Has anyone else noticed the increasing trend in those at the checkout who do not just take their goods and reload their trolley at anything like a reasonable speed but instead methodically sort their purchases and put them into separate bags in their trolley. They appear to do this so that when they get to the car they can quickly and easily unload the trolley of the pre-filled bags. I understand the logic but to me it is very selfish act on their part. I have been in quite a long queue that has been held up by this situation on more than one occasion and the cashier has even had to try to speed things up by pushing their goods towards them and looking apologetically at the ever growing queue. Maybe there should be a sign asking customers not to do this but I doubt it would be acted upon. On another note I have also seen several dogs in the supermarket recently. either stuffed in coats or sat in the shopping trolleys. The though that some poor suspecting future customer will be putting their food purchases in that very same trolley just in the place where that dogs ar$e was makes feel quite sick! I have other gripes but these two may get the ball rolling.
Encourage self scan with the little hand held terminals, solves all sors of problems.
Not at our local Lidl where your groceries fly past the scanner so quickly that youâre fighting to get them in any bag before you have to pay.
Your best bet is to unload the trolley onto the conveyor belt in the order you want to pack it.
And they want to chat with the cashier, and then pay by chequeâŠ
It doesnât seem that many supermarkets have adopted the blabla cash desks for people to chat, but most times we donât mind. Part of lifeâs rich tapestry. But if weâre in a hurry we use the self service ones.
Not a fan of dogs in trolleys but is that really any different from toddlers and their shoes, and maybe better than babies and leaky nappies?
I find it strange that many people donât realise they have to pay for their purchases in the supermarket. Thy seem surprised when the cashier tells them how much it has come to, and they have to search themselves, their belongings, to find a payment method. 
Certainly cleaner and even more so than small children with disgusting sticky fingers (apologies Jagger/Richards)
What I fail to understand is why, having installed four or even eight self-service check-outs, theyâre usually roped off in our local supermarkets.
I must admit with France being France my suspicion has always been that theyâve been put in by âthe folks in the ivory towerâ but then when it comes to people in-store doing rotas to staff them theyâd rather just forget their existence as a quiet protest about the machines replacing human jobs. Itâs very tinfoil hat I know, but nowhere else in the world do I see them roped off entirely like I do in the country where people riot at the sheer hint of job insecurity. I make no judgment about whether thatâs a positive or negative thing, but just how long itâs taken for them to become widespread and then how often I see them roped off makes me think itâs more than just that the staff are bored of hearing âunexpected item in bagging areaâ over and over.
In my local Sainsburyâs the Smart checkouts are roped off at quiet times of day - they need to have a member of staff on hand to deal with checkout malfunctions, age checks on alcohol and medicines, and random security re-scans.
So when they donât have enough staff on hand, the Smart checkouts get closed. You can still do the self-scan checkout process at one of the self-service tills, so itâs not too big a deal.
I most often use my phone app to scan groceries and check out - it means only backing the bag once and as has been mentioned not having to stand in a queue behind someone searching in their bag or pockets for coupons or having a good old natter to the cashier.
On my last trip across La Manche I was a bit baffled to find that E. Leclerc had introduced an extra barrier where you had to scan the bottom of your till receipt to be allowed out of the checkout area - of course I tried to scan the wrong bit and had to be rescued by Madame who was supervising.
Iâm not sure what purpose it serves as anyone trying to nick stuff isnât going to go through the self-serve checkout, and it doesnât actually check whatâs in your shopping cart.
In the UK at least there donât seem to be any fewer staff - some of them are supervising the self-service checkout area, and the others are roaming the supermarket with trolleys, picking and loading up all the âclick and collectâ orders!
La Souterraine. The worst Lidl Iâve ever visited. Always a struggle to pay and leave.
Hereâs why. Four of them on a smoke break at the same time. This is regular.
Are they trump supporters? They all seem to have ear patches 
It is absolutely about perception rather than fact I agree, itâs the idea that the machines will take jobs thatâs the issue, the sheer amount of theft from them has meant that rather than 1 employee for 6 self service some supermarkets are running almost 1:1 again, which means they may as well have just put the people on manned tills.
I would take issue with the idea that there arenât fewer staff though, the two PE supermarkets have absolutely massacred their staffing budget to cut costs to repay the debt they used to buy them, which has got them into a right state. ASDA particularly has had a significant sales drop having lost over 2% of market share, which they put down to âstock availability issuesâ, an opaque version of the reality that theyâve cut staffing hours so much, both during daytime and by entirely eradicating overnight replenishment, that often stock is there, in the stores, but thereâs no one to get it on the shop floor leading to headlines about empty shelves and customers deserting to the competition. The comments under this Retail Gazette article from today about Mohsin Issa putting 30m into the business certainly donât make things seem like theyâre running things well. From what I understand Tesco is also significantly down on its pre-Covid staffing, Iâm not sure about Sainsburyâs but itâs definitely a thing.
@gregca For coronary health reasons Iâd council sangfroid.
Are you really in a hurry? Why not chat with the other folk in the queue about the OCD people (Iâm a bit that way myself) logically filling their bags? The icing on the cake must be when having carefully triaged (for want of a better term) their groceries they reach for their cheque book and canât find their pen or ID. Then there is the extended chat with the checkout lady (mostly ladies). Carte de fidĂ©litĂ©, oui, no, Jâai oubliĂ©, ? Vignettes or no. All part of the charme.
A few years ago I had the pleasure of bumping into one of our Carrefour checkout ladies in the queue for help in Orange, we had a great discussion about the rotten service. Two nights ago at a thĂ©Ăątre en plein air thingy down the road from us (Iâve added a link for info, I though it was great) and who should barrel up to me but the lady (deux bises 
) who has has kept me waiting in our post office for twenty years (not all in one go). Itâs great.
I have one big grande surface tip. which Iâve followed for twenty years⊠go at lunchtime when thereâs nobody there. Though, having gone to a HyperU last Sunday, I have a corollary, never go on Sundays, itâs full of families on a day out with nothing better to do than stare blankly at shelves and get in your way.
A stupid attempt to make the customer do the vendors job. Iâm delighted it is failing and anybody with an ounce of sense in the companies concerned would have foreseen it. Obviously a beancounter driven initiative.
Thereâs an equally stupid programme here to do your own scanning. You scan all your stuff with a hand scanner and then pitch up at a till and some algorithm decides whether you pay and pass through, or you have a âcontrolâ whereby they verify your purchases. Why would anyone bother? What if, heaven forbid, the scanner hadnât recorded something, and you, in front of the gawping mob, look like a dishonest person?
And the uncleaned trollies with residue from previous users leaking meat, ice-cream or fruit & veg is what you consider clean?
Perhaps, you can spare a thought for the dogs whose owners care enough about them to not leave them in a car oven in the carpark or tied up outside in 30C+ temperature in the sun.
My local Lidl, Aldi and Netto for three do not have self service scanners so I am at the mercy of the cashier run tills. As always we drift quickly off topic. Now I have started my rant I will add my observation of seeing the large family group that just stand around and do anything but help to speed up the trolley loading whist one poor soul seems to be having to do everything. Cannot they not see that if they helped it would benefit all those waiting it in the queue? They âdumblyâ stare at their smartphones and are lost to reality!
Letâs all use the self-service tills.
Call me a dyed in the wool conventional checkout enthusiast but I stubbornly refuse to use the self scan machines. They irritate me and there is no discount for saving the supermarketâs staffing cost.
If people had rejected them from the start they wouldnât still be a thing.
Oh my⊠this thread has made me chuckleâŠ
OCD??? is that whatâs wrong with us⊠
OH and I always carefully pack our bags straight from the cashier 
and, while OHâs finishing off⊠Iâll sort out the payment⊠and, sometimes, I do have to search for my bankcard 
Letâs face it⊠why should I have my card in my hand while Iâm packing groceries ??? Nope, itâll sit quietly (and safely) in the bottom of my capacious âbag of a thousand thingsâ
When we first came to France⊠the queues moved too slowly, folk chatting with the cashier etc etc⊠it drove us barmyâŠ
but now⊠itâs a way of life and we love itâŠ
Sunday is not a usual shopping day for us⊠but last weekend we had a crisis and had to visit our nearest town for essentialsâŠ
Our trolley was swiftly filled and⊠off to join the queues⊠which one is the shortest⊠decisions, decisionsâŠ
another cashier strode forward and there was a stampede.
As it happened, we were nearest, but it gave me great pleasure to allow two shoppers to go ahead of us⊠each only had a few items⊠and their smiles and words of thanks made it worthwhile⊠and weâd done our good deed for the day
Apparently, it is quite a thing: