Saving on labor and losing sale?

[question everything]

While waiting at a doctor's office I flipped through the current copy of Business Week.

It reported that the self-checking counters at supermarkets - to save labor cost - have shown a significant decrease of "impulse" buying - all those beef jerky and tabloids about Brangelina.. It appears that shoppers are so concentrating on working the scanner, that they ignore the temptation around them.

Funny

[Deja Q]

1. You mean that junk that's littered around the actual registers?

You mean people don't look at each other and undress them with their eyes anymore? :wow: :spray:

[catnhatnh]

2. The part I find funny....

...is cashiers at the manned counters extolling the virtues of checking yourself out. Oh, the irony of working to outsource yourself....

[smtpgirl]

3. So, I guess that those self-checkouts

will be like the disco ball or the pet rock, a rememberance

[kath]

4. I refuse to use the self-checkout. I was wondering the other night --

just how easy is it to sneak out a little "free" stuff if you check yourself out? Are the stores seeing increased "shrinkage", as they call it, when they have the damned self-checkout lines?

[Deja Q]

5. No doubt they've thought of that...

RFID, sensors, cameras placed in strategic positions...