Unexpected Item In Bagging Area

[icyfroth]

Coles customers can bid farewell to the annoying voice, not in their heads, but sounding from self-service checkouts around the country claiming there's an ‘unexpected item in bagging area’.

The supermarket chain has dumped the self-service checkout's worst feature, which told customers when the weight in the baggage area did not match the scanned items.

Customers were then locked out of the checkout until a staff member came to unlock the machine, which rubbed many Coles customers up the wrong way.

“We are trialling new technologies at our self-checkouts that reduce customer frustration and enable our customers to get through quicker," a Coles spokeswoman told The Huffington Post Australia.

"This has freed up more time for our team members to provide a better service experience.”

The news has been welcomed by shoppers on social media with one Twitter user tweeting: "I can now die happy".

Entire Article Here

I can die happy too! I used to hate that stupid voice!

I always bring my own bag and you could never put it in the bagging area to put your items straight in after scanning. You had to put the items down then bag after everything was scanned and paid for.

"unexpected item in bagging area, unexpected item in bagging area" and then you had to get an attendant to start you up again!

Grrr.

Woolworths self-serve checkout bots are much nicer!

[esayaf]

Self serve is taking away jobs

[twyngwyn]

...the banks started this with ATMs.....flow-on effect, sadly

[lyndal1838]

What Coles store do you use Icy?

We have never had the problem of having to scan everything and then pack.

When we put our own green bag on the checkout there is an alert on the machine....we just hit the button to say we are using our own bags and then scan and pack.  We have never been locked out for that either.

[moonflyte]

Its a lot quicker now too. I like it .

[johcaschro]

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@esayaf wrote:
Self serve is taking away jobs

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I agree. and I won't use the self-serve check-outs for this reason.

(also . . . I don't want my purchases to be recorded and tracked and then later on receive unwanted advertising material and anonymous phone calls).

I won't open my bags for checking. Often the signs advising me that bag checks are shop policy are not clearly displayed at the entrance to the shop but are only visible (in small print) on exiting through the checkout.

so, how can I make an informed decision to agree to a bag check if I am not made aware of this condition before I enter a shop?

Bag checks cannot be legally enforced anyway even if the signs are present. and I refuse to suffer any threatened embarrassment  . . . I don't find it at all embarrassing to stand up for my legal rights and refuse to be treated as a person suspected of theft (because that is the implication)

Another reason I don't use self-serve checkouts is because there is often a queue of people waiting and just lusting to be the unpaid voluntary workers for the shops, scanning their own purchases and packing them themselves (for free)

and often the checkout with a real person in attendance has no such queue (it's faster to be served by a real person) and you have the added feel-good bonus of knowing you're doing your small bit to help them keep their job.

[icyfroth]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

What Coles store do you use Icy?

We have never had the problem of having to scan everything and then pack.

When we put our own green bag on the checkout there is an alert on the machine....we just hit the button to say we are using our own bags and then scan and pack.  We have never been locked out for that either.

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I did like you said yesterday and it worked fine, thx Lyndal 

[icyfroth]

I agree re taking jobs from workers, but when you're in your lunch break and it's a choice between waiting behind a shopper with a full trolley at manned checkout or behind 3 shoppers with only a few items each at a self-serve checkout, the self-serve wins out for me.

[moonflyte]

Me too, I like doing my own checkout.

[esayaf]

Well then your disdain for the unemployed is going to have to be redirected towards those that are more deserving of it because you are now actively involved in creating more unemployment.
I had an employee of my own before I lost my contract and that man has had as much trouble as I have in trying to gain employment.
I see him regularly down the street and both of us are struggling to get by