Loosing site of the customer isnt it sad...

[Rob Keeble]

Mike you can keep the self check out counters all to yourself. I dont dislike automation or convenience but i still like dealing with human beings. Besides i often have something those check out counters cannot handle then i have to wait for the sole service lady to finish up helping others with similar issues and get to help me.

And as for the thing talking back to me, well there are many days i wish it was the wild west and i had a six gun with me standing in Home Depot in front of that machine. I can tell you it would be full of holes.

[Randal Stevenson]

LOL "self" checkouts. Where they STILL have an employee managing them, they don't offer a discount for the customer acting as the employee, and they put them right by the exit doors, so if something doesn't get scanned, or the antitheft turned off, it just goes out the door. (or in the case of one store, no employee at night and self checkouts were pretty much the only thing open)
I haven't got use for them.

[Jonathan Shively]

Not to play devil's advocate, but this mentality is what eventually creates the need for a new company, new procedures, new parameters thus a new set of opportunities for that scenario. For example, it is quite common to see family operations of many things be it farms, businesses, etc to last three generations. The first scrimps, saves and builds. The second has the savings from the first generation and generally enlarges the operation. The third generation knows nothing of the scrimping and back breaking work, has had all the advantages, didn't work their way up, BOOM all gone! Split up amongst a bunch of new/younger farmers allowing the opportunity to grow again in a different family. So in a way, it is nature's way of eliminating the bad.

[Garry Foster]

The reason they have the "Express" line is because the people who only want to buy milk (this visit) will not come back if they have to wait behind people with full carts every time they go to the store.

The best solution is the one banks, airlines, etc. use, which is the single line for multiple checkers. That arrangement will provide the "fairest" and generally the fastest route to get out of the store.

My complaint is stores which do not have self checkout stations. It's unusual to find a line at the self checkout so I can get through and out the store fastest that way - no matter how much stuff I have.

Mike

Mike
I know your right but if those of us with 200.00 dollar carts wouldn't come back maybe they could decide if they wanted the dollar candy sale or the 200.00 sale. Really I think they are just jealous of the 7-11 type store sales.. Your right the one line dividing is the fairest system but may be hard to implement in shopping basket environments. I'd sure like to see some places try it.

[larry merlau]

i have got to agree with jonathan on the business or farm scenario, have seen it to many times. but i dont see it eliminating the bad it usually ends up with a loss to the farm use by being turned into a sub division or the business isnt available to those of us who used it..

[Chuck Thoits]

Rob while your story is good. Your statement assumes they had any concerns for the customer in the first place. As Jonathan shows it's not about keeping old customer happy . It's all about getting new ones to lose.
As for deregulation quite some time ago we had a top dog that was in bed with our utility company and pushed dereg through. On the grounds it would be more cost effective for the consumer and give them choices of where to buy power. Well it did just that my power bill was cut in half and than they added a delivery fee that dubbed it from what it was before deregulation. So I went from a 100 dollar a month bill to 200 over night.

[Rob Keeble]

Mike
I know your right but if those of us with 200.00 dollar carts wouldn't come back maybe they could decide if they wanted the dollar candy sale or the 200.00 sale. Really I think they are just jealous of the 7-11 type store sales.. Your right the one line dividing is the fairest system but may be hard to implement in shopping basket environments. I'd sure like to see some places try it.

Well Gary as much as i dont like the giant walmart i seen stores of theirs where they have been doing some of it. Also best buy does it here. But the issue then becomes when you see that long line psychologically it makes you think there is a long wait so you end up leaving. Who said humans can be pleased. All i know is if i pick a line, dont get behind me cause you gonna wait a long long time. Reason being i always pick the line with "that" person in front that causes some issue where the line and processing comes to a complete halt. Trust me if i could bet on this issue i could be living on my own island by now.

[Rob Keeble]

Rob while your story is good. Your statement assumes they had any concerns for the customer in the first place. As Jonathan shows it's not about keeping old customer happy . It's all about getting new ones to lose.
As for deregulation quite some time ago we had a top dog that was in bed with our utility company and pushed dereg through. On the grounds it would be more cost effective for the consumer and give them choices of where to buy power. Well it did just that my power bill was cut in half and than they added a delivery fee that dubbed it from what it was before deregulation. So I went from a 100 dollar a month bill to 200 over night.

Chuck lets not get into the dreaded delivery charge scenario. But we have an additional one here that is like a slush fund that we contribute to. Its called "debt recovery". Yeah i dont know what debt but all i do know is that when our killowatts charge dropped the bill did not. The net cost of the electicity if you take our debt recovery and delivery charge and add it to the actual commodity charge and then divide it by the consumption doubles the cost of our killowatts. But hey we dense consumers like it when they give us headings and break ups so we can rationalise the value to different buckets and tell ourselves hey its cheaper.
Ask my son about the word .....only...... its only x or its only y ......yeah right.