Fyi french supermarkets like carrefour or leclerc already have solutions where they give you a scanner and you scan yourself the stuff you buy and just pay when exiting. Very fast and convenient.
Here in Belgium the Carrefour also introduced that system. It's fast if the system doesn't (randomly) pick you out for inspection. Nevertheless I like the system.
What I have also seen in the Hypercarrefour in Bruges that they scan your groceries when waiting in line to the checkout. Then they print a ticket on their mobile printer which you just need to give to the checkout and pay.
A local Delhaize (Food Lion in the US) experimented with a fixed POS where you needed to take out all your groceries, self-scan and pay. I have also used the same system at Tesco in Prague. Not the most pleasant system in comparison than the mobile version Carrefour and also Auchan uses where you just walk through the store with a mobile scanner.
Other local retailers (colruyt, aldi, lidl, Albert Hein) are more classic in that regards.
"t's often broken, and some items are subject to different buying conditions and can't be purchased via these self-service checkout lanes, like alcohol, or "luxury" items with high margins, like razor blades."
To be honest that's not a problem when using self-scan at Carrefour. Only if you buy alcohol or tabaco they may ask for your age or if you are picked out for an inspection. There is no limit in what you buy.
Carrefour is not the only shop here to have introduced it, I have seen it in Match as well (in Leuven).
The smaller shops of Carrefour, the "express shops" don't have it iether, so not all stores of carrefour do, but then again they are smaller shops and there usually are not _that_ much people.
Colruyt, aldi and lidl might consider the expense of the machine + people to do the random inspection as a cost they do not want, as they do aim to keep the price as low as possible. Wether you pay people to sit at a checkout or wait to check other people, the amount of money you might end up saving might have been considered not significant.
That's really not limited to France though. I've seen the same at Tesco, Waitrose and Saintsbury in the UK, in several chains in China, in a bunch of Germany as well (Aldi?), and in Australia (Whoolworths, Coles...). Ikea has had that for a while as well. So has Metro all over the world, obviously.
I have been using self-service checkouts for more than a decade in most countries. I'd be surprised if that was considered news.
Amazon Go and instant payment systems are a different topic entirely though.
Also, "very fast" is debatable: it's often broken, and some items are subject to different buying conditions and can't be purchased via these self-service checkout lanes, like alcohol, or "luxury" items with high margins, like razor blades.
Quite often, if given the choice of an almost empty till queue or a self-service line, I'll pick the almost empty till queue. It's often more efficient.
Self-service is great for 24/7 supermarkets though. I remember really huge Tesco stores in the UK that are but where you can shop at 3AM and use the self-service. Most employees at this time of night are the stock management people, and there's only one or 2 cashiers left (and security, obviously). The rest is self-service. For that scenario, it's indeed convenient.
With the handheld ones (first picture) you just scan the products and put them into your bag when you pick them up at the store aisle. To pay, scan a special barcode at the checkout and put your card into the machine.
No need to rebag your stuff, shows you your current total to pay at all times, and it's simple enough that I've never seen it out of order. Oh, and there's no risk of getting stuck behind that family that apparently wants to get the whole year's food shopping out of the way.
Plus in The Netherlands has this as well. Same with Albert Heijn [1]. I don't know how it works at AH, but at Plus I do. When you're at the cashier, the cashier takes 2 products out to sample if you scanned them. You can then pass (right now they're lenient with customers forgetting since its still kinda new).
With Albert Heijn you can also order online and they'll deliver it (not all areas supported yet), and with Plus you can order online from an app. The disadvantage with not picking your own groceries (as being outlined in the video of this article) is that you can't pick an article which expires later, or looks/smells fresher. You don't get to check if your eggs are all intact. You don't get to check if none of your cookies are broken. Etc. Not saying that always matters, but it can be important.
I'm really surprised stores like Costco and Sams Club haven't adopted this yet. You have to waiting very long lines at these stores and still have to wait again at the door for someone to check your receipt against what's in your cart.
This would make shopping there much more appealing.
I don't have a membership to any of the warehouse stores any longer but they seem to be the only places that routinely check receipts at the door in my experience. It's unclear to me why they feel a need to do this when Walmart, for example, doesn't.
