Hell in the aisle - UPDATED: actually, it’s joy
cj hubbard writes:
UPDATED: I’m eating my words here, as well as my lunch. Sainsbury’s hasn’t put in four self-checkout stations. It’s put in 10. A triumph for technology over random grumbling. Or something… Post below reads as before.
Picture by Onur Aksoy
Well, I think we can forget about popping out for lunch goods at our local Sainsbury’s ever again. They – it’s got to be a ‘they’ – have just replaced the six dedicated basket checkouts with four of those new self-checkout stations. So that’s two fewer of a system that invariably doesn’t work properly unless you use it exactly as its microprocessors dictate. Something that the person in the queue ahead of you probably won’t be able to do, making the system not just slower but doubly so. It’s chaos in there at the moment. What exactly was wrong with the old analogue – which is to say ‘human’ – checkout interface?
I’ve been trying to think of an automotive equivalent. The closest I’ve got so far is Dan’s complete and utter loathing of electronic handbrakes, but at least these have a packaging advantage – and I suppose Sainsbury’s and A.N. Other supermarkets would say freeing the staff from the tills helps keep the shelves stocked; who cares if it comes at the expense of longer queues and more dissatisfied customers. Really, however, I suspect I just wanted to rant.
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Links:
On track testing with the CG-Lock
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Sainsbury’s, checkout, self-checkout, basket, customer satisfaction, Gadgets and Gizmos, Offbeat News, MSN Cars, Inside Track
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Posted: November 25th, 2009 under Offbeat News.
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