Heat84 px_eliezer_ Many observant religious people use Basic flip-phones ONLY, so as to avoid the many temptations of the Internet. This is not new, has been around for years. Sometimes called Kosher Phones, or Halal Phones, same principle. No Internet access, sometimes also no capability for texting. But the newest flip phones have most or all of the functionality of regular phones, don’t they?
Heat84 Donoreo It is because people are useless. I rarely use self checkout, but one day last week I did. I had at least twice as many things as the woman next to me, she started before I got there, and I was done and gone and she still had half of her stuff to go. She was grumbling, “it must not be working right” and other things, instead of realizing that it works much better when the bar code is straight to the bar code reader instead of on all sorts of angles. Another problem is the glass on the barcode scanners need cleaned periodically and the self-checkout area attendant doesn’t do that. Maybe they just wait until somebody complains that a register isn’t working. And maybe most people don’t realize that the scanners won’t work when the glass over them is dirty and/or think the problem is bigger than that or something else. Each register has 2 scanners(At Walmart at least). 1 under the touchscreen and 1 on the scale. Maybe in that woman’s case, 1 or both were dirty.
MacLeech Stembolt How are alcohol purchases and things that need to be weighed for purchase handled with Scan&Go? California requires alcohol purchases be handled by a human checker. Also, there are some municipalities that require a human manned register to be available for customers at all times.
Donoreo Heat84 Maybe in that woman’s case, 1 or both were dirty. There are 2, both looked clean I looked to see and appeared fine.
Somewhat-Reticent Heat84 glass … cleaned … attendant doesn’t do that. They do here. That said, some barcodes are obscured by packaging wrinkles or labels.
Donoreo Somewhat-Reticent That said, some barcodes are obscured by packaging wrinkles or labels. Absolutely. The odds of everything this woman next to me had those for every single item that it took her 3 or 4 tries to scan?
Heat84 MacLeech How are alcohol purchases and things that need to be weighed for purchase handled with Scan&Go? California requires alcohol purchases be handled by a human checker. When I buy superglue, the self-checkout register flags it and an attendant has to approve it. I imagine buying alcohol would work the same way. But I’ve never bought an alcoholic beverage, so maybe not. Maybe you have buy it a regular register.
Heat84 Donoreo Are bar codes gonna be replaced by QR codes? Why haven’t they been replaced yet? The cost to replace bar code scanners? And maybe the cost to modify label printers to print QR codes? Although bar codes still work just fine. How come it took 20 years for somebody to get the idea to use a QR code for something other than it’s original use? I put a tilde in front of 20. I didn’t know it was Markdown language for subscript or whatever that is.
Donoreo Heat84 Are bar codes gonna be replaced by QR codes? Yes, there is a plan for that. https://www.barcode.graphics/new-type-of-qr-code-to-replace-upc-barcodes/ https://italpackcartons.com/en/from-2027-the-qr-code-will-replace-the-bar-code-a-revolution-in-the-world-of-consumption/
Heat84 Heat84 The cost to replace bar code scanners? Nevermind. They can just re-program the existing scanners, can’t they?
Heat84 Donoreo I didn’t realize QR codes had more data capacity. But another thing they can do besides what’s in those lists, is throw more advertising at us.☹️
telcodad Heat84 I didn’t realize QR codes had more data capacity Yeah, they’re basically 2-D bar codes.
Donoreo Heat84 Numeric: Up to 7,089 characters. Alphanumeric: Up to 4,296 characters. Binary/Byte: Up to 2,953 bytes. Kanji/Kana: Up to 1,817 characters. I used to work with 2D bar code, PDF-417 they could hold 1024, so QR is better.
WebinTheWorld It would be useful to know how many peoples jobs have been eliminated by self check out
MacLeech WebinTheWorld It would be useful to know how many peoples jobs have been eliminated by self check out Don’t forget to calculate out the cost of those employees and what that added to the cost of goods purchased at the store.
dave MacLeech Don’t forget to calculate out the goodwill from having helpful staff available, versus the bad publicity from demonstrating that you don’t much care about your customers.
MacLeech dave Don’t forget to calculate out the goodwill from having helpful staff available, versus the bad publicity from demonstrating that you don’t much care about your customers. Which can be handled by reassigning the ex-cashiers to the service floor for facing/restocking shelves, cleaning messy areas, and opening locked cabinets for customers. That’s what some articles on the Sam’s Club changes indicated were going to occur.