"Frank Erskine" wrote in message
...
Both the Tesco and Sainsbury ones round here are fine.

What's the alleged advantage of an automated checkout?

In theory * as there's more than one checkout per queue
there's less chance of getting stuck in a queue behind a
customer who wants to change something, argue about a price
demands to see the manager or where a bar code is missing.

* That is before automated checkouts became poplular and
started to attract people who clearly don't have a clue as to
how to use them.

They're also very handy for breaking up £20 notes hot out
of the ATM if you need pound coins for parking meters etc
with a smallish purchase. As you don't attract sour looks
and or comments from the till operator. Although this
clearly only applies in specific circumstances.

Thats in supermarkets. When I first saw them in B&Q I
had to chack it wasn't April Ist TBH.

Oh and B&Q want to charge 5P for their cheapo carrier bags
I noticed.

michael adams

....

Clearly it
does away with a humanoid (although they still need to be such around
for, say, alcohol purchases). In RL they seem to be much slower than a
checkout manned by real people. Is it just that most purchasers hate
the idea of having to speak to a real life human cashier? If so,
that's very sad.

--
Frank Erskine