Waiting for RFID @ Your Supermarket

Supermarket checkout systems are still stuck in the past. (Arizona Daily Sun, 3/14/2012)

Excerpt:   Ten years ago, shoppers envisioned a day when RFID tags would allow them to whisk shopping carts through a checkout without unloading them -- or bypass the checkout lane and ring up groceries as they walked through the store. 

But RFID never got cheap enough for razor-thin grocery margins. And we're still stacking groceries on conveyor belts, a 19th-century invention. 

Year after year, retail trade shows buzz with the prospects of new checkout technology. But the pedestrian task of paying for groceries mostly still depends on clerks and shoppers being efficient. 

There have been some innovations in checkout lanes, and shoppers will see a few more over the next couple of years. Smartphone scanners and technology that keeps up with the flow of shoppers may speed up shopping trips, but many chains say they're finding that their employees are the best weapon against long lines. More stores are reconfiguring their express checkouts with one line leading to multiple cashiers, which has been proved to be speedier. 

Trader Joe's, for example, uses a single line for express checkout. [Metcalfe's, both Madison locations, does this for its self-check lines.]  Some Whole Foods stores have self-checkout registers, but for quick trips, the single line leading to several cashiers is considered faster, Whole Foods Market Southwest region President Mark Dixon said.

From 2004.

From 2010.