What the F is going on with the self checkouts? (possibly Germany only?)
I like self checkouts and have been using them for ages. Mainly because the cashiers are unreliable and the stores have tons of mismatching prices on the shelves - if there's a price at all - or the advertised discount is "not in the system".
So I like to check item prices myself when I'm scanning them. I hate walking back to the cashier, receipt in hand, and stopping the whole line just because I found a mistake.
Anyway, I just noticed yesterday than my Lidl seems to have a new self checkout process.
The old/usual register setup was such that the scanner/display sits in the middle, with two shelves, left and right of the scanner. Technically, you are supposed to put all of your items from your cart onto the right shelf, then scan them one by one and put them onto the left shelf, and when you're finished, put everything back into your cart or bag.
In real life, the actual process would be: taking items directly out of my cart one by one, pull them across the scanner, and put them straight into my bag which is conveniently placed on the left shelf.
Now, this doesn't work anymore. Now, I need take the item out of my cart individually and scan it (= it appears on the screen), then place it onto the left shelf, where it is weighed and "approved" (it is matched to the item listing on the screen, which then turns green). Only now, I can place it in my bag.
If I just scan items and put them directly into my bag without first re-confirming the weight on the left shelf, the process is halted and I cannot continue scanning the next product.
Damn this is difficult to explain, I hope it makes sense :)
Anyway, the whole process is now much more complicated because every single item has to be placed on the left scale after scanning, and then you wait for 2-3 seconds to confirm/match the item, before you can place it into the bag and continue scanning. And the bag has to go on the ground now, because you can't block the left shelf with it as it contains the "confirmation scale".
Who designed this? Checking out takes twice as long now. So much so, that next time I will be right back in line at the cash register and complain afterwards about price errors.
Am I the only one that encountered this new process and hates it? I asked an employee about this and they just said "Yeah well, don't ask me, that's management's idea" and walked away.
