I love self-checkout lines. I love self-service being available on my terms.
This shouldn't be the only option; "self-service or no service" is not my goal, but I appreciate the fact that 8 self-service lanes can allow a lot of customers to check out without waiting and in an affordable fashion. (Customers are paying for all the labor in any enduring company.)
The checkout-free store (like Amazon Go) is of course even better than a self-checkout in terms of customer experience.
I love self service in European grocery stores because I hate the stress of the cashier basically expecting me to put away groceries at the speed they are scanning them.
Here in southern Germany the checkouts are always very slow and crowded and always understaffed. Basically a normal situation is to have 20ppl wait for a single checkout. Then they begrudgingly open another, take 5 customers and close it again only to have the same thing repeat. I'd be happy to even pay extra just to have access to a speedier checkout self serviced or not and not have to waste half of my day waiting for this world's worst service.
I don’t know how it’s in Germany but Lidl in Spain basically have no grocery packing area at the end of the checkout so they are more or less throwing the groceries at you.
Dpends a lot on where you are. In France self scanners are far worse and slower than in the Netherlands. Also, cashiers are superslow in France compared to the Netherlands. I saw an Auchan once boast an average customer handling time of 2 mins (may have actually been 3). Meanwhile, Dutch Albert Heijn are proud the brought it down from 30 to 25 seconds.
This shouldn't be the only option; "self-service or no service" is not my goal, but I appreciate the fact that 8 self-service lanes can allow a lot of customers to check out without waiting and in an affordable fashion. (Customers are paying for all the labor in any enduring company.)
The checkout-free store (like Amazon Go) is of course even better than a self-checkout in terms of customer experience.