Tesco shopper’s plea to bring back till staff

A Tesco shopper is calling on the supermarket to “stop replacing people with machines” after struggling to use the store’s self-service checkouts.

Pat McCarthy, 69, started a petition calling for more cashiers at checkouts because “you can’t talk to a machine”.

She is one of many complaining that self-checkouts are slow or difficult to use, and her petition has been signed by more than 97,000 people.

Tesco said staff are always on hand to help with any type of checkout.

Ms McCarthy, from Brentford in west London, said she started her campaign after visiting the Tesco Extra in Osterley, where she said three-quarters of the checkouts are self-checkouts.

“These new checkouts are not accessible to people who don’t have credit cards and can only use cash, or to those who have little confidence in using these checkout-only checkouts—myself included,” she wrote on her Change.org page .

The volunteer, who helps people with disabilities, told the BBC there were five or six staffed tills but she had to wait 30 minutes due to queues.

“They need some self-service for the people who find them more convenient, but just less,” she said.

Ms McCarthy said she loved chatting to the checkout staff as she lives alone, but “now that experience has been taken away from me”.

A Tesco spokesman said: “Our colleagues and the friendly service they provide are vital to our businesses and will always be there to assist our customers, whether they’re checking out at one of our colleague-operated lanes or at self-service lanes.”

Mrs McCarthy is not alone. Some customers have complained that self-checkout lanes are slower than staffed lanes, despite being billed as faster.

Others find them annoying. In 2015, Morrisons brought back staff at 1,000 “Express” lanes after discovering that 67% of customers were nervous when using self-scanning lanes.

The Twitter hashtag #BringBackTescoStaff was used more than 3,000 times as shoppers shared Ms McCarthy’s petition and their own experiences.

Dr Angi tweeted: “The last time I went to Tesco we had a £170 store. We were told to go to the self service checkouts! We said if you didn’t open the register, we’d leave all this here and never shop here again – she opened the registers.”

Another customer, Steve, tweeted, “Being on the autism spectrum I find self checkout to be a godsend as I don’t have to wait anxiously knowing I need to speak to someone.”

Tesco said it introduced self-checkout almost 20 years ago to give customers choice and all its stores have both options.

In October, the supermarket converted its High Holborn store in central London into a Tesco GetGo, allowing customers to shop and pay without using a checkout.

At the time, Richard Lim, chief executive of retail analyst group Retail Economics, said the move was “a reflection of the direction the entire industry is moving.”

According to one estimate, the number of self-checkouts in stores worldwide was projected to reach 325,000 in 2021 – up from around 200,000 in 2013.

Adam Leyland, editor of The Grocer magazine, said the decline in the number of staffed checkouts in supermarkets reflects shoppers’ preference for quick entry and exit.

He said: “On my high street, the new Amazon Fresh store with snazzy Just Walk Out technology is always empty, while the new deli four doors down employs six to eight people on each shift and is rammed to the gills .

“This shows that many buyers still value great customer service and that human interaction and technology will not always win. So supermarkets need to listen carefully as the market evolves and meet all needs.”

When shopping in the supermarket, do you prefer to use self-service or staffed checkouts? Do you need one or the other? E-mail haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

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