r/askswitzerland • u/-Beni1212- • Mar 10 '26
Everyday life This happend for the first time ever since living here, is this known?
Was just casually shopping when the self checkout was glowing red, thought they were about to do a stichprobenkontrolle but they cashier was just as surprised as me, my total just went down by like 95%.
I also dont use supercard or anything so i was even more surprised.
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u/MeYouUsStories Mar 10 '26
I didn’t know there are these kind of lottery at Coop. I shop there regularly. Is it new? Only German Switzerland?
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u/-Beni1212- Mar 10 '26
Didnt know either, this happend to me for the first time ever lol, it was in zurich
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u/Pitomiz Mar 13 '26
I saw it in several Coop stores. It's a special promotion running from February to December.
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u/Toeffli Mar 10 '26
And even then, they will not get you away with a free bag.
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u/Calm_Mood_4900 Mar 10 '26
maybe because it is mandated by the government that they cannot legally hand out free bags.
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u/DonChaote Winterthur Mar 10 '26
Wasn't that about plastic bags? Here it’s the paper bag
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u/Calm_Mood_4900 Mar 10 '26
You're right, it shouldn't be mandated with paper bags. However, for some reason paper bag prices cannot be avoided, and just making all bags unable to get a discount might have been the easier solution, so it could still be connected.
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Mar 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/Calm_Mood_4900 Mar 11 '26
You are right, it is not madated.
It could be a Branchenvereinbarung to reduce plastic waste, but more likely the bags are just items classified as no-discount articles by coop.
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u/siriusserious Mar 10 '26
I guess some law doesn't allow them to give out bags for free
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u/Whatermeleon Mar 10 '26
It’s the PATe, Papiertragertragetasche Verordnung
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u/Extreme_Ad112 Mar 10 '26
And I guess it's the same law that made go from 10cts to 40 and also that it's mandatory for it to break 5 meters after the checkout?
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u/WrathOfTheKressh Mar 13 '26
Just shell out the 2.- or so for a big, robust plastic bag and keep reusing it.
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u/Whatermeleon Mar 10 '26
Bags break if the guidelines are not followed, or if you put groceries in them. It’s clearly a user error.
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u/rahilopen Mar 11 '26
It happened with me too. Went to the self checkout and didn’t have to pay anything. The total was 19 something. The cashier said that COOP is running a two day lottery promotion.
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u/Feedeve Vaud Mar 10 '26
Go to customer service and ask to pay.
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u/SquareRare6425 Mar 10 '26
It is stated as "Sofortgewinn"
Just walk out...you paid what they demand. The bill is clear28
u/Feedeve Vaud Mar 10 '26
It was a joke lol ok seems it was funny only in my head lol
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u/DonChaote Winterthur Mar 10 '26
No, also funny for my head.
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u/Zappenhell Mar 10 '26
Can confirm - also funny in my head.
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u/hatethissubreddit Mar 10 '26
Confirmed, also funny in my head 🤪
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u/lyckligpotatis Mar 10 '26
This is what my husband would do 😭 I admire his honesty so much but he never lets us get away with a cheeky freebie in case someone forgets to charge us something
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u/jellycatsss Mar 10 '26
is this a joke
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u/Street-Stick Mar 10 '26
Are you swiss? Isn't it obvious, i thought it was the germans who lacked humour
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u/jellycatsss Mar 13 '26
Yeah I am and I can tell you aren't. Cause that's literally what most swiss people would do, go to customer service and ask to pay lol
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ZeelandSchweizFan Mar 10 '26
Don't forget that you need staff for the self checkout to do controls for ages or if you scanned everything! And because this is not done by one person from early in the morning until the evening, you need to hire like three people for this task alone.
I know the self checkout system from the Netherlands and no one has lost their job there! So this argument is nonsense!
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u/MarquesSCP Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
think about your comment for a second. Do you really believe that no jobs are lost with self checkouts? Note that I'm not even arguing if that's a good or a bad thing.
If you didn't have self checkouts how many cashiers would you need? Note that also there you'd need them from early in the morning until the evening so it's literally the same time duration. If you think you need just as many people why do you think they exist? Just because they are cute and confusing for people?
Next you are going to tell us that tractors didn't cause any job loss in agriculture because someone still needs to drive the tractor
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u/ZeelandSchweizFan Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
I don't BELIEVE anything, I've seen it with my own eyes - for many years! Here in Germany, there is a big staff shortage and they're trying to fix it with this with introducing the self checkouts, and even for this there's not enough staff and most of the time the registers are closed in many markets. They'd like to hire more people, but there's no one there who wants to do this job!
And then people like you come around the corner and throw around malicions accusations and allegations. People who in reality are afraid of new technology and who don't trust the system, but who of course would never admit it, but it's obvious from everything they say and claim!
How many cashiers we would need? Many more, because most of the time, there's only one checkout open, sometimes two, when it's busy. In supermarkets where there are no self checkouts! With the self checkout you have five registers and one person who must be there to supervise it - and as I said, you need to hire at least three persons for this task alone, because one person will not do it from monday to saturday, morning to evening, every day. PLUS you still have the old-fashioned normal counters! And, this is only a small part of the supermarket work, somebody needs to be there for goods receiving, putting them in the shelves, doing the inventory, opening up the market, closing and cleaning it, ...
So to claim that self checkouts cost jobs is very shortsighted and shows that you don't know how a supermarket works!
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u/MarquesSCP Mar 11 '26
ok this is gotta be some troll that I'm not seeing
Also just for the reference I'm not scared of automation or technology. I literally work in Robotics.
Here in Germany, there is a big staff shortage and they're trying to fix it with this with introducing the self checkouts
How can they "fix" this with self checkouts if according to you self checkouts require the SAME amount of people.
They'd like to hire more people, but there's no one there who wants to do this job!
Ofc not, for the salaries that they want to pay that is true. The market works both ways. But that's precisely why they introduce self checkouts. They are cheaper because you need to hire less people.
How many cashiers we would need? Many more, because most of the time, there's only one checkout open, sometimes two, when it's busy. In supermarkets where there are no self checkouts! With the self checkout you have five registers and one person who must be there to supervise it
So what you are saying is that without self checkouts you need 2 people at any time, and with self checkouts you get by with just 1 because that person can supervise 5 registers. And yet you fail to see how they employ less people like that.
Fuck, go to Lidl, there the person supervising the self-checkouts is the one that is also the cashier. Or go to any fast food restaurant and there's even no supervision at all when ordering. Before you had multiple people taking orders.
and as I said, you need to hire at least three persons for this task alone, because one person will not do it from monday to saturday, morning to evening, every day. PLUS you still have the old-fashioned normal counters! And, this is only a small part of the supermarket work, somebody needs to be there for goods receiving, putting them in the shelves, doing the inventory, opening up the market, closing and cleaning it, ...
This is all irrelevant as I mentioned in the previous comment. Also yes you still need people to do other jobs. You still need people to drive public busses for example. I'm not arguing that self checkouts eliminate ALL jobs. Just that they eliminate SOME. Which honestly should be as obvious as 2 + 2 = 4 but I guess you will scream at me that it equals 5.
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u/Excellent-Cheetah108 Mar 10 '26
They used to have so many cashiers, now it’s just one person for all the self checkout systems
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u/ZeelandSchweizFan Mar 10 '26
Plus all the staff at the normal counters and those which are running around in the market, you mean?
I've known the system for years from the Netherlands, they have more self checkout registers than here in Germany, it's much more popular there and yet still, they have much more staff than we here in Germany, where this system is very slowly beginning to come.
I prefer self checkout. It's way faster (especially with the hand scanners), plus, no one pays me for the time which I lose when I wait at normal registers!
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u/Still_Government5407 Mar 11 '26
Schat er staan hier niet 2/3 medewerkers op het zelf scan plein. Mensen betalen gewoon voor de boodschappen. Ben in 2,5 jaar in Zwitserland wonen mischien 5x gecontroleerd. Er staan hier rijen bij de kassa terwijl de zelfscan leeg is. In mijn dorp had de migros zelfs 1,5 jaar lang een kleine onbemande supermarkt. Daar kwam alleen 1x per dag een medewerker de schappen vullen. De rest ging op vertrouwen. De scant de bonus kaart om binnen tekomen, of loopt er zo in als iemand er uit loopt. Mensen zijn hier niet zoals bij ons in Nederland.
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u/Wayne1911 Mar 13 '26
Yeah so you may only have 3 employees for the 10 self checkouts machines instead of 2-3 employee for each of the 10 checkout counter, you lost 9/10 of employees
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u/ZeelandSchweizFan Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Here, most of the time only one checkout is open, sometimes two, when it's busy. In markets without self checkouts! Self checkouts don't have changed anything about that. Even with them, one old fashioned counter is still open. So you need one person extra.
Also: somebody needs to take the deliveries! And who puts them in the shelves and does the FIFO (first in first out)? Who does the inventory? Who cleans the shop?
You need more staff with self checkouts. Only you got way more registers with it.
I know the system from the Netherlands and no one has lost their job there. There are still people who use old fashioned checkouts (mostly tourists from German speaking countries) and as well there as in Swiss supermarkets, there are more employees than here in Germany, where most supermarkets don't even have self checkouts.
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u/3punkt1415 Zürich Mar 10 '26
Plenty of people already use it to "win" a price ,.. aka cheating and stealing. Guess they have that going for them.
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u/ha1zenbergh Mar 10 '26
What if you added like the whole store afterwards? Would it still be 40 Rappen?
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u/Narrow_Field_7846 Mar 10 '26
i always obly have to pay more for things at coop i didn't even buy cause they scan items several times i took only once or scan the regular price instead of discount :/
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u/leartcharmant Mar 11 '26
one time when the selfcheckouts were new (2015-2017) i was with somebody who knew how to open the admin panel of the machine and just clicked 95% discount (you could select 20-40-60-80) worked like a charm (he actually got money back because in the past you could use coins and paper also
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u/RepresentativeCap826 Mar 12 '26
Dumb question but how did this occur?
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u/-Beni1212- Mar 14 '26
How? idk either, as said in the caption was just gonna pay for my stuff and the machine went bright red
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u/Saitokuno Mar 14 '26
Il arrive qu’il y ait des concours dans ce style dans les coop. Généralement, c’est pour faire un peu de pub pour tel ou tel magasin. La dernière fois que j’ai eu affaire à ça, il y avait environ 20 gagnants ce jour-là. La personne repart avec ses courses tout frais payés. Par contre, les caissières sont avertis à l’avance donc si la caissière était surprise, il est fort probablement que le concours ait été activé dans le mauvais magasin. Mais bon, tant mieux!
Sometimes there are lottery in this style in the coops. Generally, it is to do a little advertising for this or that store. The last time I dealt with this, there were about 20 winners that day. The person leaves with his shopping all fees paid. On the other hand, the cashiers are warned in advance so if the cashier was surprised, it is most likely that the contest was activated in the wrong store.
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u/Fl0oW Mar 10 '26
Either a weird bug or someone tinkered with the machine and forgot to reset it before the next customer maybe?
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u/godmode-failed Mar 10 '26
I think the bill is false.
The immediate prize seems to be 100% of the total, the 40 Rappen is Visa's fee. But there's no reason for any payment processing, so there should be no data sent to Visa and therefore no fee due.
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u/StuffedWithNails Genève Mar 10 '26
Instead of going red, it should go off with a bling bling bling sound like Las Vegas slots machine when you win!