Grocery Chains Continue to Rethink Self Service

Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery store.

(Meaning that you selected items for purchase yourself.)

The Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, features a replica of the first 'Pig'.

Supermarkets start bagging self-serve checkouts. (Oshkosh Northwestern, 9/26/2011)

Excerpt: When Keith Wearne goes grocery shopping, checking out with a cashier is worth the few extra moments, rather than risking that a self-serve machine might go awry and delay him even more.

Most shoppers side with Wearne, studies show. And with that in mind, some grocery store chains nationwide are bagging the do-it-yourself option, once considered the wave of the future, in the name of customer service.

"It's just more interactive," Wearne said during a recent shopping trip at Manchester's Big Y Foods. "You get someone who says hello; you get a person to talk to if there's a problem."

Big Y Foods, which has 61 locations in Connecticut and Massachusetts, recently became one of the latest to announce it was phasing out the self-serve lanes.


The Woodman's chain, based in Janesville, Wisconsin, is going in the opposite direction.  For years, they limited self-service checkout to 20 items or less.  The Madison West store -- the only one with which I'm familiar -- recently added three unlimited self-service checkout lanes.   And the new voice prompt for all self service lanes is very soothing:  female, with a slightly British accent.

What would studies on library self-service tell us?  (Please share if you are aware of any.)  Checking out library materials is certainly a more streamlined approach than working your way through a full grocery cart.  Nothing to weigh.  No product codes to type in. (Bananas - 4011.  Tomatoes - 4799.  Avocados - 4225.)   No looking up the product codes of produce or bakery items you haven't committed to memory.  No materials that routinely require an employee's approval (i.e., beer, wine, liquor).

Not exactly what I was looking for, but interesting nonetheless.
Australian Library and Information Association.  (Link to complete report.)