It looks like not many people have experienced the ethereal reaches of grocery store technology embodied by some Super Stop & Shops in New England. You scan your groceries with a handheld unit as you put them in the bags in your cart. All you do at (self) check out is pay.
Vast amount of time saved by not unloading the cart and reloading your bags.
I don't understand how theft isn't a problem since it is easy to even inadvertently forget to scan something as you put it in the cart, but it is a huge improvement in the shopping experience.
The store where I shop here in the Netherlands works like that - no interactions with humans required for the whole process, which I appreciate. I believe there's some sort of sanity check heuristic at the checkout - I once did forget to scan something, and a friendly store employee walked over to me with a different scanner and scanned a couple of items until a light went green.
The automated scanning system in Tescos UK weighs items as you scan them. You can only scan one item at a time, and must place the item in the "bagging area" before you can scan the next item. It only takes one person to oversee 8 or so scanning machines to provide the human theft disincentive.
Well, most people will just be honest, especially in public, even if there's no real way for someone else to tell what they're doing.
Also, if eliminating conventional checkout lanes frees up floor space for more products to sell and lets them save money by hiring fewer cashiers, a higher rate of theft may still put them ahead overall. It can seem counterintuitive, but at some point preventing fraud is more expensive than just eating the loss.
Vast amount of time saved by not unloading the cart and reloading your bags.
I don't understand how theft isn't a problem since it is easy to even inadvertently forget to scan something as you put it in the cart, but it is a huge improvement in the shopping experience.