h a l f b a k e r y"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
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Yes, but at the same time, no. Someone buying a
single item may only take 2 minutes to find it and go
to the checkout, making a 10 minute wait
unreasonable. If someone has spent 45 minutes
doing their weekly shop, a 10 minute wait is less
unacceptable. |
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But, none the less, unacceptable. |
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We are in favour of automating all checkouts. Those unable to use automated checkouts will be unable to purchase food and will conseqently starve. Thus mamned checkouts become superfluous. |
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There is a certain logic to this in that it rewards shoppers prepared to show some commitment and buy a reasonable number of things from the shop, in contrast to [Max], wandering the grimly lit supermarket aisles with his one item, worried about the prospect of a 10 minute wait to pay. |
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//People buying something like just one fag |
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Hmm, what happens if they are buying rolling tobacco? If
they roll very skinny ones, that would be more than 20
items. |
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And flour. They might be cooking a near infinite number of
small cakes, or one big cake. How can you take their word
for it? |
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I propose special handling for customers with lots of
shopping: shop staff unload the cart and distribute the
items across all of the available checkouts, making sure
the individual checkout totals do not exceed the limit for
contactless payment, and pack the items from each till
into bags and load them back onto a single cart for
transport to the car park. The purchaser simply walks
down the row of tills authorising as many small payments
as necessary. |
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Of course, this needs several things: |
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o- available shop staff, but they always seem to be in
abundance when I'm at the supermarket checkout -
standing around chatting. This scheme puts them to good
use. |
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o- available checkouts, but these too seem abundant, at
my last visit to Tesco 23 of 26 tills were idle. This scheme
reduces wastage arising from idle assets. |
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o- mental arithmetic, applied by the shop staff
distributing goods across checkouts. This is probably
where the idea falls down. |
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Yes, interesting - queuing theory would suggest, I think, that there's a sweet spot for the number of checkouts that you should use for x items of shopping, i.e. between 1 checkout processing all items and x checkouts, each processing 1 item. |
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If standing in line waiting bothers you I suggest bypassing
the checkout and just pushing your laden cart out the door.
Bound to get you quicker service. |
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