Self check out is ubiquitous in grocery stores and Big Box shops now. Yet a recent survey shows that two thirds of shoppers have had a failure with self checkout.
Two thirds. Imagine a vending machine that failed for two thirds of users. Imaging an industrial automation solution that failed 67% of the time. Imagine an autonomous vehicle that could only succeed one third of the time.
You probably can’t imagine any of those things. If a supposed solution fails two thirds of the time, it’s a failure.
It’s not that simple, though. In spite of the frequency of failure, 60% of shoppers reported that they prefer self-checkout over having a human being check them out. Almost half of respondents said they always use self-check Only 3% never use self-check and don’t care to.
Why? 85% believe that it’s faster, though this does not actually seem to be the case. More than one third use them more now because of the pandemic — many say they don’t want to interact with a human being because of the possibility of contagion. This is true even though 65% worry that the self-check lines are not hygienic either.
Non-users
Some 19% like the interaction with a human being and 25% have had a bad experience with a self-check option which keeps them from trying it again.
Some shoppers — you can find them on social media — dislike the self-check options either because they believe that they lead to the loss of jobs for human beings (which is not true) or because they resent being asked to do extra work for the store without getting any benefits.