New supermarket self-checkout feature dividing customers

Parenting fails tend to pop up when you least expect them.
My latest happened at the Coles self-service checkout section at my local supermarket and is the subject of this week’s Supermarket Sleuths because the technology used here has come so far, my son and I discovered.
Giovanni, 16, is autistic and we have been focusing on life skills, which means practicing cooking, cleaning, shopping and budgeting. He has been making purchases, using his bank card to pay for things, and so on, and so forth.
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We only needed a few items from Coles so we grabbed a basket and headed to the self-service checkout section. We were just about to start scanning when I remembered I needed more strawberry Eclipse mints for my car so I told him to start scanning while I ran and grabbed them.
When I got back he’d scanned some of the items but he had placed the scanned items back in the basket instead of on the side where they are weighed. So it was asking for assistance.
We’d shopped at Coles together many times before but I quickly realised I was usually standing there with him and our routine had always been him scanning the items and then he would hand them to me and I would place them in bags on the side where they are weighted. By changing things up and leaving him to it he glitched and got confused.
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There was only one assistant on duty and I know this is standard practice for Coles, Woolies and Aldi self-service sections but I think there should be at least two people supervising the self-service checkout sections, particularly at larger supermarkets like Coles and Woolies.
When it was our turn she came over, scanned her card, pressed a few buttons and then footage played of us using the check out! It was super cool and we hadn’t done anything deliberately wrong so were simply fascinated by the technology involved.
She saw what we had done and helped us check out, and then Giovanni and I noticed all the different cameras pointed at us during our transaction.
Theft at self-service sections of supermarkets is reportedly quite common. ABS figures in 2023 show a 17 per cent increase in retail theft and with a “steady increase”.
Online forums sometimes share suggestions as to how to steal at self-checkouts, including choosing more affordable items such as tomatoes when purchasing more expensive products such as mangos.
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Supermarkets have a variety of measures in place at self-service checkouts including multiple cameras, a supervisor, security gates and weighing items as they are scanned as well as this new security footage facility that was used when Giovanni and I were there.
A Coles spokesperson told 9honey: “While most of our customers do the right thing, unfortunately a small number don’t.
“Coles has a range of security measures in place to reduce theft from our stores including CCTV, electronic article surveillance (EAS), and in some stores new skip scan technology is being introduced which can detect if there are any accidental or intentional wrong scans,” they explained.
“This technology removes the need for weighted intervention and makes the checkout process quicker and easier for most customers.”
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Not everyone is a fan of self-service checkout technology at the major supermarkets, with some commenting that it feels like they are working for the supermarkets instead of being treated like customers.
There are too many Reddit threads to count in which customers complain over using them and problems they experience at them, particularly this latest technology that records footage of customers using them.
But the fact is these self-service checkouts are here to stay.
My recent Woolworths Scan and Go adventure aside, I only ever do small shops at supermarkets and use the self-service check out section a majority of the time. Luckily I live in an area with plenty of major supermarkets and an Aldi that also has this feature.
My larger grocery shops are ordered online because it is so much easier and convenient for a large, hungry family like mine.
But I do think self-service sections need at least two supervisors, not just one. During our brief visit to Coles there were several people requiring assistance at one time and that is usually the case.
And I don’t know about everyone else but I am usually in a bit of a rush and love to just be able to duck in and grab what I need, without waiting for help when using self-service checkouts.
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