The self checkout at grocery store and warehouses. Personally I think Costco $COST got it right, they have plenty of staffs to assist: for scanning as well as alcohol overwrite. Sam’s Club has one staff helping multiple lanes, but it also has a #scanandgo option in its app. /1
The scanning feature in the app works fairly well in my opinion. Local grocery stores Dierbergs and Schnucks have self checkout lanes too. I go to Schnucks more often and have used it’s self checkout many times: and yesterday evening I made a blunder as I had too many items /2
Their self scanning system was not designed to handle more than 10 items, also sometimes it’s hard to scan the bakery 🧁 items in plastic box, as well as meat 🥩 items /3
Now I recall Walmart $WMT has this self checkout feature too. It works fairly well when I used it recently (fewer than 10 items). Last but not least, it doesn’t appear that the self checkout is replacing cashier’s job with machine. For example Costco again, they are relentless/4
On customer service and they have plenty of staffs to cover the self checkout lanes. And I overheard two people talking their hourly pay is $22 per hour. This number is in the high end in St. Louis Missouri /5
Full disclosure: I have some $COST and $WMT shares.