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Try the (more expensive) store up the road ...

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  • Try the (more expensive) store up the road ...

    I worked, very briefly, as a supermarket cashier a few years ago. This was at Green Store where the prices were quite cheap BUT ... you bagged your own groceries. The cashier asked if you wanted any bags, you said "Yes, one" (or two or three or whatever), and then you got to work.

    One customer commented to her friend, "Remember when the staff used to bag your groceries FOR you?"

    I wanted so much to say, "They still do. You just need to go to Big Yellow store up the road. Of course, you'll also pay at least half again as much for your groceries ..."

    I understand this can be seen as on par with those automated checkout stations, where you are doing for free the work that used to be done by paid stuff. But bag-it-yourself is not a feature across the board, so ... pick yer poison: low prices and bag your own stuff, or pay more and have somebody else do it.
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    ~ Mr Hero

  • #2
    YEP!! I shop where you not only bag your own, but you give a quarter deposit to use the shopping buggy. The quarter is returned when you return the cart. In return for these things, I can afford to feed my grandchildren decent food because the prices are so low.

    Still, I hear griping every day about not getting groceries bagged & carried out to the cars. I actually overheard, "You mean I have to bag them & carry them out myself?!?!" This was the same person I heard complaining about the deposit for the buggy, but who was driving a Mercedes. EW, anyone?
    Here Mr Customer, let me pull that out of my arse for you!

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    • #3
      Ok, this might get a bit complicated...

      Several years back, there was a supermarket in my town that was a subsidiary of a larger grocery chain. At this particular supermarket, you did have to bag your own groceries. That was one of their "selling points".

      Fast forward a few years. That subsidiary store is shut down, and the "parent" company builds a store in the same town. The wife and I never shopped at the subsidiary, but we figured we'd give the parent store a try, since it was a well-known name.

      Well, two things: first, they were much more expensive than where we usually shopped (about 15 miles away). Second, the person who bagged your groceries also took them to your car. No questions asked. And while I generally appreciate that, I'm not in a situation where I need that.

      We tried to politely decline a couple of times, but we were told it was "policy" for this particular store.

      We quit going, mainly because we felt the prices were too high, the store was a bit too small, and didn't quite have the selection we were looking for.

      We do our shopping now at a store about 15 miles away, and we can (and do) politely decline "help" out to our car.
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      • #4
        I know exactly the kind of store you're talking about and I never shop at them. Why? I'm a single person. In my opinion, those stores work GREAT if you have an S/O or kids bagging your stuff while you pay. If you don't, you're backing up the line and that makes me go Even though the lines are partly designed to accommodate that, with two bagging areas, I feel so self-conscious.

        So instead I shop at a place in easy walking distance that bags for me. I don't think the prices are much higher, either. It helps that there seems to be a minor price war going on in this area between 3 grocery stores...

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        • #5
          Quoth JustShootMe View Post
          YEP!! I shop where you not only bag your own, but you give a quarter deposit to use the shopping buggy. The quarter is returned when you return the cart.
          I love this idea, and I wish every store would do it! Much less abandoned carts, carts taken and left down at the bus stop, etc. Although I would have to carry a quarter with me, but still, I'd only need the one.

          The store in this town that doesn't have baggers is supposed to be cheaper, I guess? I don't find it cheaper, for what I buy, and the produce is really awful. And they have a much smaller selection of some things, weirdly, coffee creamer. Yet I make a trip about once a month for their bulk food section. Anyway, it's the kind set up so that two people can be bagging at the same time, the cashier just moves a divider.

          But I always go to the SCO, because they literally will have only two cashiers. Freddy's will have like 15. The very small, more expensive store near my house will have three or four, and they are probably half the size of the cheap-o bag it yourself store. I want to strangle some of the people in the SCO at the cheap store. They are SO SLOW, and have entire full carts. And then they get to the end of the transaction and I hear "It's not taking my credit card..." Hint: This store does not accept credit cards.

          Anyways, I think a lot of other countries don't have baggers at all. I remember in Japan they didn't. They had an adorable carousal. But people were not buying the amount of stuff that we tend to buy.
          Replace anger management with stupidity management.

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          • #6
            In the UK bagging your own groceries and putting a deposit in the trolly/cart are standard here.

            The deposit in our carts is a pound but we can purchase blanks (for a pound) that you can use in the carts instead. This has reduced carts left/abandoned in odd places.
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            • #7
              She knew that other stores have baggers and she also knew that she was shopping at a store without baggers because it was cheaper. She was just trying to passive/aggressive someone into bagging for her.

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              • #8
                Quoth Bardmaiden View Post
                In the UK bagging your own groceries and putting a deposit in the trolly/cart are standard here.

                The deposit in our carts is a pound but we can purchase blanks (for a pound) that you can use in the carts instead. This has reduced carts left/abandoned in odd places.
                We give away branded tokens the size of a £1 on a keychain clip to feed the carts, best promo item yet..

                Self-bagging does mean that you either have to bring someone with you, or learn the art of putting stuff on the belt in baggable order in advance, and stacking it all up so you've emptied the trolley before you have to go round the other side to start bagging.. given the number of Boyfriend Points (tm) I get for not dragging her out grocery shopping, I am a belt-tetris master jedi by now.

                There is one special case, the big self-checkouts. Quite rare, only ever seen them in the blue, every little helps supermarket. They have a belt. That definitely takes 2 people to operate. My dad and I once rampaged the Christmas food/vegetation shop in record time using one, as nobody else dared go near it.

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                • #9
                  learn the art of putting stuff on the belt in baggable order in advance
                  I live in the US, and I do this anyway, just to make things easier for the baggers/cashiers. Granted, there are times where it doesn't work, and the guy will put raw meat in with a cleaning chemical, or bananas in with heavy cans, but it's rare.
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                  • #10
                    The bagger is helpful for me. Often (with disability), I am too tired by the end of shopping to bag my own groceries at any normal pace. My story has baggers for a couple of lanes and I pick one of those. I had one store with the quarter in the carts. I had to leave a wuarter in my car and never spend it so I actually had one. You can't use a dime and 15 pennies for a cart.

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                    • #11
                      I shop at two stores because it saves me quite a bit of money, and I'm retired so I've got the time: A store that bags for me, and one where I have to bag for myself. I don't mind either one, and the bag-it-yourself store will have someone bag for people who are handicapped or are otherwise limited in mobility. I sew my own grocery bags, which are nicer than the ones for sale at the stores since they're machine-washable.

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                      • #12
                        I can honestly say that I have always packed my own shopping, and it doesn't take me very long at all. I have three large shopping bags and can be packed and out of the store in a very short time. In actual fact, if someone tried to pack for me, I'd refuse as I am extremely fussy about how my shopping is packed.
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                        • #13
                          When my oldest was a baby, I loved getting the help out to the car. It's hard to buckle in toddler and put stuff away... I mean, I did it, but it was NICE having the help. I would willingly pay a little extra to not have to juggle the two, so I always went to this locally owned grocer. Now that my oldest is a teen? Loading and unloading his job, which is why I always bring him

                          I also don't mind bagging for myself, because then I can make sure things like cold stuff are kept with cold stuff and chemicals are in bags of their own. Oh, and the bread is on top of the eggs.

                          I would LOVE to see the buggy/cart/trolley deposit instated here! Oooh, the amount of whining and complaining!
                          If I make no sense, I apologize. I'm constantly interrupted by an actual toddler.

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