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Do-it-yourself checkout lanes offer speed and an automated ''thank you.''
By SHARON L. BOND
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 7, 2001
SEMINOLE -- Kmart customers at the Seminole Mall seem to be getting the hang of self-checkout, where they scan their own purchases, bag them, pay and leave.
"They are pretty easy," said Ken Kaplan of Seminole, talking about the machines that were installed five months ago. "The only problem is where it doesn't come up with the right price."
That happened to Kaplan. He purchased two bags of Ruffles that were on sale for $2.06 each. But when he scanned them, the machine rang up $2.29 each. Supervisor Barbara Samson voided the sale and then punched in the sale price, taking just a couple of minutes for the readjustment.
Samson said one employee is assigned to the machines.
"There has always been someone around who could help," said Kaplan, who is a careful price watcher even when he is in a checkout line with a cashier.
"I have to correct the cashier just as I correct the machine," Kaplan said.
Kmart stores began installing the self-checkout machines in June. Three are in St. Petersburg stores, including one that has been operating about a month at the store on 34th Street S.
The lanes are aimed at shoppers with only a few items.
"They can get in and out without waiting behind someone with 10 or 15 items," said Richard Reese, an assistant manager at the 34th Street S store.
"It's perfect for the weekend because we are busy, and people are getting in and getting out."
The stores with the self-checkouts have four machines, two on each side of an aisle at the end of the checkout lanes with cashiers.
A shopper walks up and sweeps an item's bar code across the scanner. The price is logged in, and the machine tells the customer to bag the item and is ready for another. A touch screen offers the shopper choices for payment, including cash, debit or credit card. Another machine takes cards to be swiped, PINs to be entered for a debit card or signatures for credit cards.
The machine can make change and takes coupons. After a successful transaction, it thanks the customer.
The discount chain expects to have 1,300 self-checkout machines by the end of January, a spokeswoman from Kmart's headquarters in Michigan said. Sales through the self-checkouts run between 25 and 40 percent, the spokeswoman said.