this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Maybe this is just a British thing? They're very popular here in NZ
Though the BBC is obviously identified most with UK, it in fact has many international publications. This article focuses on the US, with only a reference to "Booths in the UK", a very small supermarket group I have never heard of before.
Self checkout in the UK is commonplace and largely popular, though some of the general customer criticisms in the article are familiar to me as a regular user of them.
I mean Booths aren't that small, they're just exclusively north-western & fill the same niche as Waitrose, who have virtually no stores in the north west as a result
That means their customer base is pretty much a perfect intersection of people who won't want to use a self-checkout - older people & people who are friendlier to strangers
28 stores is small by UK supermarket standards. Sainsbury's alone have over 1400. I can't reasonably consider Booths reflective of trends across the country, perhaps for the reasons you suggest.
OP's question as to whether the UK is rejecting self checkout on any level isn't really addressed by the example in this article.
Booths is basically unheard of anywhere else in the UK. The only reason I've heard of them is because the bald guy on TikTok that reviews the worst towns in the UK did a video on them.
Same here in Switzerland, very well made and pretty efficient. But I really hate the fact that I'm basically working for the store.
They're very popular here too, but a lot of older people really struggle with them, so they're widely hated by boomers that want things to be like the 80's again.
The technology is a bit shit, and more often than not there's a lot of waiting around for someone to unblock you. Where it was probably a "failure" to many is in the initial promise of being able to get rid of employees and replace them with self-scan.
… but a lot of older people really struggle with them, so they're widely hated by boomers that want things to be like the 80's again.
In my experience it’s not that older people are struggling with it. It’s that Walmart has 300 self checkout kiosks but only two are open and the line for a regular register is almost out of the premises.
And the CVS self checkout always ends up confusing itself and constantly yelling at you to place the item in the bagging area.