So this is pro-self checkout? Why would you be pro self checkout? Besides the extra time and effort for the customer to check out if they have more than a couple items, I recently read an article saying that even for the companies they haven’t worked out: besides the problems and delays they cause where they have to provide employee assistance anyway (“Unexpected item in bag”, etc), they’ve lost more to theft and are having to spend more money on adding more anti-theft tech, etc. One company they interviewed is phasing them out.

Why would you be pro self checkout? Besides the extra time and effort for the customer to check out if they have more than a couple items

In what alternate reality does self-checkout take more time and effort?

• If you go to a cashier then you have to wait in line. At my local supermarket there is one cashier vs. 16 self-checkout machines. Even if you go at an extremely busy time there is almost always a self-checkout machine available.
• With self-checkout you simply scan the items from your basket and put them in your bag. With the cashier you have put all your items on the conveyor belt, wait for them to be scanned, then put them in your bag.
• If you have more than a few items you simply grab a hand-scanner or just use the app on your phone and scan the items as you put them in your cart. Then you just go to a self-checkout machine and pay. No unloading the cart at checkout, you just pay and take your cart to your car.

the problems and delays they cause where they have to provide employee assistance anyway (“Unexpected item in bag”, etc)

What do you mean unexpected item in bag? The self checkout machine can’t look into my bag.

The article also talked about people getting in trouble for accidentally not getting something scanned.

Never seen that happen. You get random bag checks before you pay (so at that point it’s technically not theft). If you missed something, they simply re-scan all the items and you pay the correct amount, that’s all.

In the name of theft prevention and legal compliance, they do not give self checkout customers the same powers as actual cashier employees:

• Self checkout customers cannot verify their own age for age-restricted items.
• Self checkout customers cannot scan something and report the number of duplicates (e.g., scan a can and punch in that you’re buying 8 of them).
• In most stores, self checkout customers are policed by the system to make sure that each item is placed onto a scale that weighs everything, and stops the process if weights don’t match up.
• The ergonomics and flow of self checkout doesn’t allow for a conveyor belt style rapid scanning, because a self checkout station is a tighter space and tends to require bagging as you scan, instead of scanning and bagging separately and independently.
• The frequency of produce code entries means that customers tend to be much slower to enter foods that don’t have bar codes.

As a result, self checkout tends to be slower for customers who have more than 20 items. That might be offset if there’s a longer line for regular cashier, but if there’s no line the employee cashier is much faster.

self checkout cannot remove anti-theft devices.

I’ve never seen anti-theft devices on items in a supermarket.