So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Edward]

Self-checkout. In this part of the U.S. they've offered this for several years now, but the set-up is minimal; self-checkout is still designed for that shopper who literally needs only one or two smallish items, can scan them, pay, put 'em in a bag, and leave with receipt in-hand. Trouble is, local shoppers roll a full cart or two up to the self-checkout kiosks, then spend an hour or more scanning and bagging their goods, all the while blocking the surrounding kiosks so those people who only have two or three items can't get to the equipment. Selfish? You bet, and it's only gotten worse since the pandemic started.

That sort of thing happens here in London too. My local supermarket started with a half a dozen of them. Then they cut half the regular tils and now they have thirty or forty of these. It's exacerbated by the fact that of maybe a dozen traditional tils, they rarely open more than two at a time - the rest sit empty. The better option I've seen for auto tils is in some Asdas, where it's an auto til but to size of a full-size, regular til, so better for a proper trolley shop. I expect we'll see more of those rolled out in time. Funny thing, though: the cheapest quality supermarkets in the UK remain the German-owned Lidl and Aldi chains. Lidl have a small number of auto-tils for express (10 items or less) shoppers, fully manned tills otherwise - and their pay and conditions are still reportedly markedly better than any of the others. Lidl were the first UK supermarket to support the *living* wage, not just the legal minimum wage.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I loathe those things. Hannaford Bros. Inc, our local supermarket colossus, had revenue last year of $4.2 billion. I'll be damned if I'll check out my own groceries.

 

[Bushman]

Here's a gripe: 40mph is not a universal speed limit, and I don't know why people are suddenly treating it like it is. This has nothing to do with "weather permitting." This is people going 40mph regardless of whether the speed limit is 55 or 25.

Self-checkout. In this part of the U.S. they've offered this for several years now, but the set-up is minimal; self-checkout is still designed for that shopper who literally needs only one or two smallish items, can scan them, pay, put 'em in a bag, and leave with receipt in-hand. Trouble is, local shoppers roll a full cart or two up to the self-checkout kiosks, then spend an hour or more scanning and bagging their goods, all the while blocking the surrounding kiosks so those people who only have two or three items can't get to the equipment. Selfish? You bet, and it's only gotten worse since the pandemic started.

Self checkout is a perfect indictment of late stage capitalism. It's a way for big corporations, looking to shave pennies and impress stockholders, to widen the profit margins just a little bit more. From the user's end they are, like you said, good if you 're just grabbing a handful of necessities like a loaf of bread and some Kraft Singles, but anything more complicated and forget it. Back in my retail clerk days, it was both entertaining and annoying to watch as customers scanned an item, clicked the acknowledgement that the self check out kiosk was tender specific only, proceed to scan through their entire cart of 50 or so items, then proceed to become confused that the kiosk didn't accept the tender they acknowledged could not be used at that kiosk. Some people really couldn't dump a bucket of water even if the instructions were written on the bottom of the bucket.

But the even worse part about them is they are 100% exploitive. They cut human employees, but the prices didn't go down. Instead the store now gives you a choice of providing free labor to a corporation who by all means can perfectly afford double the employees they staff at any given time, or wait in a 45 minute line for the single human cashier they have on duty. I remember a funny yet sad joke going around a while back that the next step to self checkout is customers unloading the trucks and stocking the shelves themselves! It's funny... but remember that Costco exists: where you pay to shop at a store where they wheel pallets off a truck and you grab the product from there. We're really one step away from unloading the trucks ourselves.

 

[GHT]

Please excuse if I have already posted this, but I found it on a Facebook page by a fellow I used to work with:

I had the rudest, slowest, and nastiest cashier today.
That does it! I'm DONE using the self-checkout lane.

Well said, even though it's tongue in cheek. The self-checkout tills in our supermarket have the most patronising voice, and I swear it sighs if you don't follow it's programmed sequence, chapter and verse.

Interestingly I read recently about Jacob Kohen, a Polish Jewish immigrant, who, to escape persecution, came to Britain and founded the Tesco supermarket company. The business went from a market stall to the biggest supermarket company in the UK and Jacob became Sir John Edward Cohen.

In the early days when all the company had were two shops in The East End of London, Cohen baulked at his son-in-law, Hyman Kreitman, who had worked for Tesco since marrying into the company, Kreitman suggested that self-service rather than counter service was the way to increase business. Cohen thought that the idea was a thief's charter.

I wonder what Sir John would have made of self-checkout?

 

[Rmccamey]

Yes, don't you love it when THEY get upset at YOU for not knowing how to operate THEIR software!

The increasing impoliteness of many customers at any age in shops, offices, at counters, getting served…
No daytime, neither a please nor a thank you, no word of farewell…

Self checkouts are tried at some larger supermarkets or stores like IKEA at this end.
Couldn’t imagine that this might save any money (staff) or time.
It always takes some guys to herd the shopping livestock through the picket gates and to help those many lost souls blocking the line with incompetence.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Self checkout is a perfect indictment of late stage capitalism. It's a way for big corporations, looking to shave pennies and impress stockholders... I remember a funny yet sad joke going around a while back that the next step to self checkout is customers unloading the trucks and stocking the shelves themselves! It's funny... but remember that Costco exists: where you pay to shop at a store where they wheel pallets off a truck and you grab the product from there. We're really one step away from unloading the trucks ourselves.

Yes, self-checkout is a busted flush, no doubts abouts but similar to airport kiosk self-checkin tech isn't leaving.
I personally prefer cashiers and clerks. And an old grab off pallet stack is fine.

And the Yank ''smash 'n grab'' gets shown on tele here. Suppose that is another self-checkout form but low tech.

 

[GHT]

I loathe those things. Hannaford Bros. Inc, our local supermarket colossus, had revenue last year of $4.2 billion. I'll be damned if I'll check out my own groceries.

Revenue from online grocery retailers in the United Kingdom reached a peak of almost 30 billion pounds in 2021. Statista Research Department,
The rise in internet sales, could it be the death knell of the high street? Many of our cities have urban decay simply because of retail closure. It's simply not viable, when operating a retail premises and all the cost that entails, trying to compete with the internet.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I bet, if someday our local Rewe would install one self-checkout, you would hear:
"Hey, can anyone help me? Where are the money slots?"

 

[Turnip]

Yes, don't you love it when THEY get upset at YOU for not knowing how to operate THEIR software!

Of course, customer service is gaining a total new connotation since some decades…
If self checkout would be the only way to pay in a local shop I wouldn’t set a foot in there anymore.

 

[Edward]

Revenue from online grocery retailers in the United Kingdom reached a peak of almost 30 billion pounds in 2021. Statista Research Department,
The rise in internet sales, could it be the death knell of the high street? Many of our cities have urban decay simply because of retail closure. It's simply not viable, when operating a retail premises and all the cost that entails, trying to compete with the internet.

Ecommerce as the death of physical retail stores was much predicted at the height of the dot com boom, though I think we're only really now beginning to see that happen. Innovations in delivery models and all sorts helped, but doubtless a huge factor in simply breaking people into the new habit was lockdown, among other covid-era restrictions. Of course there were always stores, mostly high end, that would deliver groceries and such - but the web has made the distance retail experience much more convenient.

I've nuanced views on the desirability of it all, really. Yes, I'd love to have a local retail shop where I could buy everything I can get online - at online prices. Problem is (price and overheads aside), a lot of my interests are niche. Most of my clothes, for instance, are bought online. I think the last time I bought a pair of trousers in an actual shop was maybe 2016, and they were 'what would do' rather than what I actually wanted. Everything has been online since. I buy socks, underwear, and the odd shirt in a retail shop, that's it. Guitars are the same - it's currently a fast-shrinking hobby as the kids these days aren't into music the way they were in my era, and there are very few actual guitar shops left. I'm also left-handed... so buying online becomes a thing. The online second hand market is much bigger - and thanks to legal obligations on platforms and payment providers, a bit safer from being ripped off than buying at a boot sale or small ads in the back of the paper. Over the last twenty years, I've slowly shifted to, I'd say, about 80 to 90% of what I buy beyond basic food (and even most of that now..) is bought online simply because it's either markedly cheaper or - in the case of clothes, music, books, hobby items.... - that's the only place it's available at all. There are some great sites I get clothes from particularly that are businesses which I don't think would survive as physical-only, for the simple reason that their niche markets are too spread out geographically to have enough of a customer base.

It's going to be interesting to see how the high street reinvents itself. I think Tottenham Court Road here in London is a good example of that. Back in 2003 I bought my first digital camera there, and it was all electronics retailers. With the web in competition, those are now all long gone, were by 2015. What has replaced them has been a mix of things, but mostly stuff that offers an enhanced experience you don't get online. A Warhammer store, where hobbyists can buy the bits at the same price they can get them from the company online - but they can also stay all day, paint them, play games on a scale that many won't have the table space for at home... Furniture stores where you can try the sofa, see and handle the fabrics and colours before you then order it for manufacture to order and delivery, restaurants, opticians... and just the odd convenience supermarket or Tiger Tiger bucking the trend. I have a feeling that's the way it's all eventually going to go - especially if 'within the hour' drone delivery ever does become a practical thing.

Some traditional retailers have lost out of course. I feel very sorry for small businesses shut down as they can no longer survive in bricks and mortar. On the other hand, many that wouldn't have survived changing retail trends in the real world *have* been able to survive online - I know of several tobacconists who made that jump, catering primarily to the smaller number of pipe-smokers left today by reaching a wider market online. Then there are the businesses for whom I have no sympathy whatever. Specifically, big chain bookstores that in the 90s spearheaded the successful campaigned to end the Net Book Price arrangement in order to undercut and drive out the independent book shops, now crying that they can't compete on price with the likes of Amazon.

The really interesting bit is going to be seeing how the high street evolves now. What new models evolve where the in-person retail experience or some other factor has an added value that is something for which people will pay. In a big city like London, there will probably always be tourists who want to be able to say they bought X on Piccadilly, or in Harvey Nics or Harrods or whatever. I'm expecting to see at some point a new model of middle-man evolve. I'd love to be able to go to a hang-out, social space - part bar, part cafe, a place where I could order a parcel to be delivered to, where there was a changing room I could try it on and facilities to organise easy and immediate redelivery if there was a problem (doesn't fit, whatever). Maybe a space for second-hand sales, and/or an easy arrangement to parcel up and send off your ebay sales. A combination of a range of different, existing businesses that would have something to offer that simply going online at home doesn't. I can't help but wonder if, as working models change (another pandemic benefit: the long-possible 'WFH' model actually proved itself) and ecommerce dominates, city-centre spaces might become affordable enough for people to experiment with these new ideas. Or start to see more residential development again. Genuinely affordable housing in Zone one? Yes please. Lots of planning restriction required there so it's not more concrete and glass apartments to be sold off-plan overseas and sit empty thereafter, but that's within the bounds of possibility.

 

[Trenchfriend]

It will be interesting to see, what happens to my smalltown in 40 years, when we will be probably 6.000 or even less left.
But I think, there will be a shoe store coming up again, because of natural reasons. And the clothing store is actually looking out for a successor. The flower stores will always be there, I guess. The deko and books store is seemingly running well.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem in my town is that there's pretty much nothing left on Main Street that interests me, even though I've worked on Main Street for close to forty years. I don't drink, so I don't have any use for bars. I don't smoke dope, so I don't have any use for pot shops. I don't eat overpriced bourgie food, so I have no use for high-end restaurants. I've seen all the hokey art I ever want to see, so I don't have any use for art galleries. I live here, so I don't need a t-shirt to tell the world I visited here, and I don't wear t-shirts anyway. And I don't have any wealth to manage, so I don't need wealth-management offices. I'd love to "shop local," but the gentrifiers won't let me.

 

[GHT]

Or start to see more residential development again. Genuinely affordable housing in Zone one? Yes please. Lots of planning restriction required there so it's not more concrete and glass apartments to be sold off-plan overseas and sit empty thereafter, but that's within the bounds of possibility.

Interesting post Edward, I enjoyed reading your comments and observations, much appreciated.
Our first home was on the High Street, we lived on the edge of East London. We had an apartment on Chingford Broadway, above a Singer Sewing Machine shop, remember them? It was a five minute walk to the railway station, where trains to Liverpool Street took about twenty minutes to arrive. We met a lot of young couples whilst living there. Could it be that we have come full circle and your assessment of homes on the High Street may be returning?

Talking of full circle, at Chingford we were on the doorstep of Epping Forest. Here we are on the Hampshire/Dorset border on the doorstep of The New Forest. What goes around, comes around.

 

[Bushman]

There are still a few things I rarely or almost never buy online, food, clothes, and books among them, though there's exceptions that can be made. Clothes I'll buy online if I know and trust the retailer. Books I'll buy if I know and like the author. Food I don't think I ever will buy online. I work in a warehouse and I wouldn't trust the quality.

Yes, self-checkout is a busted flush, no doubts abouts but similar to airport kiosk self-checkin tech isn't leaving.
I personally prefer cashiers and clerks. And an old grab off pallet stack is fine.

And the Yank ''smash 'n grab'' gets shown on tele here. Suppose that is another self-checkout form but low tech.

Funny you should mention that. I am personally proud of my fellow humans finding ways to abuse self checkout. Myself, I can just never figure out why all those crab legs keep ringing up as apples. Perhaps if the store provided training and pay to use this machinery...

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Funny you should mention that. I am personally proud of my fellow humans finding ways to abuse self checkout. Myself, I can just never figure out why all those crab legs keep ringing up as apples. Perhaps if the store provided training and pay to use this machinery...

Although I adore small book shops, art galleries, and consignment shopping time is a factor and being on line
professionally spills over to personal lag so if I'm looking for a particular item be it book, Gloverall coat, or Royal Navy submariner roll online surfing suffices ease.
I really detest self checkout. Never had a try run quickly smooth. I much better prefer a cashier with plastic swipe bag and tag ready to go old style shopping.

 

[tonyb]

Do you ever get the sense that your gripes amount to little more than railing against the wind?

It isn’t that the complaints are necessarily without merit. I bemoan what the “progress” I’ve witnessed has done to many of my favorite places over the decades. I much preferred, for instance, the neighborhood “coffee shop” (by the old definition — an affordable, unpretentious eatery with fixed stools at the counter and booths along the wall) to the faux British pub that now occupies the space and serves microbrews and pricy meals with names I have difficulty pronouncing.

But the Columbia Cafe is not coming back, nor is the Fo’c’sle Tavern, nor is Chubby & Tubby, where I used to buy my blue jeans and sneakers and hardware and gardening stuff. (If Chubby & Tubby didn’t have it, you had to question if you really needed it anyway.)

What galls, though, are the gentrifiers who hold themselves up as “urban pioneers” or “saviors” of the district. By their account they found a bombed-out scene and rebuilt it brick by brick, when in actual fact there was a living community of working-class people and interesting older structures that would not have been there had it not been that those with the newcomers’ mentality abandoned it half a century and more ago. (“Preservation by neglect,“ I’ve heard it called, but that‘s not quite accurate, either. The district wasn’t neglected by those who remained while the moneyed classes decamped for the sprawling suburbs. In their minds, it’s obviously only the perspectives of the rich that matter.)

I live in the suburbs these days, not because I find the architecture at all compelling, nor because I prefer living in a place where an automobile is practically a necessity, but because that’s where the relatively affordable housing is now found, what with the older in-city districts becoming the playgrounds of the rich. And really, I am sorely tempted to choke the newcomers to my old neighborhood who crow about how they “treasure the diversity” of the district, when they have priced much of that diversity clean out of the place. You want diversity? Go to the generic suburban subdivisions built out 50, 60, 70 years ago that are now looking a bit down at the heel.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I loathe those things. Hannaford Bros. Inc, our local supermarket colossus, had revenue last year of $4.2 billion. I'll be damned if I'll check out my own groceries.

A never- ending source of contention between my wife and I. She insists that she can check groceries out faster than an employee, and I'm of the opinion that self- serve checkouts result in job losses.

The rub is that they charge ten cents per bag unless you bring your own reusable bags- which we have. During the pandemic some of the stores got pissy about packing groceries in customer owned bags: essentially all the clerks did was scan and hand over a receipt. We eventually found the stores where this is no longer an issue.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

A never- ending source of contention between my wife and I. She insists that she can check groceries out faster than an employee, and I'm of the opinion that self- serve checkouts result in job losses.

The rub is that they charge ten cents per bag unless you bring your own reusable bags- which we have. During the pandemic some of the stores got pissy about packing groceries in customer owned bags: essentially all the clerks did was scan and hand over a receipt.

Self checking led to self bagging. Your wife must be quite efficient. I cannot scan more than a few items
before a snag alarm voice order sounds.

 

[tonyb]

The moment I hear somebody invoke their IQ in any argument is the moment I know there's no reason for me to listen to anything else they might have to say.

Conversely, dismissing a person’s argument by labeling said person “unintelligent” doesn’t get us anywhere, either.

Sure, people do and say decidedly unintelligent things ALL THE TIME. Every person I know well enough to say I actually know certainly has had his or her lesser moments. But attacking the person rather than the person’s argument isn’t very smart, either.

 

[Edward]

Do you ever get the sense that your gripes amount to little more than railing against the wind?

It isn’t that the complaints are necessarily without merit. I bemoan what the “progress” I’ve witnessed has done to many of my favorite places over the decades. I much preferred, for instance, the neighborhood “coffee shop” (by the old definition — an affordable, unpretentious eatery with fixed stools at the counter and booths along the wall) to the faux British pub that now occupies the space and serves microbrews and pricy meals with names I have difficulty pronouncing.

But the Columbia Cafe is not coming back, nor is the Fo’c’sle Tavern, nor is Chubby & Tubby, where I used to buy my blue jeans and sneakers and hardware and gardening stuff. (If Chubby & Tubby didn’t have it, you had to question if you really needed it anyway.)

What galls, though, are the gentrifiers who hold themselves up as “urban pioneers” or “saviors” of the district. By their account they found a bombed-out scene and rebuilt it brick by brick, when in actual fact there was a living community of working-class people and interesting older structures that would not have been there had it not been that those with the newcomers’ mentality abandoned it half a century and more ago. (“Preservation by neglect,“ I’ve heard it called, but that‘s not quite accurate, either. The district wasn’t neglected by those who remained while the moneyed classes decamped for the sprawling suburbs. In their minds, it’s obviously only the perspectives of the rich that matter.)

I live in the suburbs these days, not because I find the architecture at all compelling, nor because I prefer living in a place where an automobile is practically a necessity, but because that’s where the relatively affordable housing is now found, what with the older in-city districts becoming the playgrounds of the rich. And really, I am sorely tempted to choke the newcomers to my old neighborhood who crow about how they “treasure the diversity” of the district, when they have priced much of that diversity clean out of the place. You want diversity? Go to the generic suburban subdivisions built out 50, 60, 70 years ago that are now looking a bit down at the heel.

Gentrification is a difficult one. Here in London it has hit a few neighbourhoods over time - though usually (especially the case with Soho) the people complaining about gentrification don't actually miss how it was 'untouched', rather the first wave of gentrification that made those areas pleasant and desirable, before normal folks get priced out entirely by incoming money that rips everything out in place of concrete and steel offices and 'luxury apartments'. The children of the original communities there (insofar as anywhere as old as London *has* anything amounting to an original community, change being the only constant here for centuries now) typically do end up moved on because they can't afford to buy there, but then it's far from uncommon for their parents to have long sold up and moved no to something bigger elsewhere. The real question is why - if central London does keep on the up and up price wise - anyone would do the basic jobs that all areas need. Why get on a bus and take two hours to get into central London to clean offices, work behind a bar or whatever when those jobs are available - and pay the same - in much more affordable areas without an expensive commute? At some point, logically, things have to get problematic for the very wealthy if they've priced out all the little people they rely on to do the jobs they don't want to. Maybe the post-pandemic changes will reverse that a little, though in London it's so pronounced that who knows?

A never- ending source of contention between my wife and I. She insists that she can check groceries out faster than an employee, and I'm of the opinion that self- serve checkouts result in job losses.

The rub is that they charge ten cents per bag unless you bring your own reusable bags- which we have. During the pandemic some of the stores got pissy about packing groceries in customer owned bags: essentially all the clerks did was scan and hand over a receipt. We eventually found the stores where this is no longer an issue.

I don't know that any supermarket over here has ever bagged for the customer. Sainsburys claimed they did in an ad a few years ago, but not my experience locally... It's amazing how much it has changed, though. I remember back in the seventies/eighties waiting in a queue with the parents *forever* as each item was individually entered into the til. You took one trolley up to the til, stuff went over the belt, got checked, and then into another trolley at the other end - then you pushed that to a shelf where you stood and packed it all. Now you bag as they scan - so much faster. For a while when they started charging for bags here, I had to buy one every time as I always forgot: I've had so many 'bags for life' I must be practically as immortal as those plastics... Once into the habit, though, it barely registers. The only hassle is now we have so many fewer carrier bags coming in from the groceries, I have to buy my own binliners.