Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED Alistair Dabbs is away. This column is a repeat publication from all the way back in 2013. Enjoy! “Thank you for using Fast Checkout.” Whuh? “Thank you for using Fast Checkout.” It’s nice to be thanked by a machine but I haven’t used Fast Checkout. Not yet, anyway. I’m still standing at the automated till with a heavy …
Some companies have managed to sink online sales to a similar level of stupidity.
The worst companies seek to overload a possible sale with upsells. The most stupid thing to do in a competitive market is to get in the way of a customer who has made a decision to buy and just wants to give you money, yet that is *exactly* what happens. Companies like GoDaddy and VistaPrint are atrocious by making you wade through a complete forest of other options and things they happen to sell. Think McDonald's "do you want fries with that?" but instead of that one question, the person at the cashpoint insists on naming every bloody thing on what is laughingly called a "menu" before they accept payment.
Well, I abort in that case. I refuse to have someone waste my time - if they don't want my money, then it's clearly not the company for me. In what Universe do you improve sales by making it impossible to close the transaction?
For the record, this is quite a while ago because GoDaddy just plain sucks* and I moved all my print work to a local guy who may charge a bit more, but delivers a consistently high quality (and I can have a beer with him).
I accept that this approach works for the vast majority of sales, but maybe I've been in this too long: I get impatient if people stop me from completing a very simple, basic transaction.
* for the lawyers: this is my personal, heartfelt opinion. If you managed to convince people otherwise, I can only feel sorry for those people.
I was housebound for a bit (could only walk about 100yrds) so I thought, I'll browse Tesco's website for my weekly food, and maybe a couple of cheap goodies too.
Ahhhhh click on the link to the site, brightly lit page full of deals, bogoffs and savings, so I want to browse food first
Click the link.
"You have not got a Tesco's account set up, please setup up your tesco's account before browsing"
Hey ho , they just want my e.mail address, click the setup link and stare in disbelife at what they want.
Real name
Home address
E.mail address
Account name
Password
Repeat password
Delivery address
and.....
Credit card number.
Er no.... phone an old friend and give him my list because he'll goto asda and get it all for me
And for any store manager... try asking for that little lot to any customer wanting to come into your store and see how many actually come in.
They need your address because they need to deliver the groceries to your home.
They need your name because they need to know who to ask for when they deliver.
They need your credit card because they need paying before dispatching your groceries.
You are vaguely aware of how internet shopping works, aren't you?
Disclaimer - I have never, and unlikely to ever, use the t'interwebs to order groceries.
I believe the issue is that prior to even placing an order, you have to create an account with a ton of information just to even do a browse. The fact that a CC# is required to even register is a massive red flag, as that should never be required when there has not yet been a transaction *and* it should not be stored with the account information or associated with the login details (I realize it might be shunted off elsewhere in the database, but that's just as bad because it has to be keyed to my specific account with all the details necessary to charge orders against it).
A credit card or payment method should be requested only at the time I have decided to purchase goods or services, and only saved as necessary for processing the transaction.
Exactly.
It's far too common that an online shopping site will require payment and delivery details before checkout time.
If you want me to browse, and perhaps even go so far as to purchase, then perhaps you should let me do the boring stuff *after* I've decided to buy. And while you're at it, remember to make sure your payment system uses scripts from a completely different site, to ensure that enabling scripts from your site will ensure maximum confusion when it comes to paying.
Re Tesco - I think I was looking at them recently for an online shop and collect. They not only required all the information summarised above, but seemed further to imply that clicking 'proceed' was going to get me enrolled on their loyalty card scheme. I did not click.
"A credit card or payment method should be requested only at the time I have decided to purchase goods or services, and only saved as necessary for processing the transaction."
Indeed. Fortunately, there is a good number of retailers, who do not save full card information. They authenticate the current transaction right away, and if it passes, they'll retain only last 4 digits from the card number for reference. Just like a long-standing practice with printed receipts - only a card issuer and last 4 digits can be seen there.
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You can browse, but you have to log in to start adding to a basket.
Since you need to designate a store to fulfill the order and the system needs to check that the store has stock of the items, ready for someone to pick and pack your items.
- Disclaimer: I visit local small businesses or Express stores for ad hoc purchases, and me and the little 'uns make a trip of it to drive to a superstore for big shops, because it works out cheaper.
.. spent their money on coin counters instead.
It's brilliant, the cashier rings up the total and you just dump cash into a funnel and feed it bank notes until you hit the required amount - the whole cash intake is automated. It turns the annoyance with someone who insists on paying with large amounts of small coins (that all need to be counted) into a rather entertaining (albeit brief) sight, and it helps the cashier with keeping a proper cash value.
The automated tills do this too, but you. have. to. feed. it. one. coin. at. the. time. which. is. so. slow..
I remember a local grocery store here in the States that installed those machines. It was awesome & really helped speed things up. The Check Out person only had to make sure it all went smoothly, could chat with you wile swiping your stuff over the scanner & weighing those bits that needed it, and then leave the cash up to the machine.
The problem came when drunks started vomiting (and in one case urinating) into the funnels. It would then require closing the check out lane, decontaminating the machine, sterilizing the money, & a day or two of Therapy for the poor Check Out person.
The store ended up removing the funnel machines & made their Checkers back into Cashiers again, much to the dismay of the employees & customers alike. (Nobody gave a damn about the drunks in the first place.)
I especially enjoyed the machines because it would spit out anything it didn't believe was proper currency. Coin-like object it can't recognize? *Spit* Bill-like object it can't recognize? *Spit*
You would then look at the "Coin" in the Change Cup & wonder "What the hell? It looks like a (Penny|Nickle|Dime|Quarter) to me!", pick it up, & realize some cheap bastard has given you something from a Foreign Country. "What the hell? Where the fuck is Dumfukistan anyway? GAH!" Then you'd have to search your pockets for more money, sheepishly appollogize to everyone in line behind you, profusely thank the Good Samaritan whom donated a Real Coin you needed, & then scurry as fast as possible from the store before you died of embarrassment...
Which would happen anyway because you forgot to wear underwear with those pants that had the holes in the bum. Nothing says "Freak!" like mooning folks as you're shopping for pet food, baby food, adult & baby diapers, Preparation H & Orajel (an oral numbing agent for teething babies), and tubs of butter...
Ahhh the memories. =-)pwith the
" What the hell? Where the fuck is Dumfukistan anyway? "
You are definitely American
Hmm, don't know. I can recall a time when I was handed change by London Underground which contained a coin which looked like the £2 coin, but wasn't (can't recall what it was). I'd nearly left the station when I noticed it, so I got back to the window and asked the person to change it, which he wouldn't, claiming that wasn't the coin he'd given me (you know that this must be a while back given that there was still a human to argue with, but I digress). He caved when I asked him to call Transport Police (I had time that day), so I guess it must have gone to another victim.
Some French bakeries use the coin dump system.
Also, why is it that only people in the UK seem to have a problem with automated check-outs?
They work fine in France. And the US. Do TescoSainsAsWaitrose use cheap-rate or knock-off system providers?
Worth Investigating, Mr Dabbs? A world tour of Supermarkets, perhaps?
They work fine in France.
No they don't. The ones round here complain if you put your empty bag into the bagging area (there's no "did you bring your own bag" option), so you have to scan all your items into the bin and then hold up the queue while you perform a second move into the bags after you've paid. You still see lots of people queueing in the "10 items" line with a sandwich or a magazine, they hate the self-service tills so much.
Just before Christmas someone did try an innovative use for them though. She picked a few high-value items like Android tablets and bluetooth keyboards, took them to the fruit and veg area, and weighed them as low-value veg like carrots. The scale printed off a label barcoded for 500g of carrots for 3euro or whatever, which she stuck over the initial barcode and then tried to scan them through the self-service till. The till was happy, it saw 500g going into the bin which matched the scanned label, and she paid her 3euros.
She got caught, the radio news didn't say how. Probably the RFID tag under the original label, but it certainly showed initiative.
"She got caught, the radio news didn't say how. Probably the RFID tag under the original label, but it certainly showed initiative."
If you look up there's a camera for every automated till. Somewhere close by is a little room with a mirrored window and it is someone's sad little job to watch a slew of monitors for miscreant behaviour.
I know because the sad horror of local grocerteria installed these tills a year or two back and yesterday I saw the door open to that darkened little room lit only by the wall of monitors -- someone was asking the unseen person therein a question. I suspect it was along the lines of, "Had enough yet?".
Surprised at the site and wanting to see what the monitors were tuned to, I noted the one I could see well and turned my head, saw the auto-tills, glanced up and saw a camera above each one.
Oh! So, no trust? How sad. :(
They are called Asset Protection and they wander around the stores in plainclothes or in a uniform that's designed to look vaguely LEOish, complete with shiny badge with the shop's logo (at least that's how Target does it).
As far as the automated tills, part of the fun is that each item needs to have a weight added to the database so that it can verify that an item being placed in the bagging area (just a very large scale pan) is what it should be. Of course, it was clever to some degree to try to defeat it by posing it as a bag of carrots in the exact same weight, but it probably would have been a little more clever to do some kind of bulk item like rice or oats and bury it in the middle... not that I would ever do that.
Then again, here in the States those high-value, small-parcel items are typically wrapped with an anti-theft alarm that can only be removed with a special tool or are on lock racks that require an employee to retrieve and check out from a specific location. Then you need someone on the inside to help you out... which might be why shrink on a per-incident basis is much higher when it involves an employee.
Oh no they don't, not in the US. I can faithfully report that Safeway, Giant/Stop-n-Stop, Lowes and Home Depot all have horrendous systems.
Giant's is the worst, but then again, this is the store whose terminals bear an uncanny resemblance to PCs running OS/2.
Lowes gets a special demerit for having a loyalty program that replaces a barcoded keychain tchotchke with one on your smartphone that the scanner cannot scan, thus rendering the whole exercise pointless.
Home Depot lets you do the whole transaction in French, which is nice. Especially when I have to call the assistant over.
At least two of the big four use the same software (as well as a national convenience chain) provided by the same servers, I have had occasion to view a competitors data when trying to view my own (which is a right pain as I don't gaf about theirs, I've usually got a meeting to go to and need my data)
"Also, why is it that only people in the UK seem to have a problem with automated check-outs?"
They're fine for a half dozen items (ie, as a replacement for express lanes)
When you're forced to run the entire week's shopping through them they're an infernal bloody nuisance.
The only thing worse than having to do such a thing at 11pm is being behind someone who is doing that when you only have 3-4 items and all-bar 1 or 2 self checkouts are actually working.
"Also, why is it that only people in the UK seem to have a problem with automated check-outs?"
Most of us don't. But then most of don't write for a technology rag and want a quick and cheap humour article for the weekend :-)
On the other hand, the bagging area scales do seem to be overly sensitive sometimes, complaining about "unexpected item" when all I did was pull the bag open ready to put stuff in. Or maybe it's just an item that doesn't have the exact weight programmed into the machine. Or a really small item that doesn't seem to register on the scale even though one of the flimsy carrier bags can manage to register.
But on the whole, I do find them faster and more convenient. Any "technology tart" who can't figure out which side to place the shopping basket before starting pressing the screen is getting old and set in his ways and probably about to start regaling us all with how technology was better in the olden days.
"The automated tills do this too, but you. have. to. feed. it. one. coin. at. the. time. which. is. so. slow."
Edinburgh Trams ticket machines are even worse. After the first coin goes in it blocks the slot until it's ready for the next coin. But you've already half inserted the next coin, which gets kicked out and falls to the ground, rolling down the nearby drain. Never mind. Only got to wait another 10 minutes for the next tram given you've spent so long trying to buy the ticket.
There's a Morrisons local near use that allows coins to be dumped in on mass that's quite pleasent to use.
Still think the m&s ones work the best so far (sainsburys or tesco being the worst since by all accounts the damned things behave like you're a thief on the slightest variable outside of its limited range of obnoxious programming).
I discovered the Morrisons self-service checkouts have a nice coin hopper like that. A year or so ago, I'd accumulated a small plastic bucket of loose change, mostly coppers (each time I do laundry, I take the coins out, then don't always pocket them again later, so they slowly build up). Having discovered this, each time I was going to be walking past it anyway I'd fill a pocket with change and buy something small that I wanted anyway - milk, some salad or whatever.
Some supermarkets also have coin-counting machines - which take a fairly hefty cut of your money in the process. Stuff that!
He's probably stuck in an automatic checkout at Trashco somewhere... having to listen to
"Thank you for making a checkout till very happy"...
(Another proud product from you-can't-be-Sirius Cybernetics)...
P.S. Have a beer (or a few) whilst you're on holiday!
Let me guess...
* You still use telegrams instead of email.
* The lamp lighter still lights the gas lamps in your street each night, then turns them off at 6am.
* You only wear hand-woven, hand stitched clothing.
Things are always changing. That's just life. The drones must adapt too.
No, the people who take those jobs really don't have much of a choice in careers like you or I do. That's why automated checkouts should be illegal. This is change that we as a society don't need because these people end up with unemployment benefits instead of a job and we ALL pay.
The prices did not go down because they have automated checkouts. The only thing that comes of them is a "slight" increase in "convenience".
When convenience trumps employment, everyone loses.
I assume you will feel the same way when someone or something takes YOUR job?
No? I didn't think so.
Well, most of the time...checkout for me is only for huge amounts or trips that include alcohol.
Being a single guy, I really want to get the whole purchase done with as little strained inter-personal communication as possible.
Apart from buttons having to be pressed repeatedly on occasion and volume on the beep and voice often having been mucked about with by some kid earlier so the beep is inaudible and I keep thinking the beep of the next machine over is my machine registering an item when it;s not, then the voice messages nearly deafens me, the process of purchase is a lot less hassle overall.
My main gripe is the space the shops often grudgingly provide in the bagging area. My local Tescos don't give much space for more than one bag, so I end up with a swaying tower of goods which I then have to bag properly after I've finished. The nearest Sainsburys on the other hand provide enough space for 3 or more bags. I have to assume Tescos had their designed with their Metro stores in mind and assumed people would only use the machines for small shopping trips.
I do it the other way. I prefer to spend as much time standing in line, ususally behind a couple of parents with two carts' full, making their monthly grocery run. I just consider it as relaxing time, since I don't have to do anything but stand there. I don't have to think. I don't have to speak. All I have to do is hold out a bill large enough to cover the total.
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