Having your livelihood upended is a terrible thing but holding society back for one's own benefit is far worse. Neo-Luddites miss the point of economic activity. If economic progress came from just any kind of work, then utopia would come with banning all labor-saving devices. Walking instead of bikes and cars. Chalk instead of computers. Spoons instead of shovels. It would be a very busy world, and a very poor one.

This would be a good message for America to send to its coal miners rather than empty promises to "bring coal back."

I don't see one-size-fits-all checkout lanes in our future. The prototype Amazon stores use no checkout at all. The old-line independent supermarket near my house staffs each lane with both a checker and a bagger, ensuring parental shopper loyalty by giving teenagers starter jobs. Most markets will likely have a mix of the two.

Unless they're forced to change by peoole like my friend G., who, when a supermarket employee tries to divert him to a self-checkout, replies blandly, "Oh, I don't work here."

Oregon still prohibits self serve gas. Oregon requires a "living" wage. Employers hire the fewest workers possible. I waste a lot of time waiting for somebody to pump my gas. Oregon's gas costs more than the national average.

I remember growing up, if wanted the "convenience" of having someone pump you gas for you it cost extra.

I love self serve kiosks at fast food. Nobody screws up my order.

Like Bill I like the kiosks at fast food. But I almost never use self checkout at a grocery store. I've got two little kids with me whenever I'm grocery shopping. I'm buying enough food for a family of four for a week. I just don't want to spend the time constantly going to the store. So having someone else ring me up and bag things is a big convenience. If it become one I have to pay extra for that is reasonable and depending on the cost I will probably continue to use it.

That said I do opposed forcing everyone to make the same choices I am making.

This would be a good message for America to send to its coal miners rather than empty promises to "bring coal back."

Nah, that wasn't it. They were told learn to code. On the other hand, that might be better quality code than is pumped out by supposed experts. Reference all the Microsoft security flaws over the last 90 days in Windows 10.

Most markets will likely have a mix of the two.

Nope. Got one word for you: $15/hour. Your teenager, no matter how highly you think of them, is worth that wage.

Your grocer will do everything to reduce the single biggest cost to their bottom line: labor. You'll get a single person watching the checkout area. Their job will two fold: discourage shop lifting, and to keep the machines up and running. And to help people figure out how to scan bar codes.

Self-checkout at the grocery store works better for small loads - i.e., express, thus freeing up register space for large loads. It does not work as well for family-sized loads. The loading area is too small.

The sensor measures the added weight of each item scanned and measures a total weight. Remove an item and it starts shouting at you to put it back. The space for item storage is small, so large loads where one needs to remove items to make room are simply not practical.

People going through an express lane are usually hoping to pop in and out; and don't like getting stuck behind a 40-item load. Or a shopper with coupons.

My local market has a policy of letting large loads into the express lanes when things are busy and the non-express lanes are backing up - exactly when a person picking up a few things does not want to get stuck in line.

Human checkout is Also for checking ID for alcohol/ medicines . As to the coal, has more to do with political push to end coal than tech, costs, or energy needs.

Your grocer will do everything to reduce the single biggest cost to their bottom line: labor. You'll get a single person watching the checkout area. Their job will two fold: discourage shop lifting, and to keep the machines up and running. And to help people figure out how to scan bar codes. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at March 2, 2020 7:14 AM

Many of the larger grocery chains are unionized under UFCW or SEIU representation. When I worked in the corporate office of a major West Coast chain (now defunct as a corporate entity though the name survives), UFCW had cashiers making $25 an hour, because the union had equated the job to a machinist in the 1900s - when cash registers required mild physical labor and math skills. Management finally corralled the union's spiraling wage demands to an $11 per hour starting wage - for the first year only.

The average net profit for a grocery store is around 1%. And Darth is right, labor is the largest chunk of that. Competition in the grocery industry is fierce, a lot more competitive than most non-grocers know. Facing stiff headwinds from Costco, Walmart, and now Amazon, your local brick-and-mortar grocery-only chain is lucky to exist.

Human checkout is Also for checking ID for alcohol/ medicines

No. The person manning the self-checkout line can verify your ID and input an approval. My local Walmart requires ID for superglue, much to my surprise.

UFCW had cashiers making $25 an hour

Sorry, that should have been $18 an hour with $7 per hour in cost of benefits. I used to use $25 an hour for labor cost estimate and that's why $25 stuck in my head, but it was not the gross pay for the employee, $18 was.

Expanding on that 1% profit. People complain why grocery stores charge so much for a product when the manufacturer/farmer sells it so cheap.

The higher price has to take into account unsold/unreturnable/expired product, theft, customers who love to graze on the produce, and children who break stuff.

You could charge the parents for the damaged goods. But that depends on what they broke and if you have HD video evidence of the misdeed.

> a major West Coast chain (now defunct
> as a corporate entity though the
> name survives)

The 'Ho?

The Big R (with no apostrophe thankyouverymuch?)

Money's on the latter.

I was thinking "Safeway". I know it exists, but I'm unaware if that is just as a brand, or a company.

If there’s gonna be wagering, I want a cut of the action.

And while you’re speculating, don't forget Albertsons or Lucky. Both exist as subsidiaries of other chains today.

Yeah, I noticed that A is ready to honor my R discount card, as is K in the midwest.

Consumers dropped out of Florida a few years ago, don't know who picked up the pieces.

Is Pigly still Wiggly?

The economic point is well taken -- but if the folks who install self-checkouts ever want tall people like me to use one, they need to make it stop insisting that I put parcels down near the floor where I can't reach! When I won't obey the orders of Little Bloomberg, the machine stops responding. Every time.

In California, you can’t buy alcohol at self-serve checkouts. You can shoot upon the streets of San Francisco, but no 2BuckChuck for you!

Here in Israel online grocery shopping is already starting to cannibalize the recently introduced self checkout.

Online consumers get 1st pick on produce and meats fresh from the warehouse.

Many busy people and families with young children are automating their regular "staple" purchases in this way. The apps even store your puchase history so you can order the basics every month with a click.

This is being promoted aggressively - so far 2 major chains make multiple weekly deliveries to my tiny hilltop "obstacle to peace" on the West Bank. Whenever i go shopping in-store there are employees pulling and packing orders right into delivery crates. Many of these are young Arab women who probably work interchangeably as cashiers.

(No doubt their time is more easily justified as they are fulfilling orders rather than waiting for customers to check out... Another example of the folly of economic forecasting)

Many of our friends use this service, supplemented with trips to a favored bakery or other specialist.

"Is Pigly still Wiggly?"

It is in Alabama. There's a wholesaler here named Ragland Bros. with a long and storied history. They own a bunch of Piggly Wiggly and Lucky's franchises. They put them in mostly in rural areas that Wal-Mart hasn't moved into.

Oh… I thought it was the whole Southeast quadrant.

Ralphs

Urp,I think Ralphs is where he worked, and had thought PW was the whole SE region.

Very early here, and I'm coughing alot.

...had thought PW was the whole SE region. ~ Crid at March 3, 2020 10:15 AM

Piggly Wiggly is in more than Alabama - even up to Illinois. Most are independently owned and operated.

Very early here, and I'm coughing alot. ~ Crid at March 3, 2020 10:15 AM

Best of luck.

That's a bad time to get a cold, in the middle of a world-side pandemic that mimics the common cold.

Urp,I think Ralphs is where he worked.... ~ Crid at March 3, 2020 10:15 AM

Glad to know I interest so many people here.

It was not Ralph's. That's mostly in the SoCal area.

We used to joke at work that there were three ways to do something: the right way, the wrong way, and the Safeway.

I left well before the Albertson's merger. However, in a later job, I was involved in some of the fallout from that merger as Safeway and Albertson's were customers of ours.

I worked at Publix while in college.

Learned a lot about grocery while at both. Will never look at a grocery store the same way I did before those experiences.

Learned a lot about grocery while at both. Will never look at a grocery store the same way I did before those experiences. ~ Conan the Grammarian at March 3, 2020 1:11 PM

Publix for the labor side and store operations and Safeway for the management side and corporate operations. And I consider both to have been valuable experiences, each in its own way.

Not to correct an actual grammarian, but they say that people in the office get pissy if you put an apostrophe in Ralphs, because the guy's name really had an S on it. I'd forgotten about Publix but presumably bought a lot of groceries there.

I only get pissy when people call it MaxWell UD XL II.

Not to correct an actual grammarian, but they say that people in the office get pissy if you put an apostrophe in Ralphs, because the guy's name really had an S on it. ~ Crid at March 3, 2020 5:32 PM

I don't know if I'm an actual grammarian. I've never seen a job description.

I only shopped at Ralphs on occasional trips to Southern California. We didn't have one nearby in the Bay Area, but it didn't stand out so much on those occasions when I shopped there to make me wish we did. Between Lucky, Safeway, Nob Hill, Costco, Lunardi's, and Andronico's, we were pretty well served grocery-wise.

Westward Ho, right?