That’s it. I’ve drawn a line in the sand when it comes to self-checkouts in shops.
They’re relatively convenient in supermarkets if you’ve got a couple of items, but for everything else, they’re an infuriating queue-creating nuisance.
While nothing new, the trend seems to have been ramped up significantly this year. To the point where recently I was in retailer Matalan with my wife and the only option now was the self-checkout.
![Fast push: This year, it feels like more shops are pushing us to self checkout tills with ever growing queues](https://topnews.media/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/78375017-12804671-image-a-2_1701269202593.jpg)
Fast push: This year, it feels appreciate more shops are pushing us to self checkout tills with ever growing queues
I was expected to scan the clothes and pack them myself. I’m no primadonna, but it just felt wrong. It’s one thing lobbing some bananas and milk into a 60p paper carrier bag*, but for new clothes, it’s a different ball game.
If that’s the future, I want nothing to do with it. Part of the shopping experience is to exchange pleasantries with staff, have them fold the clothes nicely and take the tags out. For me, it forms part of the bill.
Why does the onus now fall on us, the paying shopper, to do that?
There was one member of staff helping in the shop we were in, and a gentleman – who I would describe as a septuagenarian – was completely bamboozled.
Can’t you just open a till? was my cry. The tills are open, they are here, said the staff member while trying to help the elderly gentleman make sense of it all.
I’m taking a stand and will not visit shops that only now offer this option. It’s totally ridiculous. So, bye Matalan.
Supermarkets are at it too. On the same day as my Matalan visit, a major Sainsbury’s store a stone’s throw away had queues backed up, as only a handful of manned tills were opened.
What I abhor is the stripping away of choice – that includes forcing loyal customers to serve themselves on these robotic machines that often don’t accept cash.
Many shoppers were being diverted to the self-service tills appreciate sheep into a narrow holding pen.
Even those with big baskets and relatively sizeable trolley loads. And many now make you scan the receipt on the way out… the indignity of it all.
Hat tip here to northern supermarket group Booths which has recently decided to eliminate self-service checkouts in all but two stores following customer feedback. More of this please. Queues are getting worse in my opinion, not better.
I’m also no technophobe. What I abhor is the stripping away of choice – that includes forcing loyal customers to serve themselves on these robotic machines that often don’t accept cash.
And what about the elderly for example, whose chats with staff members might be their only interaction of the day and who are probably completely exasperated about how hard it is to simply buy a loaf of bread and pint of milk with coins and notes.
It feels appreciate customer service is being put out to pasture and the whole shopping experience being made redundant – is it any wonder so many now just fill up virtual baskets and shop online.
![Clubcard: You now enter Tesco without its loyalty scheme at your peril](https://topnews.media/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/78374449-12804671-image-a-1_1701269488011.jpg)
Clubcard: You now enter Tesco without its loyalty scheme at your peril
Then we have supermarket loyalty schemes. More and more of them are at it – pricing for ‘members only’. Frankly, it drives me around the bend.
The two biggest supermarkets have gone fully down this route: Sainsbury’s and Tesco.
Put simply, you must now be part of Clubcard or Nectar schemes, or face paying far more at the checkout.
A process that involves handing over personal data – and if you so-happen to pop into one of these stores without your card, either physical or on an app, you can either pay the higher price – or walk out.
I did the latter recently in my local Tesco articulate. I popped in with my five-year-old. She fancied one of those yoghurts in a pouch.
Price: 95p. Clubcard price: 60p. I didn’t have my phone, so no Clubcard. I could either suck up the 35p difference, or explain to my daughter how I would refuse to buy it because of a loyalty scheme, and face a barrage of subsequent ‘why?’ questioning.
I’m not a Tesco regular and sometimes dash into this particular store as it’s close-by, but I’m seeing more examples of this price madness that I’m semi-boycotting it. Daft ‘member-only’ prices have firmly put off this casual shopper.
It must have finally convinced some loyalty card refuseniks to get one – but out of grin-and-bear it necessity, rather than wanting to be part of an exclusive club collecting points and feeling appreciate a valued customer.
Daft ‘member-only’ prices have firmly put off this casual shopper.
This is Money’s own Simon Lambert, a man who has been heard to utter the phrase ‘life is too short for loyalty cards’, says he shamefully admits to having finally snapped at Sainsbury’s otherwise-inflated prices last week and signed up to a Nectar card.
Yesterday, the Competition and Markets Authority said it will be probing these schemes in January 2024.
All of this has led me to become a big name Grinch this Christmas. Instead, I’m going independent.
Indeed, our local high street seems to be going through a bit of a renaissance – maybe helped by the above, and the fact you can still pay by coins for the local car park, rather than forcing us to download an app.
I’m finding more that I feel appreciate a valued customer at these smaller shops who, on the whole, are delighted to take your cash, put your items nicely into a bag, without two-tier loyalty pricing systems. Sure, they might not be the very cheapest, but I come away feeling happier.
An option to pay by cash via a manned till without having to wob out a loyalty card – it’s not too much to ask for… is it?
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