It's shopping, Jim...

[XFool]

This is the sort of thing that I can see could eventually lead to even me abandoning my trusty Nokia 1100 (!) and getting a smart phone:

Is it the end of the supermarket checkout till?

BBC News

Discuss.

[bungeejumper]

So you just wander round the store, scanning in the barcodes from your mobile phone, and then you walk out of the door without making any apparent attempt to pay. And the store detectives just have to stand there and let you do it?

Whatever could go wrong with that?

"Look pal, it's not my fault that my mobile lost its signal just before I scanned in that PlayStation that you say I haven't paid for".

"My battery's gone unexpectedly dead, mister. So half of this stuff isn't on the record. So tell me, how is that my fault?"

"I let my kid scan in that video game. What do you mean, the little bugger scanned a cheap one and then chucked an expensive one into the trolley?"

"It's all my wife's fault. She's dumped all this perfume and stuff into my trolley and then gone out to the car. So why don't you go and ask her why it's not been scanned, eh?"

"Honest to god, mate, somebody swiped my mobile in the frozen foods aisle. Nothing to do with me."

Etcetera. Good luck with that one, people.

BJ

[gryffron]

The problem for the supermarkets is that with minimum wage increasing, the till is by far the most labour intensive part of their process. So even if they lose a bit to fraud, they're still better off.

Asda already have a system like this, although it is a handheld thingy rather than your phone. I found it really hard to use because you don't have enough hands to hold the scanner, the item, and the bag you want to put it in It needs to be hands free to make it work better. You do go through a till to finally pay, so they can do spot checks.

Gryff

[XFool]

It would depend on the design of the system and UI, past experience is not encouraging. Decades ago, standing in check-out queues in supermarkets getting bored and impatient, I used to dream of the day in the future when robot check-outs arrived. When they did, or at least the so called self operated check-outs, I discovered something even more irritating than the old fashioned check-out queue! I usually avoid them like the plague.

[mc2fool]

Asda already have a system like this, although it is a handheld thingy rather than your phone. I found it really hard to use because you don't have enough hands to hold the scanner, the item, and the bag you want to put it in It needs to be hands free to make it work better.

Waitrose have had a similar system for some 20 years now. https://www.waitrose.com/home/about_wai ... check.html

I haven't used it for, well, almost that time as I'm no longer near a Waitrose, but when I did I didn't have to hold the bags (stiffish reusables) 'cos they were in the trolley and the trolley had a scanner holder so you didn't actually need to hold that, although you did need a finger free to press the button....

[Slarti]

This is the sort of thing that I could see leading me to abandon that shop totally.

I have today used a farm shop that I didn't know existed, even though it is less than a mile from me. And my son went to school with the kids of the owners.

Cash only, but better quality stuff than the supermarkets. And if I wanted to buy just 1 potato, or 1 carrot, I could. And no plastic to dispose of. And minimal food miles.

Spent nearly £40, but the weekly supermarket bill went down by £45. And the suggested where I can but fresh fish to add to the local butcher and baker.


Perhaps cash is the route of the future?

Slarti

[bungeejumper]

This is the sort of thing that I could see leading me to abandon that shop totally.

All this, and those car park machines that only accept payment by mobile phone because the cash payment option's not working today. Had that at Chippenham station a while ago.

"It's no problem," said the cheery station bloke. "Just jump on the train and pay when you're in your seat." Which would be great if I had the right instructions for doing it, plus a viable 3G connection, plus a battery that isn't dead, plus a willingness to entrust my credit card details to my mobile. (Forget that one, pal.) And if anything at all goes wrong, you come back at the end of the day to find a penalty payment sticker on your windscreen.

AIUI, this new system isn't like the Waitrose (etc) system, because you don't have to present yourself to a payment point at all - you just scan the goods, push the payment button on your mobile, and then sally straight out of the shop with them.

Users of the app, called Mobile, Pay, Go, scan the barcodes of what they want to buy on their phone, pay via the app and then walk straight out of the shop.

Which is why I was wishing the security guards the very best of luck with it.

BJ

[UncleEbenezer]

You do go through a till to finally pay, so they can do spot checks.

Gryff

Spot checks? Are those potential trouble?

Scenario: they carry out more spot checks on people who they judge most likely to be cheating. We know police (rightly or wrongly) get flak over "stop and search" targeting black yoof. Could something similar happen? That apparent teenage mum in the torn jeans turns out to be respectable nanny working for an Entitled Guardian-reader who is outraged and kicks up a stink?

[sg31]

You do go through a till to finally pay, so they can do spot checks.

Gryff

Spot checks? Are those potential trouble?

Scenario: they carry out more spot checks on people who they judge most likely to be cheating. We know police (rightly or wrongly) get flak over "stop and search" targeting black yoof. Could something similar happen? That apparent teenage mum in the torn jeans turns out to be respectable nanny working for an Entitled Guardian-reader who is outraged and kicks up a stink?

These days nearly all the women I see have got jeans with the knees ripped. It drives me mad, why do they do it? Probably just to wind up old gits like me. I'm tempted to offer them a needle and cotton but I'd probably get verbals. I know it's the fashion but surely it's time to move on, fashions shouldn't last, they need replacing by something new or it's not fashion.

(Maybe I should post this on the Bitter Lemons thread) Grump over.

[madhatter]

I know it's the fashion but surely it's time to move on, fashions shouldn't last, they need replacing by something new or it's not fashion.

The ripped jeans thing annoys me, not least because it used to eventually happen to my jeans and after patching on top of patching it was a sign that they were on the way out. Never would it have occurred to me that anyone would buy them looking like that.

However, they say you should be careful what you wish for, and round here there is an even more peculiar fashion, though still, mercifully unusual. Young men wearing trousers with the top so low (and therefore also the crotch) that they have difficulty stepping on to a bus.

The belt would be well below the hips. It is not at all clear what keeps them up unless they have concealed braces.

[UncleEbenezer]

A lot of my trousers have died when they wear down through contact with a bike saddle. Maybe I should display my bum through those as a fashion-statement?

Damn, why didn't I think of that when I was half my present age?

[vrdiver]

A lot of my trousers have died when they wear down through contact with a bike saddle. Maybe I should display my bum through those as a fashion-statement?

I'd buy you a drink, but people would think you were just arsing a round.....

VRD

[melonfool]

What a bunch of old miseries you all are!

Let people wear what they want to wear. I am 50 and have some ripped jeans. You do know that the low slung men's trews are actually designed like that? That they are not just dropping down, they have lower crotches, and some even have what looks like an underwear waistband built in so it looks like they have slipped down and the kecks are showing, but it's actually part of the trousers.

But really, who cares?

And that M&S thing? No, there will not be Play Stations and games put in the basket, not only because M&S don't sell them but also because it's only food, it's a £30 limit and you have to go to a till for anything age barred.

Mel

[scotia]

(Maybe I should post this on the Bitter Lemons thread) Grump over.

Yes - excellent material for the Bitter Lemons board, and an excellent advertisement for its content.

[PinkDalek]

… However, they say you should be careful what you wish for, and round here there is an even more peculiar fashion, though still, mercifully unusual. Young men wearing trousers with the top so low (and therefore also the crotch) that they have difficulty stepping on to a bus. ...

This isn't the video I had in mind, when I read your post, but it shows what can happen (not sure if he was wearing regular clothing or not)

Caught by the seat of his pants: Suspect snagged on fence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49pMV_bgTII

I'm sure someone can find the more famous video, when the guy catches himself on some railings ...

[AleisterCrowley]

I tell you what annoys me *
These young people walking around with "Ramones" and "Paul's Boutique" T-shirts
Do they know who the Ramones were? I have they ever listened to "Paul's Boutique" ?
Oooh, it's annoying.

*about 1,000 things at the moment, I could list them, but will not.

[UncleIan]

I tell you what annoys me *
These young people walking around with "Ramones" and "Paul's Boutique" T-shirts
Do they know who the Ramones were? I have they ever listened to "Paul's Boutique" ?
Oooh, it's annoying.

I have humbly apologised to my daughter for getting rid of my old band t-shirts, but actually, they were mainly from an odd time that seems to have escaped retro cool. So when I took all my old (late) pink floyd t-shirts and heavy metal t-shirts down to Explorer Scouts 8 years ago they were fighting over some of them, I suspect my early 90s indie kid shirts...not so much. PWEI, Carter USM, Teenage Fanclub and the Wonderstuff just don't cut it in the retro stakes. Ironic really as some of them were collectively known as "t-shirt bands", as they probably sold as many as albums, and the queues at gigs were longer at the merchandise stand than the bar. Actually, only a year or so back one of my Explorers was doing just as you say, wearing a Pixies tour t-shirt, I'm like "that's your dad's isn't it?" "yup" "from when before he had kids and couldn't go to gigs anymore" "something like that yeah".

[AleisterCrowley]

I have a (late period) Pixies tour T shirt from 2005(?) inevitably

PWEI and the Wonder Stuff were part of the semi-local Stourbridge scene- very popular with my sister's year at school (about 5 below me) although I've seen both on reunion tours

[DiamondEcho]

I tell you what annoys me *
These young people walking around with "Ramones" and "Paul's Boutique" T-shirts. Do they know who the Ramones were?

It seems rather ironic in that if such young people really understood what the Ramones were about I suspect it most unlikely that they'd suggest they like them. They really were a quite dangerous, drug-addled, destined to mostly kill themselves very young, complete damned brilliant one-off mess. Perhaps entirely the opposite of so much of today's contemporary music. I don't want to get territorial over who or who might not get them, but my feel is that having been of young adult years across the late 70s might be something of a requirement, in order to 'get the mess and the ... just brutal anger and rage of that time'.

I have a knackered and completely worn our Ramones T-shirt somewhere. Ironically it's one of the main-stay T-shirts I take with me to wear on dive-trips/dive-boats because I don't care what it's condition is like and it gets a real beating. [The other being a Motorhead one]. It'd be ironic if I were thought odd for wearing their shirt/logo, when vs 'the kids' I actually lived through it and them.

[AleisterCrowley]

I don't want to get territorial over who or who might not get them, but my feel is that having been of young adult years across the late 70s might be something of a requirement
I was just getting into music in '77, and ended up a massive Stranglers fan - sadly too young to go to the gigs
Still like them 40 years on, especially the first two albums