Aussie rips into Woolworths over a very annoying new self-service checkout feature

A frustrated shopper targeted a new feature at Woolworth’s self-service checkouts after being ‘locked out’ of the machine and forced to seek help.

The supermarket giant reintroduced scales in self-service bagging areas to identify incorrectly scanned items by weight and installed security camera screens above checkouts to identify unscanned items.

Woolworths said the camera technology, which has been in the works for more than 18 months but is still being rolled out in supermarkets, helps “reduce scanning errors and improve speed for customers through checkout.”

However, honest customers are frustrated by the process as the technology misidentifies the unscanned item and prevents them from completing their purchase.

In a Reddit post on Tuesday, a Sydney shopper asked if ‘Anyone else [was] Frustrated with Woolies self-service checkouts?

Frustrated shoppers say anti-theft technology is misidentifying items as “unscanned” and blocking them from the self-checkout (pictured)

“The last few times I’ve been at Woolies, my self-checkout got blocked and required a staff member to come and approve something I entered because their AI algorithm decided it doesn’t look like it should,” he said. he wrote her.

“If this happened once in a while I’d understand, but it seems to be at least once every time I shop, and I have to compete with a quarter of the other self-service checkouts for the attention of the one busy staff member.”

The post received more than 250 comments in 18 hours, with many Australians sharing the frustrations of shoppers.

‘At Woolies, some of the self-service checkouts have the camera on top of you, so if you don’t scan every item in your cart, you’ll get blocked when you try to pay and ask a member of staff to check that you’ve scanned everything. ‘ one said.

“Really annoying when I’m shopping for different people and need separate transactions.”

Another user explained that they were blocked from self-checkout after the security camera identified an empty coffee cup and a previously purchased loaf of bread as unscanned items.

“I had to block myself and make staff wait because I had the nerve to leave empty bags hanging from the back of my car,” a second said.

Another quipped: “Had my four-year-old daughter in the cart and it triggered the scanners as an ‘unidentified personal item in cart.'”

A Woolworth cashier called the self-checkout system “terrible” and often misidentified items as stolen.

“He has reacted to seeing carts nearby that were not linked to the customer and sometimes thinks someone’s shoes are a stolen item,” they wrote.

“A man was wearing bright green gloves and the machine thought it had put the wrong item on the scale.”

One shopper said his four-year-old daughter, who was sitting in the cart, was identified as an unscanned item, while a Woolworths cashier said technology sometimes identifies a customer’s shoes as stolen (pictured, shoppers using Woolworths self-checkout)

The Woolworths shopper said his store is understaffed, making it difficult to deal with customers and increasing scanning errors.

“We do not have enough staff to meet the required requirement of one person for every five positions,” they wrote.

“So I often have to deal with more customers than I should, and of course the area is too crowded to walk.”

One user said he understood the need for the technology, but the least Woolworths could do was “make sure everything works.”

Woolworths told Daily Mail Australia that the technology, known as ‘Scan Assist’, does not block customers, but asks if an item has been scanned.

“If a failed scan occurs, a short video highlights the affected product and customers have the opportunity to re-scan it,” Woolworths said.

“While most customers do the right thing at our self-service checkouts, we’re all busy and it’s easy for mistakes to happen.”

The retail giant’s new camera technology detects when something has missed its scanner by filming the area the customer is in, then halts the checkout process and flashes a red light above.

It then plays a video of the problem on the checkout screen in front of you.

Woolworths (pictured) reintroduced weighing scales in the self-service bagging area and installed security cameras above checkouts to help identify unscanned items and prevent theft

As soon as a shopper accidentally or deliberately pushes their cart past the scanner or checkout operator, if it contains any product, the red light above will turn off and show the operator a video of the problem.

That means cameras can catch customers “forgetting” to pay for heavy or bulk items in their carts, like 24 packs of drinks or a tray of dog food cans.

Woolworths said it would “listen carefully to customer and team feedback” on the technology.

But no matter how much opposition shoppers have to the cameras, the supermarket leader is unlikely to shy away from the new burglar camera.