GatewayRedbirds.com

After watching a guy in front of me ckeckout with 35-40 items in the 10 items or less lane, I asked the cashier if they had an official policy on how to respond. She said they were told to just ignore it, which I can understand given that they don't want to antagonize customers or waste even more time by asking people to pick their stuff back up and go to another lane, but surely there must be a better way. Some kind of public shaming might be most effective, but what about tacking on an additional $1 per item if you go more than 50% over the limit or something similar?

I've seen customers complain to the offender. I complained to Safeway online customer service and got the usual "we are sorry and sent your comments to the store manager."

I once saw a lady take another ladies items out of the cart and was throwing them in the isle next to the express lane. It was kind of stupid and kind of awesome at the same time.

Arthur Dent wrote:what about tacking on an additional $1 per item if you go more than 50% over the limit or something similar?

This is an awesome solution. I love it.

I'm not sure it'd be a deterrent but at least it's an honest and inoffensive effort.

You could also have the system automatically force someone to pay once it reaches, say, the limit + 50%. If it's a 10 item lane and you get to 15, it forces you to pay. If they still have items after that, then they have to get back in line.

if you have two milks does it count as one item?

lukethedrifter wrote:if you have two milks does it count as one item?

I've wondered what the consensus was on that too. I think that counting two milks, or any groups of items that are the same receipt line, as one item is perfectly reasonable.

no way, it's each scan counts as an item, so if you have 10 milks, thats 10 items. if you have a carton of 12 eggs, thats one item, because it is one scan. (manually entering the number for produce should count for two items because it takes dumbasses 10 minutes to find the right one)

if you forced people to pay after 15 items, they wouldnt go to the back of the line, they would sit their fat ass right there and start scanning their other items. so forcing them to pay more than once would only slow down the process.

I think this thread is the first time I've ever seen "milks" written as a plural noun.

Our grocery store has so many express lanes, most of them are the checker-free lanes where you have to do it yourself. They have them double stacked at our place. In other words you have one line and then two checkout places back to back. I love those things because they only have one person who oversees that - you know hitting the 21 button for liquor, helping out people having problems etc.. It's simple as pie to just pretend to scan something and get it for free. I usually just do bread, can goods etc... but once I did an entire 12 pack.

I guarantee you this: In the grocery store of the future, all of the express lanes will charge 10% more per item, but will be the only lanes with a bagger and fewer people in line. It'll be just like toll lanes that let you on for a price even if you aren't a high occupancy vehicle.