Cashiers, how unfriendly are your card readers?

[bean]

As an aside, does your store have Scan It? Thankfully my store doesn't as it's one of the shrinkiest stores in the area. A few other stores near me have it though, and I like it a lot.

My store has no form of self checkout whatsoever, including self scan.

I believe the only Whole Foods in the entire region with any form of self check is in Austin. I believe they use standard Fujitsu SCOs.

[mattm04]

I wanna say that the selfscans ran a OS/2 emulator or something like that to run the POS software. I have no idea about the U-Scan type selfscans or any of the newer ones they've installed. (My store opened in '05, so it's not old, but it's not new and fancy.)



Some of the stores around me are bright and have signs pointing to the correct spot on the pinpad. My store is not.



I knew that, being a CDH for a short while. Most of the time they put it under the till or in the 50/100 slot.

By the way, Starbucks is the worst miscellaneous department to count. (Their till replaced the rarely-used Bakeshop till in my store when it opened.) They get so many singles during the day, it's not uncommon that they give $100 or $200 in singles to the podium till for other assorted change. Plus the cash counter seems to choke if you put more than 20 additional bills on it at a time.

As an aside, mattm04, does your store have Scan It? Thankfully my store doesn't as it's one of the shrinkiest stores in the area. A few other stores near me have it though, and I like it a lot.

I know the scan it station with the 50" plasma has a HP Thin which i believe is to run the Power Point style show about the scan it benefits. I'm not sure what runs the actual scan it stations card scanner device.

we we got the new self scans we printed out on bright orange paper signs indicating the correct location to sign ans almost every customer who need to couldn't find it. Our DM found it and made us take them off. Lucky most of the people got the hint by then.

I know two of the three closet stores to me have scan it. When in a nearby store a few days ago i actually got the last scan it at one of the displays. The other side only had a few left.

[mattm04]

That just sounds... convulted. And why didn't they have a UPS on them? All of our registers have a UPS on them that's good for about 20-30 minutes.

Our drawers open even on credit/debit transactions. If we didn't have printed CC slips (.. even though we have signature pads) it'd be kind of pointless, and it's pointless on no-cash-back debit transactions - but it takes all of 1 second to bump it closed with my hip as I'm bagging the order.

They do get bitchy in my store if you average more than 4 no sales a day - I know how to open the drawer without a no-sale though (they're screwed down, but if you yank the front up in just the right place it pops open). I rarely do that unless I screw up someone's change though. And it was a sup that showed me how to do it.

I'm VERY ocd about keeping my coupons organized though, so the drawer popping open even when it's not necessary helps me keep it organized. Plus I keep 4 piles of slips neatly stacked under the till in the drawer - 1 for Visa/MC, 1 for Discover, 1 for American Express, 1 for EBT/electronic food stamps. We have to separate them before turning them in anyway, it's easier to keep 100+ slips organized as I go instead of going through all of them at the end of my shift.

The server(s) for POS, etc, have a UPS but the individual lanes do not at least in my store. They are on the generator, but that takes 10-15 second to begin to power the lights, etc. Some of the new stores my have the lanes on a UPS though. each lane has two or three circuits. One for the belts/light and one for a "utility" outlet for a soda cooler or what not, these are only on line power. The other circuit is on line and generator power for the monitor/printers and POS computer.

My store was not originally part of <my company> it was chain that we bought out or somethig like that with really only minor cosmetic and design rennovations, no major mechanical renovations aside from replacing old HVAC equipment.

Our front end lanes do have built in slots for credit slips, coupons, etc but the other lanes do not. A few yeas ago they stopped popping the drawers on transactions with no change except on the side registers w/o the special slots separate from the cash till.

[SG15Z]

Verifone has always made nice equipment - I used to do tech support for Verifone card readers.

You just described the exact setup that DFW Krogers have. For an IBM setup, they're pretty nice, but still not user friendly.

A coworker went on a huge epic rant about how much NCR registers suck in an IM conversation yesterday - I LOVE our registers, but I hate our card readers. Our registers are incredibly easy to use, I mean I was able to start ringing with 3-4 hours of training, and most of that was spent going over policies regarding checks.

However, we can't print a journal/receipt at all, we have to wait for the end of the transaction. The only thing we can reprint is an EFT journal. The cash office can reprint a receipt on their laser printer though.

Yeah IBM isn't very user friendly at all. That's it's biggest downside. If they improved that I'd like them a whole lot more.

My store has no form of self checkout whatsoever, including self scan.

I believe the only Whole Foods in the entire region with any form of self check is in Austin. I believe they use standard Fujitsu SCOs.

Fujitsu SCOs are ok, from my experience. Though ours are really old and break down all the time so I hate ours. But working at a SCO regardless of brand sucks, because people are so freaking stupid.