Yahoo UK’s weekly poll lets you vote and give your opinion on one of the week’s hot topics. The poll closes after 48 hours. Every Friday we publish and analyse the results, giving readers a chance to see how polarising a topic has become and whether their opinion aligns with other Yahoo UK readers.
Supermarket giant Morrisons is reducing the number of self-checkout lanes in its stores.
Rami Baitiéh, the company’s CEO, said: “Morrisons went a bit too far with the introduction of self-checkouts. This had the advantage of increasing productivity somewhat. However, some customers don’t like it, especially when their trolley is full.”
Baitiéh said Morrisons is currently reviewing “the balance between self-service checkouts and manned checkouts” and will remove some of them from stores.
Asda had previously announced earlier this month that it would employ more staff at checkouts. “We believe that having colleagues serving customers creates a better customer experience,” it said.
Self-checkout technologies were first introduced on a large scale in the 2000s. Retailers hoped that automated checkouts would reduce waiting times and costs.
However, the benefits of this technology are not yet fully convincing for consumers, and scanning problems and age checks often leave customers waiting.
Yahoo News UK asked our readers for their opinion and here are the results…
Our survey, which ran Tuesday through Thursday this week, was: “Have self-checkout lanes made shopping better or worse?”
It received 4,614 votes and showed that more than three-quarters (78 percent) of Yahoo readers said they had made their weekly shopping worse, while only 16 percent approved.
Yahoo readers were also asked on a scale of zero to ten, “How important is it to you to keep human cashiers in stores?”
This poll received 2,952 votes, with the number 10 being the most common vote with 1,713 votes. The average strength of feeling rating was 8.75 out of 10.
When asked how often they use self-checkout lanes, 39% of our respondents answered “Never,” while 15% said they do so all the time.
A 2022 YouGov poll found that only 36% of Britons would choose a self-service checkout in an empty supermarket, compared to 56% who would choose a manned checkout.
You can find our original survey article here.
Read more from Yahoo UK’s Poll of the week Article
