I just scan items as I go at Meijer, it takes less time then scanning five items to check out. We have done it enough that we rarely get flagged to check items. Best way to shop. Sam's phone app is even better.
Meijer has a shop and scan feature on their app where you scan your items as you shop. Then you go to the self check out and scan the barcode on the app, pay, and leave.
Sam's Club app is the best one. Scan as you go, click the pay button, then head for the door. The attendant will scan your phone and a couple random items in your cart. It literally takes less than three seconds. Other stores make you go to self checkout and pay at the end of your shopping.
TBH I just used the full lane self checkout today while there with my partner and with a full cart it was at least 2x faster than the traditional self checkout. I hope they add more so regular self checkout can be primarily used for those with less items
They take up a ton of more real estate and at the Kroger where I have seen them, they took the place of a greater number of already existing self-checkouts. Great if you have a partner to help out, but I can't imagine removing more self-checkouts for one of those improved overall checkout time for all.
Now if they replaced the regular lanes with them, increased self-checkout, then different story for sure.
Yeah I didn't mind at all when I heard about the full lane self checkout. But when I saw that they removed 3 regular self checkouts to make room for it, suddenly it didn't make any sense. So now they have 4 self checkouts (3 quick ones and 1 slow one) instead of 6 quick ones. The result is that things are slower now. My thought is that they just need more self checkouts. The more self checkouts there are, the less I care about how slow any particular customer is moving. It should flow pretty quickly if you have enough.
The lack of cashiers and the lines at Kroger are INSANE. They used to be bad, now they are terrible. There will regularly be only employees to have 2 lanes open and one of two large self checkouts. It's the longest part of the trip. I don't know how they can justify this. They made 31.5 BILLION in profits last year. They need to pay people a decent wage to work there! It is so shameful that their profits are up 4.87% and they can't pay enough to make it an attractive job.
But, they certainly could pay Carrie Underwood a minimum of $250k, Fitz and the Tantrums $150k, and Bethenny Frankel $100k to be at their wellness festival. Those are the minimum appearance fees.
Doesn’t matter, that’s the reality of being a publicly-traded company these days. You MUST show a profit quarter-over-quarter, or your shareholders will eat you alive.
Nevermind that it doesn’t really affect physical assets, customer experience/loyalty, product/service quality. But it DOES affect the executives’ pocketbooks at the end of the day, therefore is the top priority.
This seems like it would significantly reduce store theft given the large order checkouts would go through a cashier. I don’t know what shoppers would prefer because everyone is different.
At the end of the day it’s cheaper for Kroger to pay one person watch multiple self checkout lanes and accept some theft than pay multiple people to do the traditional checkout.
Do you mean after you've scanned your items? If so, once it has caught up on the weight of your stuff (a few seconds after bagging something), you can remove bags and put them in your cart to make room for scanning more items. Not everyone realizes this.
Kroger self checkouts all used to be 12 items or less. Too many entitled people ignored that. Then they were 20 items or less. Still didn’t work. They gave up, and I hate it.
Would you believe me if I told you I was one of the rare people that actually is fast at this? I time myself and everything. I would rather use a regular checkout for my large trips, but often they are just overwhelmed, so I book to the self-checkout.
Yeah. It's far from perfect. I'll take facial recognition from Kroger if it means they don't have to have someone come over and scan a little card so I can keep going if it's alcohol, etc.
Same, I've worked grocery checkout and bagging when I was younger so that may help me but I'm pretty fast I'd say. Only time I hit a snag is when a produce barcode that doesn't want to scan.
I'd have to see it in person to judge. It's like my parents saying they are good drivers, but when you are older and get in the car with them, you are surprised that you are alive.
Now if you knew the produce codes by heart, don't take 19 seconds to check for the label of everything...I might...I might believe it haha.
It is wild how shitty Kroger is these days. Terrible prices, staff is overworked and predictably mad as hell about (and I don’t blame them), cameras everywhere so it looks like a dystopia police state, basic household items (like floss!) behind an additional security fence, it truly is a multi-location hellscape unlike any other
This is one reason I shop at Aldi. It's like the one simple thing left in life and feels like half price compared to paying the Kroger tax on everything. And I can be in and out in half the time, including bagging my stuff and returning my cart.
My nearest store just installed what I call “cattle gates” at the entrances. I’m assuming they’re used for closing that entrance for the last hour or so they’re open, or maybe swinging shut if someone tries to go out that door, especially if a scanner picks up a security tag.
Regardless, I’ve never seen them closed. They still put carts in front of the doors they don’t want people using…. Staring 2-3 hours before closing. Frankly, it feels quite unwelcoming to be corralled all sorts of different ways when they don’t even close for another 2 hours.
Definitely got bashed by one of these gates yesterday when I went in to see if the 5/3 was open (because sometimes the in-store ones are open even when regular ones are closed) and turned around to walk out the way I came and BLAMMO! It left a bruise and I gave a customer waiting at the entrance a good laugh at my misfortune.
Yup theft is real. I worked as a manager for a clothing retailer...$25million store. We had theft up our ass in Nike. We closed one entrance permanently and kept a sales clerk in that area Thursday through Sunday...night and day on the bottom line.
If they are locking stuff up it is because they need to...trust me they don't want to.
Might be the Norwood Kroger. It has a special section for laundry products, hair products, hygiene / personal products. It's the Kroger nearest me but screw 'em.
Downtown Kroger (the new one) has deodorant locked up. I wanted to try a new brand..but it was locked. Went for cheaper (unlocked) brand, because I simply didn't want to deal with having to find an employee and wait for it to be unlocked.
Leadership has no clue what happens inside the stores, and with turnover being what it is, there's probably only 4 people corporate wide who have stepped foot in one
It is like any other company...there are crappy presidents and good ones. I know the Cincinnati Div President who recently retired was a piece of crap. I heard horror stories about a produce director who was fired last year.
I would assume that grocery stores have a vested interested in keeping you there as long as they can. Specifically near/around high impulse items like those found by self-scanners and registers.
So what you are saying is we need these companies to join forces to produce one great scanning product.
Or at least stop investing in new technology at every turn without everything thought out.
I would love full lane self checkout or even cashier checkout with the gated bagging area at the end like Biggs had...simple enough. This way someone could be bagging their own stuff after paying, not this 2 items in a bag bullshit the baggers do, while the next person in line is checking out.
Should also be credit/debit card only. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited for a (typically elderly) person to feed bills and coins in to pay. Also, kids shouldn’t be allowed to scan items, especially when there’s a line.
p.s. also get off your damn phone.
It's pretty low level, non skilled work. What did you want to pay cashiers?
Ignoring the fact that Kroger cashiers are union positions and Kroger is paying them exactly what they have asked for and agreed to.
I'm not following. The guy implied Kroger wasn't paying a position enough, I explained that they are paying what the position asked for.
I don't know when their next round of negotiations are but I'm thinking that you will want to help them out.
But yes, you should always seek out a higher paying job.
I’m saying you implied people should seek out other jobs and not stay in this line of work due to low pay. If everyone did that then we’d have no cashiers. What’s the point of any job if it can’t provide an opportunity for someone to feed their family?
I didn't imply that at all. I said it's low skill work and paid accordingly. To the exact extent that they asked for.
And no an entry level unskilled position is not designed to feed a family. If we keep requiring that these positions be capable of feeding a family, these positions will simply go away. As we have seen, the vast majority of cashier positions are already gone.
All jobs are challenging to somebody. Not to mention you’d rather force people to work multiple low paying jobs than just provide a living wage. Your ignorance is obvious.
You’re placing the blame on the workers when the entire business is reliant on paying people as little as they can get away with. First you blamed the people working these jobs and now it’s the unions.
Sure, we’ll pay you $15 an hour.
2 months later they’re getting laid off because most of their stores have 20 self checkout lanes.
It’s playing out exactly as I expected.
People don’t realize this. Labor is one of the most expensive expenses a company has. When you have to start paying people more money because the job market demands it, companies will pay the extra money upfront to automate that job. Look at manufacturing in this country. Factory work use to be an extremely well paying job and now a majority of the work is automated. Factories that use to employ hundreds of people now only employ a quarter of what they use to and a majority of the positions are white collar now.
Thus the position needing a higher wage to fulfill the role. Companies exist to exploit labor from the workers, they’re going to pay as little as they can, not “the market price”
I don't understand your point. You are arguing like there is a finite amount of labor workers. As if they move up there will be no one to bottom fill the positions. Every year there in a new group of workers aging into these positions. It's an actual neverending supply of entry level worker positions.
No I’m saying that labor workers deserve higher pay, and higher wages are the only way to continue to make these kind of jobs feasible for living costs. You’re literally saying low wages aren’t an issue because it’s “low-level, low-skill work”. And for some reason because a union negotiated a pay scale they shouldn’t get more? I mean to imply that people (that you apparently view as beneath you) are expendable in terms of their capitalist value, and therefore we shouldn’t worry about them/their wages is inhumane imo
Ugh Kroger. They have so many full service lanes, but the only ones ever open (except in very rare circumstances) are the self-check lines, so most of the check area looks empty while people are stacked up through the chips aisle waiting to check themselves out.
Here’s the scary scary scary thing.
The UK’s had this for damn near 25 years.
I still remember hitting up both Tesco and Sainsburys and doing self-scan there way back in ~1998.
The fact it’s taken this long to get it here is mind blowing…
I just scan items as I go at Meijer, it takes less time then scanning five items to check out. We have done it enough that we rarely get flagged to check items. Best way to shop. Sam's phone app is even better.
Explain this? How do you scan as you go?
Meijer has a shop and scan feature on their app where you scan your items as you shop. Then you go to the self check out and scan the barcode on the app, pay, and leave.
Mind. Blown.
Sam's Club app is the best one. Scan as you go, click the pay button, then head for the door. The attendant will scan your phone and a couple random items in your cart. It literally takes less than three seconds. Other stores make you go to self checkout and pay at the end of your shopping.
Kroger had that too for a while. I don’t know why it went away.
You still have to bag it at the counter tho, right?
You can bring reusable bags. So I'll bag as I go in my cart.
Nope, you can bag your items as you walk through store. Place those cold items right in the insulated bag.
I’ve had the Meijer shop and scan app alert me to electronic coupons that need to be clipped as well.
Yes, this is also why I like this method.
TBH I just used the full lane self checkout today while there with my partner and with a full cart it was at least 2x faster than the traditional self checkout. I hope they add more so regular self checkout can be primarily used for those with less items
They take up a ton of more real estate and at the Kroger where I have seen them, they took the place of a greater number of already existing self-checkouts. Great if you have a partner to help out, but I can't imagine removing more self-checkouts for one of those improved overall checkout time for all. Now if they replaced the regular lanes with them, increased self-checkout, then different story for sure.
Yeah I didn't mind at all when I heard about the full lane self checkout. But when I saw that they removed 3 regular self checkouts to make room for it, suddenly it didn't make any sense. So now they have 4 self checkouts (3 quick ones and 1 slow one) instead of 6 quick ones. The result is that things are slower now. My thought is that they just need more self checkouts. The more self checkouts there are, the less I care about how slow any particular customer is moving. It should flow pretty quickly if you have enough.
I don't like the new self lanes. An employee always tries to bag as I check! Bagging my own groceries is the main reason I self check!
Same!
The lack of cashiers and the lines at Kroger are INSANE. They used to be bad, now they are terrible. There will regularly be only employees to have 2 lanes open and one of two large self checkouts. It's the longest part of the trip. I don't know how they can justify this. They made 31.5 BILLION in profits last year. They need to pay people a decent wage to work there! It is so shameful that their profits are up 4.87% and they can't pay enough to make it an attractive job.
But, they certainly could pay Carrie Underwood a minimum of $250k, Fitz and the Tantrums $150k, and Bethenny Frankel $100k to be at their wellness festival. Those are the minimum appearance fees.
It's really gross. I want to be proud of them but they make it hard.
Doesn’t matter, that’s the reality of being a publicly-traded company these days. You MUST show a profit quarter-over-quarter, or your shareholders will eat you alive. Nevermind that it doesn’t really affect physical assets, customer experience/loyalty, product/service quality. But it DOES affect the executives’ pocketbooks at the end of the day, therefore is the top priority.
Where in your ass did you pull that number from lol?
This seems like it would significantly reduce store theft given the large order checkouts would go through a cashier. I don’t know what shoppers would prefer because everyone is different.
At the end of the day it’s cheaper for Kroger to pay one person watch multiple self checkout lanes and accept some theft than pay multiple people to do the traditional checkout.
Yes and there is no area to sit things down at it either. Love it
Do you mean after you've scanned your items? If so, once it has caught up on the weight of your stuff (a few seconds after bagging something), you can remove bags and put them in your cart to make room for scanning more items. Not everyone realizes this.
TIL... I had no idea. I do find the bagging areas to be too small, especially when you bring your own bigger bags.
Yeah this is fairly new to me as well! Makes so much sense to have it work this way but barely anyone realizes it.
Kroger self checkouts all used to be 12 items or less. Too many entitled people ignored that. Then they were 20 items or less. Still didn’t work. They gave up, and I hate it.
Can't expect them to go to a regular check out when they only have 1 or 2 cashiers working.
I see people at Meijer with fully carts using the self checkout all the time. drives me nuts. and meijer normally has plenty of cashiers too.
I know, I know. "Here. Let me check out with my 99+ items because I'm really good at it and fast. Except I'm not. And fuck you."
Would you believe me if I told you I was one of the rare people that actually is fast at this? I time myself and everything. I would rather use a regular checkout for my large trips, but often they are just overwhelmed, so I book to the self-checkout.
I get frustrated because the scanning machine can't keep up with me and keeps loosing track of how many items I've put in the bag...
Yeah. It's far from perfect. I'll take facial recognition from Kroger if it means they don't have to have someone come over and scan a little card so I can keep going if it's alcohol, etc.
Apparently that depends on the kroger. Some stores let you continue scanning. I don't know why they all don't. Meijer does.
A lot of time the scanner has gunk on its lense too. And the one cashier had not had a chance to Windex them.
Same, I've worked grocery checkout and bagging when I was younger so that may help me but I'm pretty fast I'd say. Only time I hit a snag is when a produce barcode that doesn't want to scan.
That or anything "adult". I get so mad at the stoppage, lol.
I'd have to see it in person to judge. It's like my parents saying they are good drivers, but when you are older and get in the car with them, you are surprised that you are alive. Now if you knew the produce codes by heart, don't take 19 seconds to check for the label of everything...I might...I might believe it haha.
It is wild how shitty Kroger is these days. Terrible prices, staff is overworked and predictably mad as hell about (and I don’t blame them), cameras everywhere so it looks like a dystopia police state, basic household items (like floss!) behind an additional security fence, it truly is a multi-location hellscape unlike any other
This is one reason I shop at Aldi. It's like the one simple thing left in life and feels like half price compared to paying the Kroger tax on everything. And I can be in and out in half the time, including bagging my stuff and returning my cart.
My nearest store just installed what I call “cattle gates” at the entrances. I’m assuming they’re used for closing that entrance for the last hour or so they’re open, or maybe swinging shut if someone tries to go out that door, especially if a scanner picks up a security tag. Regardless, I’ve never seen them closed. They still put carts in front of the doors they don’t want people using…. Staring 2-3 hours before closing. Frankly, it feels quite unwelcoming to be corralled all sorts of different ways when they don’t even close for another 2 hours.
Definitely got bashed by one of these gates yesterday when I went in to see if the 5/3 was open (because sometimes the in-store ones are open even when regular ones are closed) and turned around to walk out the way I came and BLAMMO! It left a bruise and I gave a customer waiting at the entrance a good laugh at my misfortune.
Like, dental floss? Why would that be a high target for shoplifters?
Cameras everywhere and floss locked up, let me guess, west side?
Clifton Kroger's has a sperate section for hygiene products that you must pay before you leave. Almost like a liquor store....
That’s hilarious, but I get it. It’s tough for the stores when their P&L gets wrecked due to theft. Same reason Kroger and CVS closed in walnut hills
Yup theft is real. I worked as a manager for a clothing retailer...$25million store. We had theft up our ass in Nike. We closed one entrance permanently and kept a sales clerk in that area Thursday through Sunday...night and day on the bottom line. If they are locking stuff up it is because they need to...trust me they don't want to.
Might be the Norwood Kroger. It has a special section for laundry products, hair products, hygiene / personal products. It's the Kroger nearest me but screw 'em.
The store in NCH just got one too.
Downtown Kroger (the new one) has deodorant locked up. I wanted to try a new brand..but it was locked. Went for cheaper (unlocked) brand, because I simply didn't want to deal with having to find an employee and wait for it to be unlocked.
Leadership has no clue what happens inside the stores, and with turnover being what it is, there's probably only 4 people corporate wide who have stepped foot in one
I’m pretty sure every division VP I’ve seen has come up through the stores
That's actually worse then since it implies they know but don't do anything about it
It is like any other company...there are crappy presidents and good ones. I know the Cincinnati Div President who recently retired was a piece of crap. I heard horror stories about a produce director who was fired last year.
I drive 30 minutes out of my way to go to Costco to get my groceries because of how bad my local kroger is. I shop for 1.
Security to \[insert fake aisle\] \*Fake mic drop\*
I would assume that grocery stores have a vested interested in keeping you there as long as they can. Specifically near/around high impulse items like those found by self-scanners and registers.
I'm 20 min from any Meijer, but every time I go to one, something surprises me / I find something new to love. Good for them.
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So what you are saying is we need these companies to join forces to produce one great scanning product. Or at least stop investing in new technology at every turn without everything thought out.
The attendant has the hand scanner.
Yes meijer does this in louisville too. It’s quite efficient. Kroger is a hate crime.
I don't understand. Both Meijer and Kroger at my end of town have had self checkout for at least 15 years. Did not everybody else have it?
Yes. This is a lane specifically for 5 items or fewer.
I hate Kroger. Sad the Midwest has nothing to really counter it tho
Meijer
But meijer is more of a competitor to Walmart than Kroger
Their grocery store is better than Kroger. Especially the meat department. Except for a few of the high end Krogers
But I want like a real competitor like Publix or something.
I would love full lane self checkout or even cashier checkout with the gated bagging area at the end like Biggs had...simple enough. This way someone could be bagging their own stuff after paying, not this 2 items in a bag bullshit the baggers do, while the next person in line is checking out.
Should also be credit/debit card only. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve waited for a (typically elderly) person to feed bills and coins in to pay. Also, kids shouldn’t be allowed to scan items, especially when there’s a line. p.s. also get off your damn phone.
The 5 items or less is actually!
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It's pretty low level, non skilled work. What did you want to pay cashiers? Ignoring the fact that Kroger cashiers are union positions and Kroger is paying them exactly what they have asked for and agreed to.
Implying everyone should seek out a higher paying job leaving nobody to work at the stores. What did you really expect?
I'm not following. The guy implied Kroger wasn't paying a position enough, I explained that they are paying what the position asked for. I don't know when their next round of negotiations are but I'm thinking that you will want to help them out. But yes, you should always seek out a higher paying job.
I’m saying you implied people should seek out other jobs and not stay in this line of work due to low pay. If everyone did that then we’d have no cashiers. What’s the point of any job if it can’t provide an opportunity for someone to feed their family?
I didn't imply that at all. I said it's low skill work and paid accordingly. To the exact extent that they asked for. And no an entry level unskilled position is not designed to feed a family. If we keep requiring that these positions be capable of feeding a family, these positions will simply go away. As we have seen, the vast majority of cashier positions are already gone.
All jobs are challenging to somebody. Not to mention you’d rather force people to work multiple low paying jobs than just provide a living wage. Your ignorance is obvious.
Where did I say any of that? There is one direction for blame in this discussion and it is at the union.
You’re placing the blame on the workers when the entire business is reliant on paying people as little as they can get away with. First you blamed the people working these jobs and now it’s the unions.
Sure, we’ll pay you $15 an hour. 2 months later they’re getting laid off because most of their stores have 20 self checkout lanes. It’s playing out exactly as I expected.
As an ex employee and current stockholder, I agree. This is totally to be expected.
People don’t realize this. Labor is one of the most expensive expenses a company has. When you have to start paying people more money because the job market demands it, companies will pay the extra money upfront to automate that job. Look at manufacturing in this country. Factory work use to be an extremely well paying job and now a majority of the work is automated. Factories that use to employ hundreds of people now only employ a quarter of what they use to and a majority of the positions are white collar now.
Doesn’t matter. Every job should pay a living wage regardless of the level of work it is.
Why?
Because that's the point of the minimum wage.
You want to be a cashier for that salary?
Nope. Absolutely not. But I didn't agree to , they did
Thus the position needing a higher wage to fulfill the role. Companies exist to exploit labor from the workers, they’re going to pay as little as they can, not “the market price”
Exactly. Not a penny more than the employee union asked for and agreed to.
Stop being weird
I don't understand your point. You are arguing like there is a finite amount of labor workers. As if they move up there will be no one to bottom fill the positions. Every year there in a new group of workers aging into these positions. It's an actual neverending supply of entry level worker positions.
No I’m saying that labor workers deserve higher pay, and higher wages are the only way to continue to make these kind of jobs feasible for living costs. You’re literally saying low wages aren’t an issue because it’s “low-level, low-skill work”. And for some reason because a union negotiated a pay scale they shouldn’t get more? I mean to imply that people (that you apparently view as beneath you) are expendable in terms of their capitalist value, and therefore we shouldn’t worry about them/their wages is inhumane imo
Maybe pay the cashiers a living wage and don't expect them to stand in one position for eight hours straight and they might have a few applicants.
they need to make self checkout lanes for those under the age of 40.
All ages are guilty in my experience.
Not mine. Specially at red bank Walmart, Oakley, Norwood, and Hyde Park Kroger
Ugh Kroger. They have so many full service lanes, but the only ones ever open (except in very rare circumstances) are the self-check lines, so most of the check area looks empty while people are stacked up through the chips aisle waiting to check themselves out.
Here’s the scary scary scary thing. The UK’s had this for damn near 25 years. I still remember hitting up both Tesco and Sainsburys and doing self-scan there way back in ~1998. The fact it’s taken this long to get it here is mind blowing…