Simple Idea for Shopping

Quote: boymimbo

The only issue with this are items that are based on weight (fresh vegetables and fruit, bulk goods). For these, you would install scales in those areas and you would put these items on a scale and it would spit out an rfid tag with the weight and the item id. This would indeed slow things down substantially though.

Not sure this is an issue. Before the mid 1980s you always weighed in the produce department and a little tag to take to checkout. Some places still make a bar code in produce.

Quote: boymimbo

The only issue with this are items that are based on weight (fresh vegetables and fruit, bulk goods). For these, you would install scales in those areas and you would put these items on a scale and it would spit out an rfid tag with the weight and the item id. This would indeed slow things down substantially though.

I don't know how things worked elsewhere, but back in the day of electromechanical registers, that's how things worked for such foods. You'd take your veggies and fruits to a scale, a store employee would weigh and price each, and ultimately the cashier entered that price on your bill.

For that matter that's still how the bakery section works in Mexican supermarkets. You pick your bread from bins and shelves, and have it bagged and priced at a counter. Of course these days the price for the cashier is a printed UPC label rather than a scrawl with a grease pencil.

I've been grocery shopping for oh, 20 years in many areas of Canada and the United States, and I've never seen a produce department with a tagging area. Deli, yes. Produce, no. The UPC of the produce might be labelled but each piece of produce doesn't have the weight on it. You would need to take each piece of produce and have it weighed. On top of that, if you do it independently, there's nothing stopping you for punching the wrong code that's a very low price. For example, pecans might be $4.00 / lb, but you punch in bananas instead at $.70 / lb. That's why you would need some personal intervention in the produce area. In the U-Scan area, you have a cashier (and perhaps a cashier in the sky) watching all of the orders. I suppose if I wanted to punch in bananas instead of pecans using U-Scan, there'd be a fairly good probability that I could get away with it.

And because a great number of the Walmarts and Costcos are selling produce these days, this might be a problem. If someone was to move to this technology, I'd have the spot check rate at about 33%.

Quote: boymimbo

I've been grocery shopping for oh, 20 years in many areas of Canada and the United States, and I've never seen a produce department with a tagging area. Deli, yes. Produce, no.

We're a ways behind. UPC codes didn't become ubiquituous until the mid to late 80s, for example.

These days there's a scale at the register and the cashier punches a code for the produce or bulk item. Some stuff, like lettuce, are charged by the piece regardless of weight.

Quote: boymimbo

Most people will not scan their own items, especially seniors.

Quote: AZDuffman

Sounds like my dad. He basically refuses to use the self-scan, will wait in a line instead.

Well, I suppose I qualify as one of the "seniors", and my reaction to these devices has depended a lot on the store.

At Home Depot, I use the self-scan lane every time that I can. The process just plain works, and it's usually faster for me than a regular cashier. The only delay is for those items w/o a UPC code per item (30 ft. of rope at 6 cents per foot), and there is always someone there to handle the special cases.

At our regular grocery store, I practically get into a fight with the danged machine every time I try to use it. Probably half the things I buy don't seem to scan properly for me, and I buy a lot of stuff that is not reasonable to put on the little space/scale they have for the bag; e.g., cases of water or other beverages. Many things need to go from cart to scanner right back to the cart -- that's the way the employees scan things out, but it doesn't work if I try it myself -- "Please place the item in the bag." Right on top of the eggs? Yes, they have someone there to help with problems, but I wind up needing them 100% time to resolve things at my scanner, and that's less efficient than using a regular line. If I tried to use the self-checkout at that store every time, eventually I would become so annoyed that I would smash the scanner glass, and I'd rather wait in line a little while than lose control like that.

Back when ATMs were first introduced, I jumped on that technology right off the bat. I often said that the machines had better personalities than most of the bank tellers that I had to deal with. Seems that maybe introduction of the machines allowed elimination of some of the sourpusses, and I have actually met some pleasant bank tellers these last few years.

Quote: boymimbo

I've been grocery shopping for oh, 20 years in many areas of Canada and the United States, and I've never seen a produce department with a tagging area. Deli, yes. Produce, no.

You're too young to remember the days before UPCs and electronic scales attached to cash registers.

Back in the day, you picked your produce, brought it to the produce man who bagged it and weighed it, and put the price on the bag. The scale used was the same hanging spring style as the estimating scales that are still in most supermarket produce departments.

You then brought it, along with your other stuff, to a cashier who knew the prices of most of the staples which were unmarked, and used a cash register that was nothing more than an adding machine with a cash drawer.

Yeah, it's very similar to what happens in the deli department today. The difference is, in the deli department, customers are not allowed to use the slicing machines, so it still has to be handled by the deli man. But technology has worked it's way in there too. The scales are more accurate, and can calculate the price right to the penny, and print the price tag, along with a bar code.

a) How 'bout having an "app" for the grocery store where
you way "peppermint extract" and it tells you which aisle
it is in ? I could have used that last night working the
the Mrs' list of Thanksgiving stuff.

b) I hate the self-scanners at Wal-mart. There is always
some sort of problem with them. This has to be the worst
example of an implementation that I have ever seen.

The self scanner at the grocery store works much better,
but given a choice I think it is faster to go through an
aisle with a person there.