of the Broken Window [wikipedia.org] and is easily dismissed as bunk in any serious analysis.
Re:Amen brother! We need a special lane (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My statistical sampling of "one" matches theirs (Score:2, Informative)
The last time I went into my local Home Depot I had a similar experience, with a sligth twist. I had a handful of items and might have made effective use of self-checkout. The line for the self-checkout was over a dozen people long, as was the line at the one open cashier. When this sort of occurence happens I loudly comment that Lowe's seems to be much more concerned about customers and leave the store to make my purchase elsewhere.
On occasion I have taken the time to let the store manager know that I find the situation unacceptable and that his store is losing business as a result. In a WalMart world, this probably won't make a lot of difference, but I refuse to waste my time because the store couldn't be bothered to have sufficient staffing.