Pretty much the title. Like, get those handheld scanners and attach them to the carts. I scan items as I put them in, roll up to a “register” where the cart is weighed and verified by a cashier. I just hand over the cash then leave. Or even better, install load sensors in the cart.
Usually I like to pack my groceries into my boxes as I get them into the cart. Keeps things orderly and neat and I also don’t buy more than I can carry home. But this means I have to unpack them to place on the belt then pack them all over again after paying. It would be kinda nice to just pay by the cart load.
Yeah, seen something like this in the UK. You take a scanner and scan everything as you shop, then just lay the bill as you exit. To begin with they even offered a discount I think. But they didn’t have a weigh option, just that they’d check some carts ‘at random’. My understanding was, like self checkouts, even if there’s a little more theft it’s more than made up for by less workers.
These exist, albeit not attached to the trolley (which makes sense).
Tesco in the uk does this.
Coincidentally enough this post a few down from yours (on my feed) shows a trial for the second part of your post
There’s at least one UK supermarket that lets you do this.
In Switzerland big super markets have this with handscanners. You can also use the Supermarkt App and scan the stuff with your smartphone. When you leave you just checkout and payment is processed automatically if you have set it up or you can pay at a terminal. Sometimes they do random checks.
Same in Belgium, no scale involved, just a handled scanner you bring in the shop. At checkout you give (or put back depending on the supermarket) the scanner, then an algorithm tell you if you’re elected to a partial control (in which case a cashier scan some of the articles, again there are some rules depending on the brand of supermarket - some ask rescan 5 random products, some 10, some explicitly list most valuable items, some require the cashier to count items,…). I say an algorithm because experience show it’s not just random (for example in the supermarket brand I most often go, if you cancel an item on the scanner, you’re 100% sure to have a control).
There is a trial going on in Gateshead (UK).
Sam’s Club in America you can use their app to scan your stuff and pay. They check your receipt on the way out.
Walmart spent millions on rfid trying to do this. Howevera cart full of razor blades would always not read something so they gave up.
as others have said what you ask for evists - but only where most people are honest enough to not cheat. Where stores don’t trust everyone the cost of verification is more than any savings.
Sam’s Club, owned by Walmart, does this basically.
You scan items with your phone, check out, then walk under this arch camera things to leave, I haven’t been stopped to be manually checked in ages.
Sams club attracts different customers from WalMart and so they don’t have the same crime concerns.
Stop & Shop in the US does this (or at least it did? I never used it so I barely pay attention to it lol). There’s like a wall of handheld scanners you can pick up when you enter and a little place on the cart for them to go in. You can scan and bag your stuff as you go and then pay at a special register.
They definitely still do it at both locations in my town. I shop for one, so I’ve never felt the need to try it out, but I see other people using them regularly.
The grocery store I often go to had these barcode scanners you could borrow at the entrance and scan your stuff as you go, along with scales on which you could print a barcode sticker for the stuff you pay by weight.
Once you were done, you’d scan a QR card at the self-service checkout to upload all the stuff you scanned, then pay.
It was awesome, you could just pack as you go. Unfortunately they scrapped the project once they found out that the amount of theft was significantly higher with this system. So yeah, we can’t have nice things 😒
At least in Germany, at a lot of Rewes (supermarket chain), this is absolutely a thing and very common. You can place the handheld barcode scanners in a specialised holder on the cart handle and then scan as you go, and neatly package all your stuff before going to the checkout and paying at a terminal. If even Germany has got this by now, then every other country on the planet surely does too lol.
Do they make it easy to put something back if you change your mind?
Yup, you can just edit the amount of items you scanned. Also makes it easier to “scan” an item in bulk.
They dont check the cart weight, instead they just randomly pick out people where they go through their scanned items and check that nothing else is in the cart. I’m being checked about once every 20 times I go.
Our Edeka has a system like that too.
So does Kaufland and Albert in the Czech Republic
I do this with my phone at meijer. No need for a device when you’re phone can scan already.
We do in Switzerland.
Not attached to the cart, but you can pick up a scanner at the entrance, scan all your stuff and at the checkout you scan your scanner. No need for the scale at the end, though.
S Chain in Finland offers this, you have to of course have their customer loyalty card.
But if you want to just use the self-service cashier automats, I think the loyalty card is optional. For scanners though it might be required, I’ve never used those. The self-service cashier points are easy enough for me. 😊
For the scanner you need the card, yes. For the self check out only no
Ikea does this with their app, but generally, you go to ikea to get one or two items, so it doesn’t really speed up the proccess of checking out







