Ask a Grocer

[Eran of Arcadia]

We're grocers, not mathmaticians.

You can't tell the difference between one and two?

 

[Catharsis]

Re Open All Hours: It's a British comedy, and to be honest I've no idea if it's available in the US. Do you get UKTV Gold? (Probably not, considering the 'UK' in the name.) It isn't actually made anymore - it was from the 70s or 80s and starred Ronnie Barker and David Jason, two great British institutions - so you can only see repeats of it on some channels now and again over here.

 

[Maimonides]

What do you make as a grocery bagger? Do people tip you?

We call them sackers at my store, but it's the same thing. I start them at a bit over minimum wage. They do get tips. The more charismatic sackers get about $20 a shift in tips. I instruct them that any tips they receive are gravy. I don't want to see them standing there holding their hands out & expecting tips.

I usually hire teenagers to sack. It's a good 1st job that doesn't require previous work experience & is simple to train. It delivers good experience working as a team member, dealing with the public & seeing how a business operates.

Are grocery baggers the norm in the US?

Probably not. They are more common is small & independent stores. Supercenters don't have them. Some chain stores have them, but it's becoming more common for them to have a system whereby you checkout, drive your car up to a pickup door & have your groceries brought out to your car there.

Payroll is usually a business' biggest expense. Supercenters & discount stores often eliminate this expense to keep prices low. Some stores still use sackers in order to compete through superior service.

Are people less likely to shop a place that doesn't have grocery baggers?

Some people are, not all. Elderly or disabled shoppers or shoppers making large purchases tend to favor stores that have sackers.

...more and more stores are letting you bag yourself, and even check yourself out.

Do you consider it a privelege to sack your groceries?

How does checking yourself out work in terms of shoplifters?

This is the big problem with using this technology in grocery stores. I've read about grocery stores using it, but not seen it. It works better at retailers who can attach magnetic devices to their products. This technology is changing quickly, though.

Are there spies walking around the stores looking for suspicious behavior?

They're called plain clothes security guards & some stores do use them. I know of a grocery store in Canada that dresses their security guard in a tuxedo with tails & a tophat. He's a highly trained martial artist. Shoppers think he's there as a greeter & to help them, but, when he spots a shoplifter, he quickly makes them wish they had chosen another career.

It's safe to assume that you are on camera anytime you walk into a grocery store these days. I recently caught a shoplifter who was standing in front of two plainly visible cameras stuffing items down his pants. I watched him do this for a few minutes before faceplanting him on the sidewalk outside & calling the police.

You mean there are stores that don't let you put your own just-paid-for items into bags yourself?

Not that I've ever seen or heard of.

The one I've been to, you get a hand held scanner (by using your loyalty card) when you enter the shop, scan all the items as you put them in your trolley.
At the check out you just hand in the scanner and pay. About 10% of the time you get checked, as in the teller will scan the items as well.
If you're caught too many times (no idea how many) trying to sneak stuff you haven't scanned you lose the privilege.
You can pack it directly into bags as you shop, saves quite a bit of time.

This technology is still developing quickly so some stores are waiting for it to mature before buying it. Some stores don't use loyalty cards. It's now possible for the entire checkout process to be done by your shopping cart through a technology called RFID & wireless communication, but this is in the early stage of development.

Why do you do it? Or rather, why did you choose a grocery store?

My 1st job was sweeping floors & doing price changes at one of my grandfather's grocery stores when I was 11 years old. It's a long story, but I just know this business better than any other. I have considered buying other types of businesses in the past, but decided to stick with what I knew best.

Did you ever work as a courtesy clerk, did you hate it/like it?

I think I've worked every job in a grocery store. Sometimes, I hate it. Sometimes, I love it. It changes from moment to moment.

Baggers are the norm at mine. We are committed to customer service first and foremost, Safeway.

That's a great attitude. If you look at the CEOs & COOs of grocery store chains, you'l find that most of them started their careers as a sacker or cashier.

 

[ironduck]

The concept of greeters is an odd one for me.. do these people just stand around saying hello and then get paid for it?

About the self-checkout; according to the wiki entry the cheapest chips currently cost about 5 cents a piece which sounds like a fairly big overhead for small items, but I guess losing the sales person makes up for it?

 

[ybbor]

As far as self-checkout and bagging goes:

The main store my family and I shop at is Jewel (owned by Albertsons). Maybe it's living in one of the richest counties in the US, but all the Jewels around here have self-checkout. Unlike Mathilda's system, here you just start your shopping experience like you normally would, and just grab a cart and start putting items in it, no scanning along the way. Then when done you get to the rows of registers. about 6 of them are the old kind, with conveyor belts, a cashier scanning your items, taking your money, etc. (of which about half are actually staffed), and then where two registers used to be, there are now four self-checkout registers (with no conveyor belt) and a desk which a cashier staffs, presumably to prevent theft and OK questions the customer has (she's also necessary to ID people on Tobacco or liquor purchases). Just scan them across the scanner and put them in the bags. The whole apparatus is a scale, so if you scan two yogurts, but it detects three, it won't let you scan until you take it out. This is also useful because it means you can't get confused and scan an item twice, because it waits for you to put an item in the basket before you can scan again (you can still take items off the machine if you're running out of room). Then you pay through any method at the machine. No loyalty card required, or anything like that. No spot checks either. Usually there's very little wait at the self-checkout compared to longer waits for a cashier.

I don't think any of the stores around here make you bag your own groceries. the cashier or bag boy always does that (except at self-checkout).

 

[ironduck]

Is it faster or slower to self-checkout? With all the scanning going on it seems an experienced assistant might do it faster. Once everything gets chips on no scanning is necessary of course.

 

[shortguy]

Is it faster or slower to self-checkout? With all the scanning going on it seems an experienced assistant might do it faster. Once everything gets chips on no scanning is necessary of course.

You probably scan slower, but you don't usually have to wait in line (or at least as long a line). It's good when you're just picking up a couple things, IMO.

 

[Maimonides]

Well, there are censors at the entrance and exit of said stores, and each item's barcode will go off unless scanned. So it would be extremely diffucult to walk out of a store that has self checkout. Although, it is a real pain if you accidentally charge something twice, or something.

(edit - to Mathilda) It's interesting.. maybe it would work better if the trolley automatically scanned the items as they were entered? This could be done if they had a plastic computer chip on them instead of a bar code..

To MjM - oh, how does a barcode go off? I'd think it'd need a chip or something, like in clothes stores.

Well, I really don't know. I don't know how it works, but unless every single product has some sort of chip, which I'd think would be too exspensive, than the scanners pick up the barcode, and see it hasn't been scanned.

Maybe it works like library books, with a tiny strip of conductive stuff that gets demagnetised while you scan it, and trying to take a magnetised one trhough the doors will set of the scanners there?

Library books work that way in the UK? I guess that works, but what if the customers carry any kinds of magnets on them?

I think I can clear up some confusion here. You are all talking about three different & seperate technologies.

1. The barcode is a visual medium. It does not transmit or detect anything. It is not magnetic. It simply identifies the item that a laser is scanning.

The widths & number of the spaces & bars are read by a laser scanner & fed to a computer that translates this information into a number. That number is unique to every type of item & is stored in the computer so the POS system knows how much to charge, whether to charge by weight or unit, the proper sales tax for that item & what forms of payment are allowed for that item among other things.

The number is commonly found under the barcode so we humans can read it without a laser scanner if necessary. It is called the Universal Product Code (UPC) or PLU (can't remember what that stands for). The PLU has been 8 to 12 digits long, but the available numbers in that range are being used up by the vast number of items around the world. European manufacturers have begun using a 14 digit PLU that older POS systems don't recognize. They havn't showed up much in the U.S., but anticipation of that is forcing many retailers to replace older systems.

The barcode was a world-changing technology.

2. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the newest technology creating a buzz & driving change in the industry. Theoritically, a chip that emits a certain radio frequency is placed in each item. That item can then be tracked & identified all over the store or warehouse.

A few years ago, Wal-mart created a shockwave when it announced that they would begin testing RFID at some of their supercenters & warehouses in Texas. The real bombshell was that it announced that it would begin to require manufacturers to install RFID chips in every case sent to the test locations. Remember that this is a new technology & remember that Wal-mart is the biggest retailer the world has ever known. Manufacturers & tech companies panicked trying to install & develop this new technology overnight. Eventually, Wal-mart decided to back away from RFID, but the technology is probably here to stay. It's still in the early development stage, though. Wal-mart is the only retailer that I know of that has even tested it.

3. The third technology is magnetic. A magnet is attached to an item. That magnet is demagnetized at checkout so it won't set off the shoplifter alarm on the magnetometers at the door. This technology isn't used in the grocery industry at all. It is most commonly found at clothing, electronic & music retailers. It's too impractical to attach a magnet to EVERY item in a grocery store. Especially food items.

 

[RedWolf]

Is it faster or slower to self-checkout? With all the scanning going on it seems an experienced assistant might do it faster. Once everything gets chips on no scanning is necessary of course.

I've tried self checkout... I can't scan or bag as fast as a well trained cashier. I decided long ago it's not worth my time.

 

[RedWolf]

I am definitely anti-credit card.

Why don't retailers push back when it comes to debit and credit? Demand lower fees from the financial institutions.

It's unfortunate that these payment technologies are such a burden on business such as yours but ther reality is that cash is going away, particularly among my generation (and nobody around here will accept a personal cheque). I rarely have more then $5 cash on me and often use my debit card 4 or 5 times a day.

 

[downtown]

Great thread!

I noticed that when I go to the larger grocery stores, they offer their own brand of discount foods...for example, when I go to my local IGA, I can buy the Kraft Cheese, or the IGA brand cheese, for 20 cents less.

If you're an independant store, can you purchase other chain's discount line? Do you have your own? Is there a non-name brand discount line?

 

[Turner]

Best Choice/Always Save is a product that is kinda like that. They're a bit cheaper (and in quality too, but not too bad. BC is a bit better than AS) than your 'name brand'. I've seen them sell at several different chains in the KC area. If you want to look them up online they're under Associated Wholesale Grocers.

 

[ironduck]

Why don't retailers push back when it comes to debit and credit? Demand lower fees from the financial institutions.

It's unfortunate that these payment technologies are such a burden on business such as yours but ther reality is that cash is going away, particularly among my generation (and nobody around here will accept a personal cheque). I rarely have more then $5 cash on me and often use my debit card 4 or 5 times a day.

Yeah, I don't understand why debit cards aren't common in North America. They're the most common payment option here by far, it's standardized so all shops accept the same single debit card system and it's directly linked to the banks, so there are no credit cards involved. It's a lot easier than any credit card system because it's directly connected to a given bank account which can be checked and accessed online at any given time.

 

[Turner]

I can think of very few places that don't accept debit cards over here. They weren't as popular a few years ago, but since Visa and MasterCard hooked into the network they've become used a lot more.

I like them, myself. However since my experience a couple of months ago, I'm a bit more conscious of where and how I use them.

 

[Mathilda]

About cash vs. plastic - don't you consider cash handling to cost you anything?
Are there not issues with security related to that more than plastic?
How much time does your staff spend counting cash?
How much does your bank charge you for handling cash / change?

I just consider plastic a lot easier and faster to handle, both sides of the counter.

And about the self checking out system, this started six years ago in the sop I was talking about. Haven't been there for ages, as we moved to a different location, so no idea if it's still running and if it's changed somehow.

 

[Turner]

As for the self-checkout areas in the Kansas City area, we go up to a self-checkout register. Usually there's four registers to one person 'manning' them. They more oversee and are available for questions/help. Some payments require you go up to them, but I've never figured out which ones. Gift cards, I think. Anyways, there's a product scanner there, just like a regular register. Not the same as, but close. You scan your items, and bag them up and on your way you go.

Some of the places have scales where you bag, and it knows how much your bags should weigh. I suppose if you tried to sneak something, it would alert the cashier who's overseeing the area. But I've never had that problem, so I don't know what would happen.

 

[Maimonides]

This poster has me very upset.

By the way i hate working in a supermarket, i never ever try to "learn about the products", though i have learent lots just from filling the shelves. I hate supermakets and everyone involved with them except myself.

OK, so you hate your job & tens of millions of people you'll never even meet... I'd advise you to get a new job, but I don't want to subject any employer or coworkers to you. Go live in a remote cabin. You & everyone else will be happier.

One thing that gets me i see a couple of young maori guys coming in with baggy cloths and think "thiefs... wait i cant pre judge these guys...." so i ignor them and 10 minutes later they run off with a cask of wine. So now i follow my prejudice and gut.

Prejudice means judging something before having any relevant facts.. It is utter stupidity.

Though i dont really care so much other than the alcohol department where i get crap if we get robbed.

Your attitude hurts yourself as much as anyone else. Your employer could hire more help & compensate it's employees better without the expense of theft.

And on top of that me and the checkout staff steal more by giving each other free shopping that the wine wrangerlers.

We know that you work in a grocery store called Countdown near Wellington, New Zealand. The Moderators can see your IP address. You have incriminated yourself by confessing to theft & conspiracy on the internet. What we really want to know is: did you eat paint chips or did somebody drop you on your head when you where a child?

This upstanding citizen is referring to a form of employee theft called, sweethearting. Basically, the cashier passes items around the laser scanner so their "sweetheart" doesn't get charged for them. This form of theft is easy to spot & easy to prosecute. The poster has set himself on a course in life that leads to jail.

It gets them no where, countdown is a faceless cooperation who cares for no one.

Always better to customers, people abuse it but overall it improves store image, so countdown isnt seen as the evil company it is.

Yes, if you want say 5 cases of wine for a party. But most of the time if you say "could you order in some "Sidmeiers chardonay" i would write the name down and your name, then throw it away when i walked out back.

.........cgmnfhjdh

I do a little bit of everything, so i have trolly boyed it and done checkout, i get slightly more than minimum wage. But no tips ever, ever, ever infact if we get some i have to turn it over to the company.

You are remarkably lucky you have a job at all & aren't using a prison computer.

Closest thing to a tip i got is the beer company gave me some shirts which i didnt tell the mangers about.

This is known as payolla or being "on the take." It is grounds for immediate termination at best & sometimes leads to theft, conspiracy, fraud & embezzlement charges. A few shirts is no big deal, but sometimes vendors gift expensive sports & concert tickets or other things of higher value. The impropriety is that the store's employee should be working for the store, not the vendor. Employees receiving gifts from vendors might do things for the vendor that aren't in their employer's interests. When this gets out of hand, people go to prison. At my store, the vendors are required to channel any gifts through me so I know exactly what's going on.

Nobody, you are being ignored from here on.

 

[MjM]

Do you consider it a privelege to sack your groceries?

No, I despise it. I much rather like the baggers to do it for us. It is not that I am lazy, but that I belive it should come with the service. A place that has a bagger is generally a better store than one that doesn't.

 

[Tortosa]

Have you ever read the short story "A&P" by John Updike?

 

[Maimonides]

Re Open All Hours: It's a British comedy, and to be honest I've no idea if it's available in the US. Do you get UKTV Gold? (Probably not, considering the 'UK' in the name.) It isn't actually made anymore - it was from the 70s or 80s and starred Ronnie Barker and David Jason, two great British institutions - so you can only see repeats of it on some channels now and again over here.

Thanks for the info. One probably needs a satellite dish to get UKTV Gold in the U.S. Sometimes, public television stations here air old British TV shows. I'll keep an eye out for it.

The concept of greeters is an odd one for me.. do these people just stand around saying hello and then get paid for it?

Pretty much, but they do more than that. They might help return carts or point customers in the right direction. Their presence also deters shoplifting. I think this position was invented by Sam Walton, founder of Wal-mart. I haven't seen greeters anywhere else except Wal-mart, but I've heard of other stores that employ them.

About the self-checkout; according to the wiki entry the cheapest chips currently cost about 5 cents a piece which sounds like a fairly big overhead for small items, but I guess losing the sales person makes up for it?

My advice is to never rely on Wiki for business related information. As I said above, RFID chips have only been tested at case level, not item level & haven't been implemented by any retailer, yet.

While self checkout may reduce some labor cost, that is not the retailer's prime motivation for installing it. The motivation is to deliver a better shopping experience to the customer.

The main store my family and I shop at is Jewel (owned by Albertsons). Maybe it's living in one of the richest counties in the US, but all the Jewels around here have self-checkout. Unlike Mathilda's system, here you just start your shopping experience like you normally would, and just grab a cart and start putting items in it, no scanning along the way. Then when done you get to the rows of registers. about 6 of them are the old kind, with conveyor belts, a cashier scanning your items, taking your money, etc. (of which about half are actually staffed), and then where two registers used to be, there are now four self-checkout registers (with no conveyor belt) and a desk which a cashier staffs, presumably to prevent theft and OK questions the customer has (she's also necessary to ID people on Tobacco or liquor purchases). Just scan them across the scanner and put them in the bags. The whole apparatus is a scale, so if you scan two yogurts, but it detects three, it won't let you scan until you take it out. This is also useful because it means you can't get confused and scan an item twice, because it waits for you to put an item in the basket before you can scan again (you can still take items off the machine if you're running out of room). Then you pay through any method at the machine. No loyalty card required, or anything like that. No spot checks either. Usually there's very little wait at the self-checkout compared to longer waits for a cashier.

I don't think any of the stores around here make you bag your own groceries. the cashier or bag boy always does that (except at self-checkout).

That's a good description of grocery self checkout. Thanks for the report. It's also always useful to me as a grocer to read about a customer's shopping experience.

Albertsons sold most of it's operation to SUPERVALU last summer. It's other stores were sold to regional chains. I'm not sure Alberstons is still in business. Before it's breakup, it was the U.S.'s largest grocery chain.

Is it faster or slower to self-checkout? With all the scanning going on it seems an experienced assistant might do it faster.

Probably faster with a trained cashier, but you might find shorter lines at self checkout & some customers would rather do it themselves.

Why don't retailers push back when it comes to debit and credit? Demand lower fees from the financial institutions.

We try, but we are slaves to whatever payment forms the public prefers & the credit card companies know it. If we don't accept that form, we lose revenues. Larger retailers are able to negotiate lower fees because of their higher transaction volume. Independents like me can band together to negotiate, but getting individualistic store owners to agree on something is like fitting an elephant through the eye of a needle.

It's unfortunate that these payment technologies are such a burden on business such as yours but ther reality is that cash is going away, particularly among my generation (and nobody around here will accept a personal cheque). I rarely have more then $5 cash on me and often use my debit card 4 or 5 times a day.

That works as long as there isn't a power or communication failure & the places you shop accept your type of card.

Great thread!

Thanks! I've been wondering if anyone was enjoying it.

I noticed that when I go to the larger grocery stores, they offer their own brand of discount foods...for example, when I go to my local IGA, I can buy the Kraft Cheese, or the IGA brand cheese, for 20 cents less.

Kraft is an example of what is known as a national brand or name brand. A store's brand is known as private label. I'm not sure if IGA has an "IGA" brand. The IGAs I have seen use Shurfine & Shurfresh as their private label.

Private label use started in the 70s & has grown ever since. Switzerland has the highest penetration of private label. About 60% of items sold in Swiss grocery stores are private label. In the U.S., the figure is about 18%, but that is growing quickly & could be as high as 23% at the end of 2007.

Private label is cheaper because you're not paying for the massive corporate structure & advertising campaigns of the national brands. You will never see a private label sponsoring a NASCAR team for example. Private label items are often manufactured by the same companies that manufacture national brands. Often, it's the same item in a different package. With a national brand, you're paying for the name, but many consumers are very brand loyal.

If you're an independant store, can you purchase other chain's discount line?

No. Grocery stores use private label to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Independents do have their own private labels, though. Using your example, IGAs are independently owned, but they all share a private label.

Do you have your own?

Yes. Two actually. They sell well.

Is there a non-name brand discount line?

There are countless private labels.

Best Choice/Always Save is a product that is kinda like that. They're a bit cheaper (and in quality too, but not too bad. BC is a bit better than AS) than your 'name brand'. I've seen them sell at several different chains in the KC area. If you want to look them up online they're under Associated Wholesale Grocers.

AWG is a grocery wholesale co-op made up of independent grocers. Those are the private labels used by AWG member stores such as Price Chopper, Hen House, Sun Fresh, Apple Market, Thriftway & more. There are other similar independent co-ops around the country.

Those are not chain stores. They are called advertising groups. An ad group is made up of individual owners who band together under the same name to reduce their advertising costs & negotiate with manufacturers. Chain stores are all owned by the same corporation.

Yeah, I don't understand why debit cards aren't common in North America.

Debit transactions surpassed credit last year at my store. Debit cards are very common now in the U.S. Again, some retailers don't accept them because of their higher fees.

They're the most common payment option here by far, it's standardized so all shops accept the same single debit card system and it's directly linked to the banks, so there are no credit cards involved. It's a lot easier than any credit card system because it's directly connected to a given bank account which can be checked and accessed online at any given time.

Where is "here?"

I can think of very few places that don't accept debit cards over here...I like them, myself. However since my experience a couple of months ago, I'm a bit more conscious of where and how I use them.

What was that experience?

About cash vs. plastic - don't you consider cash handling to cost you anything?

Just the cost of armored trucks for those stores that use them. I can't give much specific detail on security topics.

Are there not issues with security related to that more than plastic?

Occasionally, we do get a counterfeit bill, but we almost always catch it durring the transaction.

Occasionally, we get a thief trying to pull the old quick change or short change scam. This scam is older than dirt & well known so I'm always amazed when somebody tries it. Example: the thief buys a $2 item with a $10 bill. He gets his change & insists he gave the cashier a $20 bill hoping to steal $10 on the transaction. In another version, the thief quickly replaces the $5 bill he got for change with a $1 bill & tells the cashier she gave him the wrong change hoping to steal $4. A well trained cashier will catch this immediately & the camera never lies.

Thieves love to steal credit card numbers, too.

How much time does your staff spend counting cash?

I've never thought about it. I wish I had so much cash I had to count it all day.

How much does your bank charge you for handling cash / change?

Nothing. They are very happy when I deposit cash. The more cash they have on deposit, the more loans they can make.

I've heard of banks charging individuals to dump their change into a counting machine & roll it, but this doesn't apply to a retailer. Retailers need coins & small bills to make change for transactions & rarely deposit them.

And about the self checking out system, this started six years ago in the sop I was talking about. Haven't been there for ages, as we moved to a different location, so no idea if it's still running and if it's changed somehow.

Wow. That was very cutting-edge technology 6 years ago.

As for the self-checkout areas in the Kansas City area, we go up to a self-checkout register. Usually there's four registers to one person 'manning' them. They more oversee and are available for questions/help. Some payments require you go up to them, but I've never figured out which ones. Gift cards, I think. Anyways, there's a product scanner there, just like a regular register. Not the same as, but close. You scan your items, and bag them up and on your way you go.

Some of the places have scales where you bag, and it knows how much your bags should weigh. I suppose if you tried to sneak something, it would alert the cashier who's overseeing the area. But I've never had that problem, so I don't know what would happen.

Thanks for the report!

No, I despise it. I much rather like the baggers to do it for us.

Thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood what you meant.

Have you ever read the short story "A&P" by John Updike?

I've read Updike, but I don't remember that one. I'll check it out.