Self-service Checkouts Spreading Across Japanese Supermarkets
More Japanese supermarkets are being equipped with self-service checkouts, so that customers can scan and pay for goods themselves.
The checkouts work by using bar code information to get product weight as well as price. Customers scan the items and place them in a shopping bag mounted on a set of scales, which checks that the total weight of the bag matches that of the scanned goods. And should there be any problems with the process, common store policy requires one staff member to attend four self-service checkouts.
Aeon now has 149 stores with self-service checkouts, and the company plans to introduce them at another 50 or so stores by the end of fiscal 2008.
Okuwa, a supermarket operating in the Kansai area, plans to have 44 stores, or about one-third of all its stores fitted with self-service checkouts by the financial year. Other businesses that have started using them this year include Uny Co., Life Corp. and Tokyu Store Corp.
The new checkouts reduce waiting times for those in a hurry, or only needing to purchase a few items, and stores benefit from reduced labor costs.
Convenience store chains such as Lawson and ampm are set to introduce them on a trial basis, and they look likely to become more widespread in the future.
Source: Mainichi Japan
I wonder if someone tried to cheat the system. Maybe change the price tags on the package or something.
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These are incredibly common in some parts of the U.S.– they’ve had them in Portland, OR for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been visiting here since I was a baby, but I’ve only seen a very small handful of them in the area I grew up (south Bay Area, CA). I find them pretty handy myself.
These are in US groceries… and I think they don’t have a big problem with people trying to “cheat the system.”
The ones in my local grocery aren’t so great. The machines glitch up all the time so there’s always an employee standing by to troubleshoot them. -_-
afraid to say alafista, u cant cheat them =] i hate these self service tills, we have had em in the UK for a while now…..i just got til trained at my part time job, why would i want to work when im not at work?!
That’s a slight improvement over what we have in the U.S.
@IcyStorm:
I don’t know of stores that have the requirement of using a scale for weighing… this is exactly how I’ve seen one petty shoplifter in front of me getting a discount… For small paper-packeted items they would simply stack 2 or more and scan once.
As for stopping them, I could write a paper on why not.
@nanu, u think thats bad? in the store i work at, two guys walked in, filled 2 trollies and then ran off, the next day an old lady comes in fills one of those granny wagons up with shopping, pays for a packet of sugar and tried to walk out (we stopped her, we didnt stop the two blokes =P)
@ gia: I always wanted to try one out for myself, but I didn’t have the chance.
@ Icystorm: Maybe no one realised yet that they system is being cheated.
@ Coco the Bean: LOL wouldn’t that up more time than a normal checkout line.
@ Dee: LOL yeah, we are there to shop and get our groceries, not train for a part time job.
@ nanu: haha petty shoplitters are interesting.