I remember years ago, George H.W. Bush was taken to a grocery store when he was president to see new scanner technology - something related to RFID I think. I guess he hadn't been to a grocery store in a while because he was shocked by the whole experience, something that the rest of us experienced frequently.
Today, I went to the local Giant for the first time in a while. I'm generally a Safeway shopper. Mostly because my local Safeway has a great baked goods section, and I'm a fan of fresh bagels and their chocolate chip cookies. But the Safeway hasn't been stocking the paper towels that I like in the amount that I like - you can't even buy a single roll; you have to buy an 8-pack, which is many too many rolls for me and I have no place to stock that many anyway. Since I didn't need cookies and I decided to get bread or English muffins for my breakfasts, I thought I would go to the Giant instead.
Another reason that I don't like Giant is that they have stupid self-checkout stations. First, you have to scan your Giant bonus card before you even start checking out. At Safeway, you can scan your bonus card at any time, and I usually do it at the end when I get out my debit card to pay. Since they are in the same wallet, that's the easiest thing to do. At the Giant self-checkout, you can't scan and bag at the same time. You have to scan everything and then bag. They have someone to help you bag, but that person has to handle several lanes and may or may not get to you in time. When the "bagging area" gets full, you have to go bag some groceries to make room for more to come down the lane.
Now, I guess there are two reasons for this. First, it probably helps with inventory control. It seems like it might be harder to put something in a bag that you haven't scanned. Maybe. And second, it encourages people who are buying a huge quantity of food NOT to use the self-checkout. I assume that Giant wants the self-checkout lanes to be used primarily by those with only a few items - even though there are no signs to indicate this above the lanes.
I don't buy all that many groceries. After all, it's just me. So most of the time, I fill two large bags that I bring from home. Which ironically are Giant bags. Even though I most often use them at Safeway. Anyway, I don't buy less than 15 items, but it's usually not more than 20 or 25. And still the bagging area fills up at least once before I'm done. It's annoying.
So Giant's self-checkout actually DIScourages me from using Giant.
But today was a new era. Today Giant impressed me.
I'm not sure if it's a new thing. I don't know if I'm being Papa Bush in saying this. But today I was impressed by the fact that Giant allows you to carry a scanner around the store. Scan the items as you put them in your cart in your bags that you brought with you or in bags that you pick up where you pick up the scanner. And then, and this is beauty of it, you can pay from your cart. You can then just pick up your groceries and go. Amazing.
Now I didn't actually try this cool new technology. I don't really understand how you pay from the scanner. I don't know how Giant controls for shoplifting with this system. I mean, couldn't you just put things in your bag without scanning them?
But what a cool idea! It means many less people going through the checkout lanes. Self-checkout or otherwise. And you know what? A lot of people were using the scanners.
Bravo, Giant! You can bet that I will be back to try the scanner system another day. It's a new era.
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