Good riddance to self-service checkouts – an infuriating invention

The tide is turning on one of the modern age’s great frustrations, and not a moment too soon

Given supermarkets almost always seem to be able to provide us with what we want, when we want it, the conclusion that inevitably follows is that they are run by some very able people. Yet none of them seemed to be able to work out what should have been obvious: that a switch to self-checkouts would be followed by a rise in shoplifting. One survey of 2,500 shoppers revealed that 40 per cent of them admitted to slyly pilfering the odd item, with many resorting to the “banana trick” of ringing up expensive fruits and vegetables as much cheaper ones.
Now, however, the tide seems to be turning. Booths, a supermarket chain in the North of England, recently announced it will remove self-service checkouts from all but two of its stores. US stores have been doing the same, or placing 10 item limits on how much you can buy via a self-service checkout.
Good riddance, I say. It isn’t so much the rise in shoplifting which bothers me, appalling though it is, as constantly being made to feel like a shoplifter even when I am trying to pay. I have used these self-service checkouts hundreds of times now, often because there is no choice. But I can probably count on one hand the number of occasions I have succeeded in getting through without having to call an assistant. The “unexpected item in a the bagging area” is quite often, well, a bag. Supermarkets say they want us to use our own bags, and charge us a small fortune to use their own. But just try putting your own bag anywhere near the bagging area.     
It isn’t always clear which way you are supposed to scan your stuff – with some going left to right and others going right to left – with the inevitable protest from the machine if you get it the wrong way round. Other things just don’t seem to want to scan at all. The frustration is itself an invitation to shoplifters, Archie Norman, the former boss of Asda has warned, with people becoming so fed up with trying to do the right thing they decide to give up and pocket stuff instead.
Obviously, supermarkets can sell their wares more cheaply if they can get away with fewer staff, but since they all now seem to need large numbers of employees hovering around the tills to check that we’re not stealing their croissants, to confirm we are over 18 or just to reset a till which has gone haywire, you wonder how much money they are really saving. They are automating the wrong part of their business. It is the shelf-stacking, and the warehouses, which should be automated – with real, living human beings retained for customer-facing roles.       
No doubt the technology will improve. Cameras are increasingly being used to spy on us at the checkouts, though whether there is anyone actually watching us or whether they are operating purely on the Panopticon principle – trying to make us behave by leading us to think we are being watched – is hard to say. Maybe one day the technology will be good enough to spot the difference between a Russet and a Granny Smith and we won’t need to have to do the identification job ourselves.   
But I don’t want to be endlessly surveilled upon when I go shopping. I just want to be pick up some groceries, pay for them and take them home without some dippy machine accusing me of shoplifting. I know that the Sharons and Traceys of the checkouts used to be the butt of jokes, bywords for low ambition. I never guessed how much I would miss them.