Also, semi-related, the Everyday Rewards membership no longer grants a monthly 10% discount at BIG W.
Oh goodie. On top of two years ago where they stopped letting you use 10% on an online delivery or direct to boot order. I was pissed at that, because they announced that change like a month after I had just renewed my Woolies Mobile annual subscription, a decision I made in part because of that precise perk.
No one ever used this in my area. I never saw anyone at the gate, and on the few occasions I used it myself it always said “1 shopper in store” (me). I haven’t used Scan&Go for quite some time because I have been paying with discounted gift cards for several years now to save as much as I can.
However, Scan&Go did have one genuinely good use case that cannot be replicated with the trolleys and that was allowing you to grab your one or two items during peak hour (maybe a drink or snacks) and skip all the queues in store. It was super fast, but having to rely on the trolleys will slow that down and make it far more cumbersome.
Hard disagree. It’s awesome with a full shop. Scan item, put in trolley. Repeat 40-50 times. Then, tap a couple of buttons on my phone, scan a QR code at the gate and just leave. No hassle with checkouts - even self checkouts. The only bit that slows me down is putting fruit & vegies on the scale, but I get most of those elsewhere, so it isn’t too terrible.
I think you may have misunderstood what Ilandar was saying, but I’m not exactly sure how, because I don’t know which type of scan & go you’re talking about.
Part of this stems from the fact that there are two types of scan & go. The older, superior (IMO, and theirs) option of scanning with your phone, tapping a few buttons to pay on your phone, and walk out. Then there’s what they’re replacing that with, which is dedicated tablets that sit in the trolley.
Ilandar was talking about how, if you’re using a trolley anyway, there’s basically no difference (except that, going forward, you’ll have to pay at the gate, not on your phone—this is true even where Scan&Go mobile is sticking around). But if you’re only grabbing a couple of items, you now have to get a big cumbersome trolley anyway, or choose to go the old-school method of self checkout.
I probably do a majority of my shops either by hand or with a basket. 1–15 items or so, depending on their size. But by hand or a basket can’t do scan & go, anymore.
Then there’s what they’re replacing that with, which is dedicated tablets that sit in the trolley.
I have never seen this. I’ve just got the app on the phone.
We had a similar system at the supermarket I went, however it was some barcode reader you had to pick up at the entrance, but the system itself was nice as you could pack as you went, and when you were done you could just scan the QR code at the self-checkout terminal where it would upload all the stuff you scanned, then all you had to do was pay.
No need to fiddle with the temperamental self-checkout system, I’m sad it’s gone :(
Oh that’s a shame. Where was this, and when did they stop?
I quite like the idea of that option. Phone would be best, but I think the poor uptake scan & go had was probably because of the discovery problem. Most people don’t use the Woolies app, and those who do use it probably don’t notice the little “scan & go” option. But a wall of scanners right at the entrance is harder to miss. I’d have thought it should have much bigger uptake.
A supermarket chain named Metro in Quebec (Canada) did a test-run for more than a year then scrapped the project.
They decided to add more self-checkout machines instead…
Yeah it was reasonable with a larger shop, though it was an absolute pain having to wait for someone to check and scan 4 items (happened numerous times to me, including during peak hours where there was no staff member instantly available so we had to stand around waiting). My biggest problem was just that it wasn’t compatible with gift cards. As soon as I switched to those, I Scan&Go became about spending more to save a small amount of time and that wasn’t worth it to me. It was the equivalent of paying an $8 - $12 fee to use Scan&Go on a big shop.
I genuinely am devastated by this. Until a month ago, I lived somewhere that my two closest Woolies both had this, and it was such an enormous boon.
Having moved so now there aren’t any stores anywhere near me with it, I’m so frustrated at having to carry stuff to then bag it once I get to the checkout. Or worse, bag and then re-bag everything twice so I can carry it, and then scan it at the checkout. I thought Scan&Go was going to be the new thing added, just not until stores are getting refurbished anyway, as they do from time to time. But hearing it’s apparently being phased out really sucks. Such a step backwards.
I’d have been writing angry letters to Woolies, had they done this before I moved to where I can’t use it anyway…
The first time I tried to use the scan and go system, I got pulled up at the exit point and had to prove that I’d purchased the stuff. Wasn’t keen on being made to feel like they thought I’d robbed the place, so I never went back to it
I also got picked out for a random check a few times when I first started using it. After passing that process a few times, you seem to be trusted. I haven’t been picked out in years, now.
I reckon at first it was probably making me do that about 1 in every 3 shops, which wasn’t great. They definitely could have done a better job of making the onboarding experience nicer.
At a certain point I was getting frustrated with it and decided to start counting. After I started counting, I got checked 3 times out of 27 regular shops, and 0 times out of 11 “small” shops (which I defined as, very roughly, 5ish items or fewer, on account of the random checks asking staff to scan 5 items from your bag). Not sure how many times I had used it before I started keeping a tally, but I think around 20, and I think I was checked around 5 or 6 times.
If it had been up to me, I’d have made the first 3 or 4 shops almost guaranteed to not be checked for any new user, and then give them maybe a 1/5 chance for the next 30 or so shops, before easing off into what was apparently somewhere along the lines of a 1/10 chance or less. So you get an early good experience, but then get taught “hey, it is possible to get caught here” in a way that’s a little gentler than what it actually was, but persistent enough to lock in that message.
The frequency with which I have problems with old-fashioned self-checkout certainly didn’t hurt in converting me to this. Never once had it tell me I did something wrong like self-checkout does constantly. To me it just felt like “oh yeah, a routine random check”. (And because it’s a machine, I know it’s actually random, unlike the “random” checks at airports.) The most irritating part was the fact that it was clearly used rarely enough that staff weren’t on the lookout for people standing there awkwardly waiting to be scanned.
Hrm. I would also be annoyed except my store is one of the ones keeping it. I have however used the service at stores that are dropping it. I’m surprised Woolies didn’t even give me a courtesy heads-up.
I wonder what the issue with the programme is? Too much shoplifting in some stores? Not enough uptake?
If it’s uptake, that’s on Woolies. There is almost zero material explaining the system and its advantages. They’ve done an awful job of marketing it.They’ve done an awful job of marketing it.
I think discovery is a pretty big inherent problem with the system. Unless you already know about it, to discover it requires that you use the app, and spot the “scan & go” option on the very busy home page
Compare that with handheld scanners that were becoming popular in the Netherlands 5 years ago, which create a visible wall you walk past every time you enter the store. Discovery is obviously much better in that method.
Which I think is why they’re switching to these tablets in trolleys. People are going to trolleys anyway. I think it’s a shame they’re going with big cumbersome tablets rather than a simple handheld scanner that could be used with a basket or when just holding a few items, but oh well.
But you’re completely right that they did a fucking terrible job marketing it. There were signs up all through the store, but if I didn’t already know what it was I doubt I’d pay them any attention. A TV advertising campaign focused on “the shop of the future” it some such tagline could have gone a long way.
Anyone know of other stores, big or small, that have something like this? It’s literally been the reason I was a relatively loyal Woolies customer the last two or three years. I’ve always avoided Aldi because they don’t even have basic self-checkout. But nor do I really want to keep going to Woolies and Coles who apparently are actively undoing their advances, even if the point they’re going back to is a bit ahead of where Aldi is still at…
Aldi has almost fully converted to self checkout, in Adelaide. Not sure what it’s like in other cities but maybe worth checking again if you haven’t been for a while.
Interesting. Thanks for the tip.
The Aldis in WA have self checkouts. But they’ve only been introduced over the past couple of years. Maybe it’s the same nationally? Worth another visit to see?
They’re pretty good ones, too - the bagging area holds four bags - which is sometimes enough for the whole shop. I don’t much love their camera right in your face, though.
Same in Adelaide, almost all self checkouts now.
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They have this at the new woolies near my place and I never saw anyone use it, and I never took the time to learn what it was.
It’s a shame as it seems like an easy way to slip a few extra things in your shopping
Why the hell would you do that? Who’s going to risk dealing with police and spending a day in court over some $5 item?
Even if you play the “whoops must have forgotten that” card and they believe you, you’ll be put onto the “Check this shopper every time” list and negate the entire advantage of the scheme.
It’s a shame as it seems like an easy way to slip a few extra things in your shopping
Every so often (at first it seemed very frequent, then it dropped to much less frequently) it would pull you up for checking. It was pretty awkward, because you’d have to stand at the Scan&Go exit trying to get the attention of someone in the regular self-checkout or walking past in the store. Then once you got someone over, they’d pick 5 items from your bags at random and scan them, which would check that those items had been paid for. They were clearly trained not to just pick the items from the top, too, as sometimes they go reaching down to the bottom of the bag or go for other bags that weren’t as obviously presented.
It’s arguably actually harder to reliably get away with stealing than conventional self-checkout. Because in the latter nobody’s ever going to check unless you cause an error to occur.
That’s good to know then. I guess it wasn’t a missed opportunity
