Pretty much the title. Like, get those handheld scanners and attach them to the carts. I scan items as I put them in, roll up to a “register” where the cart is weighed and verified by a cashier. I just hand over the cash then leave. Or even better, install load sensors in the cart.
Usually I like to pack my groceries into my boxes as I get them into the cart. Keeps things orderly and neat and I also don’t buy more than I can carry home. But this means I have to unpack them to place on the belt then pack them all over again after paying. It would be kinda nice to just pay by the cart load.
I’m going to assume you’re in a country where they have the self checkout things which have a ‘bagging area’ of some sort wit a scale under it?
In the Netherlands we have selfcheckout without this weighing. You walk into the store, grab a handscanner, and as you walk through the store you can pick something up, scan it, put it in your own bag and continue. When you get yo the register, you scan some barcode on the screen of the register woth your scanner, touch your nfc bank card to the terminal, and walk out. No need to take anything out of your bag.
Sometimes they do random checks, then some employee comes over and scans a few items from your bag. But you can just let it be their problem. They’ll usually put the stuff they’ve taken out back in again aswell.
We had those briefly where I was in the states right before and during COVID. It was so nice being able to pack things in bags neatly and just ring it all up at the end easily.
At least in Germany, at a lot of Rewes (supermarket chain), this is absolutely a thing and very common. You can place the handheld barcode scanners in a specialised holder on the cart handle and then scan as you go, and neatly package all your stuff before going to the checkout and paying at a terminal. If even Germany has got this by now, then every other country on the planet surely does too lol.
Our Edeka has a system like that too.
I heard some grocery chain was experimenting with rfid chips on all their products so you can just load up and leave and sensors at the door detect what you’re carrying and charge you the appropriate amount automatically. Personally I’d rather pull up to a register and have it show me a list of what’s in my cart and the total price rather than automatically charging, but otherwise it’s not a bad idea.
I’m with you. Automatically charging sounds like a nightmare. I still always want a human to verify everything a computer says. I don’t trust a corporate entity to not try and rio me off.
Well you’d get a ticket or a screen showing it all before paying? Like when you scan yourself.
My concern is the e-waste of a trillion RFID chips.
Yeah, RFID may be a shit way to go tbh. I was definitely thinking just traditional barcode scanners attached to a small computer on the cart.
We have this at my local grocery store (Meijer) down in the states. You use the grocery store’s app and scan as you go then pay at a kiosk. There’s a scale at the kiosk to weigh produce or I think there’s an app for that too. No need to weigh the whole thing. It’s called “Shop & Scan”.
The grocery store I often go to had these barcode scanners you could borrow at the entrance and scan your stuff as you go, along with scales on which you could print a barcode sticker for the stuff you pay by weight.
Once you were done, you’d scan a QR card at the self-service checkout to upload all the stuff you scanned, then pay.
It was awesome, you could just pack as you go. Unfortunately they scrapped the project once they found out that the amount of theft was significantly higher with this system. So yeah, we can’t have nice things 😒
Theft, pretty much. They wanna see you empty that shopping cart before you leave.
You know what would be nice? Check out the Uniqlo checkout booths in Japan Video and imagine that tech connected to a single shopping cart that just charges your card when you walk through the door
Well it’s a good thing they hardly ever employ cashiers and make me go through self-checkout. I’d never steal from self-checkout.
I’m guessing those checkouts you linked use some sort of RFID chip in the tag? Pretty interesting!
Yeah, seen something like this in the UK. You take a scanner and scan everything as you shop, then just lay the bill as you exit. To begin with they even offered a discount I think. But they didn’t have a weigh option, just that they’d check some carts ‘at random’. My understanding was, like self checkouts, even if there’s a little more theft it’s more than made up for by less workers.
Some giants have had handheld scanners for a decade… You just grab one as you walk in, scan and pack everything and hand it to the cashier on way out.
Tesco in the uk does this.
Coincidentally enough this post a few down from yours (on my feed) shows a trial for the second part of your post
I think other large supermarkets do too.
Sam’s Club in America you can use their app to scan your stuff and pay. They check your receipt on the way out.
My Sam’s Club has two big arch camera things that scan your items as you walk past. Person at door that normally scans ~3 items and receipt, just waves and says “You’re good to go!”. Been like this for months.
Scan and go is amazing.
The arch is kind of cool but they just had to scan ~3 things manually before so it’s not that game changing. But nice.
We’ll, there’s Amazon go, which is actually slightly better than having to scan and check out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Go#:~:text=Amazon Go is a chain of convenience,Kingdom%2C operated by the online retailer Amazon.
Also Kroger did what you are recommending like 10 years ago, but it looked silly compared to Amazon go, so it didn’t really stick in my area.
In Switzerland big super markets have this with handscanners. You can also use the Supermarkt App and scan the stuff with your smartphone. When you leave you just checkout and payment is processed automatically if you have set it up or you can pay at a terminal. Sometimes they do random checks.
Same in Belgium, no scale involved, just a handled scanner you bring in the shop. At checkout you give (or put back depending on the supermarket) the scanner, then an algorithm tell you if you’re elected to a partial control (in which case a cashier scan some of the articles, again there are some rules depending on the brand of supermarket - some ask rescan 5 random products, some 10, some explicitly list most valuable items, some require the cashier to count items,…). I say an algorithm because experience show it’s not just random (for example in the supermarket brand I most often go, if you cancel an item on the scanner, you’re 100% sure to have a control).
If you pack your groceries in boxes in the cart, wouldn’t that throw off the weight at the checkout?
Sam’s Club does it all with a self-checkout app and cart-scanning cameras at the exit. If you only get one or two things and don’t use a cart, then an associate needs to spot-scan on the way out, but otherwise it works great!
S Chain in Finland offers this, you have to of course have their customer loyalty card.
I do this with my phone at meijer. No need for a device when you’re phone can scan already.
