Split queues for casual groceries and ranked competitive groceries
Speedrun ALDI Any%
TempoTom: Tesco Speedrun https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqxtqKzoINmKbhFoBzcAfDVQah7OuvYMO
This was excellent. Disappointed the YT algorithm doesn’t agree
We really need self-service machine sections for those who are familiar with them and a beginner zone
We need to also test your ability to spend money. I swear people at self checkout act like they have never used a credit/debit card in there life.
But also at regular checkouts.
You’ve just stood there motionless for the last 4 minutes, while someone else (potentially two people) scanned and bagged your purchases for you.
How is it that JUST NOW is the time you’ve decided is right to rummage through your bag for your wallet/purse, or check your banking app on your phone to see if the account actually has money in it? What were you doing for the rest of the time that was so vitally important?
I swear you can just about hear the birds flying around in their head sometimes.
There’s one bird in their head that’s half alive just bouncing around like the DVD logo.
I worked in grocery stores when I was younger, not going to give away my age, but I will tell you that people wrote a lot more checks then.
The number of times I would get to the end of the transaction and tell somebody the total and they would slowly pull the checkbook out of their purse or pocket, then other questions, do you have a pen?,what’s today’s date?, Oops I wrote it out to the wrong store, I need to start over.
I was doing my chess puzzles
I used to work at this kiosk which was inside a café. A customer wanted to pay from the inside, which can happen, but it’s rare. Since the reader was cable wired to the plug at the window, I had to bring it to where he was standing, but the cable wasn’t long enough. I pulled it out as much as I could, and waited for him to step forward and reach out with his card in his hand.
He was just standing there, waving his card at the machine from ~3-4 feet away. Like, I don’t know, at one point the card reader would go “HEY, that card is Larry! Hi, Larry, how are you doing, you old sonofabitch?”
i worked at a grocery store for a few years, you want to go after 7pm and all your wishes will come true
I love to go as early as possible. There are only old people around me and everything is calm and chill.
God forbid you need to check out (only one checkout lane open bc it’s so early) right behind one of those old people as they take about 65 centuries to pull exact change out of their asses
The other day I went shopping with my parents and my mother proceeded to pull out a whole lot of coupons. Clearly they are not long for this world.
Although I will give her credit, they were all actually in date
lol. But in all seriousness I don’t mean any disrespect just venting my frustrations as it seems time slows to a halt when checking out. So even if it only takes them a couple minutes to get their shit together it feels like 30 minutes.
Good thing many stores in Germany have self-Service checkouts. Easy and quick!
Depends on the region. I only know a handful of stores in my town that offer it. It’s not uncommon for the lanes to be closed.
Reliably the largest grocery stores on the edge of town have them and they are always open. In town, near the train station, or in the surrounding villages not so much
Going early and going late often helps a lot with avoiding people who meander around blocking movement through the store.
Unfortunately, where I live is pretty heavily populated so the shelves are also a lot more empty if I go late or go too early.
make sure to speak to the manager or other person in charge when you find empty shelves
that will usually get some attention on it, the bread and dairy isles get beat up the most because they are usually only worked once a day unless someone complains (from my experience). The bread isle was my space when I moved on and it was almost impossible to keep filled because a bunch was vendor controlled but I always had store brand or generic stuff to fill the empty spaces before I’d leave for the day
someone was supposed to face it a few times a day but rarely did that happen unless the manager noticed or someone complained
polite customer complaints are powerful motivation in my experience
I remember my days as a cashier when a guy in his 50s came up to buy something and was just like “I don’t know how this works my wife does the shopping”. I just scanned his items and gave him the total. Once again he couldn’t understand.
I had to give this grown man step by step instructions on making a purchase. Including how to use a card for payment.
It was wild. Even in a world where his wife does the shopping has he never ran into a gas station for a snack or gone to lunch on his own?
Even in a world where his wife does the shopping has he never ran into a gas station for a snack or gone to lunch on his own?
When you willfully reject responsibility, you don’t think clearly. Human capabilities like pattern recognition will be ignored.
Could just also have been outright fear. Waaay too many people did this for computers in the 90’s and 00’s They hit something they don’t understand and they just freeze.
I had this nurse out of state. She had worked her entire life on paper. Xeroxed forms, filled them out, filed them. She was only in her 30’s. We were a big healthcare company, and she started working for us. We had a strong need to have things digitized. She had just convinced her coworker to key in all her forms after she took care of them, but the situation was untenable. Her boss called me, we need her to have her own computer so she can learn to use it. AOK, I configured and mailed one right away.
Boss calls me back, a week later. so and so can’t get on. OH OK!, what’s the error? You’ll need to talk to her. That’s fine can you put her on? Ohh um she just left. K, can you have her call me when she gets back and we’ll sort it out right away.
A day goes by, Two, Boss calls me, So and So still can’t get on. She never called me, yeah let me put her on the line.
[muffled argument]
[long silence]
soandso: meekest voice hello
me: HI! let’s get you on your laptop, this should only take a second.
soandso: mumbles
me: i missed that, what was that?
[long silence]
me: I hear you can’t get on your laptop, let’s fix that. Did your password just not work? where did you get stuck?
[long silence]
soandso: mumbles
me: I can’t hear you, if you speak up a touch, we’ll get you going
[long silence]
soandso: almost a whisper I don’t know what to do
Me: quiet and reserved, shooting for soothing ok, that’s not a problem, we’ll go through step by step until it works, do you have the laptop in front of you?
soandso: a whisper yes
Me: is it open?
soandso: a whisper no
Me: ok, lets open it up, do you see a button on the front, you’ll need to press that and pull up on the lid
[long silence]
soandso: light sobbing it’s still in the box
me: [internally: JESUS] ok, no proble, let’s get that box open
90 minutes, in an hour and half, we got the box open, got the laptop out, opened it up, too a 5 minute break to sob and then re-collect herself. found the power button (this took 10 minutes alone) it was on the upper right of the keyboard, she made me walk her up from control, to shift to enter and so on. It came on, it was already setup for their wifi, all she had to do was enter the username and password which i had emailed to her boss and asked her to write it on a sticky.
She finally was on the desktop
soandso: morose now what
me: We’re done, you’ll need to work with your boss now to find out how to do your actual work on it, but you should be able to get in now.
She lasted another week before they fired her.
She was an RN, she knew medical coding, and she drove, she was just terrified of learning new shit
Working retail, or any job with the public, is wild.
It might be a matter of just being under a rock for the last 10-20 years. Retail PoS systems have changed quite a bit in that time, but how you interface with gas pumps and dining, hasn’t changed at all.
Also: a lot of folks navigate digital systems by rote memorization and don’t read or think all that much. If you throw a new interface in front of them, just sit back and watch the bewilderment. Gotta give people like that time to learn it all.
Gas pumps no, grabbing a bag of chips from the gas station yes.
Sit down restaurants no, fast food restaurant yes*
*unless he only does drive thru
people lack spacial awareness in the grocery store because a supermarket is an example of hostile design. it is intentionally disorienting and overloads you with information
This is the core problem, right here. At a minimum, people need training to learn what information to ignore so you can navigate the whole thing. Even if you know the store’s layout, you still need to have the will to ignore advertising and disregard extraneous information. Being a fast reader that can do fast mental math, also helps tremendously.
Traffic flow is another problem. Wegmans is the chief offender here, IMO, by putting impulse items in massive crates that crowd the store entrance+exit combo. It amazes me that it’s not a fire hazard, because it makes entering the store a nightmare. But most grocery stores have awful choke points in produce, dairy, meat, and other high-traffic areas. And of course those are the stores that have no small carts or hand-baskets, obligating customers to gum up the works with big metal baskets that are 70% empty.
A better idea is a store that doesn’t flood your eye sockets with information you don’t absolutely need. Get rid of the special displays, end-cap bullshit, and vendor promotional stuff. Then, normalize all the price tags and include unit cost per lb/oz/L/whatever to make bargain hunting a snap. Then, measure the fucking carts and make sure that two can get by everywhere in the store. Finally, pick a store layout and stick to it. </rant>
I want to say that Aldi is already doing all of the right things, but I could be wrong.
Aldi is by far my favorite. No nonsense, good prices. You’re in, you’re out. I appreciate they don’t play games.
The only thing that might be a problem is that milk and butter is at the back. But that is actually fine because everyone goes clockwise around the aisles, and there is room to pass, so it flows really easily. You go past all the basics you might need in like a minute.
I always figured milk and butter is at the back to minimize refrigeration loss from the front door opening
Milk and butter is placed in the back of the store to increase the chances you will buy something as you walk by. Every grocery store does this.
that’s one reason, the other is that the large display coolers where those items are often located are just a wall of a large walk-in where other stock not on display is stored. those are along a side of the building, and the back wall is nearest the loading docks (usually) so those items can be rolled right from the incoming trucks to the cooler easily.
Or it makes the most sense logistically based on refrigeration needs and building layout.
Lots of the time it is a fire hazard, but unless the Fire Marshall knows about it nothing gets done.
Fire code is usually checked when the building is built or if there’s a remodel, but otherwise most places can go a long, long time without a fire inspection unless there’s a specific complaint.
Reporting suspected safety issues to the Fire Marshall or Building Official is okay. You’re not being a Karen. Building and Fire codes are written in response to avoidable tragedies and should be followed.
That’s a good call. I kinda/sorta figured that the fire department would see it sooner or later, but that’s clearly not the case.
Fire Marshalls in many places are way too bust for random safety inspections. They’re reviewing plans, inspecting new buildings and remodels, and sometimes also doubling as the city’s arson investigators. And in some jurisdictions they’re also the fire chief.
Fucking Weggels… [what we call it at work] Those stores are laid out like some kid did a drawing and used AI to make a store out of it.
I need some gluten free crackers for my sister in law for Christmas, are they in the cracker isle, the gluten free isle, the cheese section? Two stores near me don’t even place them in the same location.
Ohh glass bottles of water! Let’s recycle! They’re in bulk this week, next week they’re in the water isle, next week the fancy drink isle.
Lol, what? I have no issue navigating one. “Overloads you with information”, for fuck’s sake, they’re selling thousands of things.
You really should look into it more (it’s not a secret if you look for it) because OP is right. Yes, they’re selling thousands of things BUT they’re also designing that space to make you take as long as possible to get through it. The answer for why that is, is simple. People buy more. You don’t have to have an “issue” navigating with it, because you just don’t notice if you spend 5 minutes more walking through the place. If it was so egregious to be noticed easily by people, they would stop coming and the benefit evaporates. So it’s a balance.
It’s not even that, grocery stores bake bread and spread bread smell since it perks people up and makes them more willing to spend, play specific music that calms and soothes you so you’ll walk slower. When you walk into a grocery store, you are walking through a highly specialized environment to maximize profits.
Is there anything you fucking morons won’t whine about? How do they design the space to do that?
It’s not even that, grocery stores bake bread and spread bread smell since it perks people up and makes them more willing to spend, play specific music that calms and soothes you so you’ll walk slower
Jesus fucking Christ, listen to yourself. Everything is a conspiracy to you goddamn idiots.
What kind of music are they supposed played? Speed metal?
Baking bread on site is a conspiracy? Maybe people like fresh bread, dumbass. Do you think the supermarket is what makes people like fresh bread. You need to seek help, this paranoia is to the point neurological concern.
This isn’t a conspiracy, nor a secret, and nobody is claiming it is. It’s just psychology for the sake of profit maximization, which literally every company that likes to make a profit participates in. Why are you winding yourself up so much over something so uncontroversial?
You should go work in retail for a year or two, because then you will know this isn’t exactly uncommon knowledge and even the people stocking the shelves know about it. Hell people that understand psychology need to shop too, so they know it too as they move through the store. If it’s a conspiracy to you, that says more about you than anybody else.
The fucking floor displays in aisles that create chokepoints, and then aisles that have a bunch of popular shit all together creating a traffic jam. And don’t get me started on the lack of manned checkout lines anymore. Self-checkout is adequate as express lanes (i.e. limited number of items, limited produce, no alcohol) but sucks if you are buying more.
I try to go later in the evening to avoid the rush.
The most annoying thing about the self checkout is the need for you to put the entirety of your shopping on the time you weighing plate to make sure that I’m not buying my weekly shop but then sneaking a bottle of water past the system.
At least the IKEA self checkouts don’t do that. They let me buy my Pœlēøïng in peace
They let you buy your what? I promise I tried to look it up, but I had no search results.
I have 5 dollars on it being some kind of dresser!
It’s IKEA so like 90% of their product it’s probably a random small table for some reason everybody seems to need.
It’s a cooking method
I’m still confused. If it’s a method, how is it something you buy at Ikea? Is it a food?
I’m not sure. It’s a method of cooking meat in it’s own juices. So he might be trying to refer to the meatballs?
i also bring my own shopping bags. the grocery store here (the only one, a walmart) disabled the scales because they don’t have the staffing to deal with all the false positives, i guess… but anyway, i’ve gotten to just taking the wireless hand scanner (which is much quicker than the register’s scanner) and scanning stuff in the cart and then bagging it right away–all right in the cart. only produce gets put up by the register, since it needs to be weighed anyway.
It’s really the worst. For the uninitiated, the platen where your bags go is actually a scale. The self-check-kiosk software waits for this bagging scale to quit moving (see: de-bouncing) before weighing and approving the scan and purchase of a single item. This is why, occasionally, if you’re too fast or too slow, the kiosk gets angry and makes you flag down an attendant.
That’s not a problem for 10 items or less, but for a whole cart? All that waiting around adds up. Because of all that, it’s literally impossible to achieve the same or better speed than an employee.
It’s almost a straight ass grid. How are you being disoriented lol
Apparently it’s a conspiracy that they play pop music and offer fresh bread on premises.
These people are fucking idiots.
Just try find and track the price per kg of a good, and you are in deep shit. Its some times hidden, after several “get the app”, “two for one” just to find out the good is fucking more expensive if you refuse go though the privacy invasing hoops. What the fuck happended to “Limited time offer until this actually cheap batch is sold out!”
This must be a regulation in Canada or something because $/100g is always on the bottom for the tag in small print.
It definitely plays into that. But just the other day i was shopping on a pretty busy day, and someone just left their child in the cart playing Fortnite in the middle of the store. Every one bumper cart pushed him out of their way, into someone else’s way. The kid didn’t even bother to look up. Some people just don’t give a shit.
I don’t think you realize who runs grocery stores. Most are just there because they have to be. They just throw it on the shelf and do what they are told.
The people stocking the shelves aren’t the ones designing the store layout, dummy.
Rude. I worked as a grocery manager for 15 years.
Dummy.
did you design the store layout?
Did you? Do you know how most are laid out? Please enlighten me on their “information bombardment”.
A team from corporate designs the general layout, and the layout of most of the shelves, sometimes with help from an outside firm. Occasionally there will be specific shelves or event spaces that don’t have a planogram will be laid out by someone in-store, but this is usually a pretty small percentage of the store.
Sure. But space optimization is also a consideration. You can’t put a 24 pack of water on the top shelf for grandma to pick up. It’s designed with the customer in mind as well.
The stores are told on a corporate level that items need to be stocked on certain shelves and all essential items (milk, eggs, whatever) need to be buried in the back behind anything that’s on sale so customers have to look at everything before getting the basics.
Workers are people who follow orders and have to live with the chaos and help customers actually find the item they’re looking for even though the company as a whole is the problem
No they aren’t. They have reset crews that come and change the layout for many reasons. I was a grocery manager for 15 years. Specifically the stocking manager. There has never been a “bombard them with information” directive.
It’s what sells best in the area and make it available. It’s not that highly coordinated.
it’s the who does the telling who creates the hostile design. the other things you’re describing, the dehumanization of the employees, are part of that design
There isn’t anyone saying it’s a hostile design. You don’t know what you are talking about.
One article that I can’t even fully read? Hardly call that evidence. It’s an interesting hypothesis. However in practice impulse buys are not what the discussion was. It is that the entire store is there to “bombard” you. It’s not. It’s categorized and that’s about it. You are thinking of the “sales” area. Which is routinely paid for by vendors.
okay. there’s been research out about the disorienting nature of of grocery stores since the 1970s when piggly wiggly was first normalizing a certain sales area experience.
and yes. i am talking about the sales area. i wae never trying to claim otherwise. the context this entire time was the experience of being a customer inside a building whose only purpose is to extract value from you as you try to acquire basic living necessities.
and impulse buys in that context are a desired outcome of the overwhelming experience.
is your objection just my use of the word bombard? i can use a different word. overstimulate you. better?
like i can find more articles this was just literally the first thing i found and i hoped it would point you in the right direction and help you understand. but reading your comment here it almost feels like you’ve taken such great offense to how i’ve worded this that you can’t be bothered to engage with what i’ve been saying since the start
I think that is not exclusive to grocery stores. Hence why my confusion. Every store from Best Buy to Kohls to Target to Costco to Auto Zone has a sale section for impulse buys.
Every company preys on people’s psychology.
I understand just fine. I just don’t agree it’s aggressive or up to the workers. Including the management. Those directives are extremely high up the food chain in terms of decisions. And from my understanding the vendors pay for their space. They want to make it an impulse for that extra 6 pack or bag of chips.
My partner has normalised spatial awareness, and no situational awareness. I do my best to herd her around for the good of mankind but I can only do so much
“15 items or less” lanes should charge extra for going over. 0-20 no charge, 21+ = $1 per extra item (including the 16-20). That money goes towards whoever uses the register after you.
I’ll do one better.
Every extra item gets to be used against the customer to harm them.
The extra item is a can of tuna? Well, we’ll beat you with the tuna. The extra item is a hammer? Well, apologies my good man, but you know the rule.
We shouldn’t jump straight into violence, so how about after 5 minutes we’re allowed to beat them with anything from their cart, our cart, or the complementary whiffle ball bat?
Well, that place sure ain’t fucking Costco, that’s for damned sure.
The most oblivious people on earth gather at Costco, I swear.
I miss social distancing
I mean it’s one banana, Michael.
How much could it cost?
Can we also make people who still pay for things at a store with a check go to the bad one? It was before the pan, but I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when a lady pulled out her checkbook in front of me at the checkout line. Gtf outta here.
The USA continues to baffle me. You people still have paper checks? I haven’t seen one in at least 30 years in Europe (before that I was too little to care about such things, so I might never have seen one)
Sadly, we still do. But it’s really more a matter of vendor preference these days, since some places (usually small/personal operations) don’t do digital payments. That and nobody carries large amounts of cash around, so checks are the only alternative.
That said, anyone that hasn’t moved on to prefer a bank card or credit-card is behind the times, or doesn’t have a bank account. Still, it’s rare to see these days, especially at the grocery store.
You not having seen one doesn’t mean they don’t exist in Europe.
When you leave a room, are you aware that that room continues to exist?
US here - I haven’t seen one used at a grocery store in over 20 years. Only people I’ve ever seen use them are old people, or people using them to pay bills.
I haven’t heard of checks being used anywhere in Europe. But I’m willing to bet some people do. Germans are weird about cards so I wouldn’t be surprised.
Only if we build similar airports. I understand not everbody is a regular business traveler, but somehow the people in front of me always seem fascinated with the novel concept of flying and airport security, spending 10 minutes emptying the pockets and putting their stuff on the conveyor belt.
'cause your plane would take off earlier if only these lame ducks in front of you were less lame. Also you’re going to miss valuable waiting time at the gate because of them. I feel your pain, but would you mind reading a little bit faster, I don’t have time ALL FUCKING DAY, please.
Rather sit at the gate for an hour than wait and stand in line for an hour to get through security
For me, I just hate standing in a queue for long periods of time. Also, in my town, queues can get up to ober an hour in security, propmpting peeple to potentially miss their flight or planes being delayed.
Then I wouldn’t need as much buffer time in the first place. The sitting and waiting is because I didn’t know how long the delays would be.
Flying and grocery shopping are a bit different on the needs scale, don’t you think? Solid idea application though.
Fly out of smaller airports if you can afford it. That’s the differentiator, is cost. Business travelers are (anecdotally) more likely to fly out of the closest and most convenient airport, whereas your regular broke joe (that’s usually me) will absolutely make the 1-2h commute to get myself to a hub airport to save a couple hundred bucks.
Do you want elitist grocery stores in LA? Because that’s how you get elitist grocery stores in LA.
No no, it’s not based on income, it’s based on social and spacial awareness. That’s just an example of one of the stores for the demographic left out of OPs idea!
I appreciate these, they keep the freaks out of Ralph’s.
Couldn’t think of a way to go out of business faster than having a competent-customers-only policy.
They would go out of business immediately. Not enough customers.
I’d go daily to hopefully help keep them open.
