All Self-Service Checkouts Are Not Equal
Having just read this article about The problem with self-service checkouts on the BBC News Magazine site, I started to pen a response but it soon grew beyond a simple comment, so I thought I'd publish it here instead. Let's look at two stores differing approach to self-service. Sainsbury's variant seems specifically designed to be as inconvenient as possible, with a tiny area allocated for you to tortuously scan all your shopping and then put-each-item-one-at-a-time-into-the-bagging-area. The system is a nightmare if you are trying to pay for a large grocery trip. To date, I have never had an experience with Sainsbury's self-service where the system didn't have a problem of some description requiring a staff member to meander over and enter a code to allow me to continue. It always falls over if I try to use my own bags rather than taking fistfuls of the orange plastic ones provided. I was in there last weekend and the ghastly thing allowed me to finish scanning...