It is possible for there to be multiple benefits. In fact this is the most desirable, since when there is an immediate economic benefit to both sides, it is incentivized to happen.
In the case of supermarket self-scanning, sure, the supermarket can reduce costs.
However, the benefit to the customer is in a shorter total time through checkout. Entropy causes customers to arrive at checkouts in spurts, rather than there being a steady flow. It is expensive for stores for checkout operators to remain idle (and would be passed on in higher prices). So customers have to queue instead of there being more checkout operators available during spurts.
On the other hand, the cost of maintaining extra self-checkout machines costs very little. So in practice, they tend to be available to handle spurts of activity, resulting in faster overall checkout times for customers too.
For the stores: yes, reduced costs. For the customers: reduced costs result in lower prices in healthy markets, and also time to traverse checkouts is faster.
The same can be applied to airlines. Fewer staff at the line at the gate results in reduced staffing costs: sure. But also: less standing around in lines and less juggling at the front of the line (especially for the infirm, or those with kids, etc) is also a clear benefit to passengers.
It is cynical to ignore the other half of the benefits and focus just on costs. And in any case, reduced costs for the company results in lower prices for consumers.
> On the other hand, the cost of maintaining extra self-checkout machines costs very little. So in practice, they tend to be available to handle spurts of activity
If only! At the (UK) Tesco metro near my workplace, the staff have this insane habit of keeping half or fewer of the available self-checkout machines in operation. The rest of them have a big symbol like a stop-sign and are unusable.
Only if a big queue builds up will the single attending staff member go round and laboriously make the other machines available, whilst simultaneously having to attend to the frequent weighing issues caused by the machines. By the time they're done with this the lunchtime rush is practically over.
I mentioned this to a work colleague who suggested the reason is that they want to reduce the amount of time counting cash out of the machines at the end of the day, so having fewer machines in operation is preferable.
That doesn't make sense - you would think the machines could track their cashbox balances perfectly, requiring dumping it in a bag, printing a status report/receipt/audit log, and attaching that to the bag. No counting required!
Aldi and Lidl - the discount supermarkets in the UK manage just fine with spurts without a self scan machine anywhere. They are constantly opening and closing checkouts as the people waiting varies. They seem to have a default to get staff off tills and back to the rest of the store when people waiting drops to some prescribed number.
Go in really early or late and there are no lines occupied until a customer waits - usually no more than a minute as they appear to have a strong focus on keeping an eye out.
I would say there's a shorter overall wait, and a far higher likelihood of getting out of the store in the shortest overall time than any of the alternatives at the competition.
So no, I haven't seen any of these much-touted speed benefits. Quite the opposite frequently.
It is possible for there to be multiple benefits. In fact this is the most desirable, since when there is an immediate economic benefit to both sides, it is incentivized to happen.
In the case of supermarket self-scanning, sure, the supermarket can reduce costs.
However, the benefit to the customer is in a shorter total time through checkout. Entropy causes customers to arrive at checkouts in spurts, rather than there being a steady flow. It is expensive for stores for checkout operators to remain idle (and would be passed on in higher prices). So customers have to queue instead of there being more checkout operators available during spurts.
On the other hand, the cost of maintaining extra self-checkout machines costs very little. So in practice, they tend to be available to handle spurts of activity, resulting in faster overall checkout times for customers too.
For the stores: yes, reduced costs. For the customers: reduced costs result in lower prices in healthy markets, and also time to traverse checkouts is faster.
The same can be applied to airlines. Fewer staff at the line at the gate results in reduced staffing costs: sure. But also: less standing around in lines and less juggling at the front of the line (especially for the infirm, or those with kids, etc) is also a clear benefit to passengers.
It is cynical to ignore the other half of the benefits and focus just on costs. And in any case, reduced costs for the company results in lower prices for consumers.