Photo of Coles store shows the massive problem with older Australians and self-serve checkouts
The growing adaption of self-serve checkouts has sparked a fiery debate online after complaints surfaced accusing supermarkets of neglecting senior Australian’s needs.
An image shared to Facebook displayed queues of older Aussies lining up at a checkout in a Coles store.
The snap was taken inside the Southlands Boulevarde shopping mall in Willettonm, a suburb in Perth Australia.
The comment section heated up after many people aired their disappointment, saying it looked a lot like many supermarkets these days.
“Stop relying on the self-serve checkouts, hire some staff,” the irritated shopper who shared the photo wrote.
Several other frustrated people agreed with her statement, with one person commenting that supermarkets were limiting staff so they could “force the use of self-checkouts" on customers to “recoup the money spent on them”.
Another said they always refused to “use self-checkout regardless of the shop”.
Consumer behavioural analyst and managing director at Marketing Focus Barry Urquhart told Yahoo News Australia there is a growing trend towards electronic efficiency - meaning the needs of older shoppers are being pushed to the wayside.
Mr Urquhart says the traditional shopping experience is one older customer enjoy about grocery shopping.
“A lot of people are very lonely, they live in soulless homes, their social interaction is between those who are serving them,” he said.
“And when you remove that, the shopping experience is compromised depreciatively because it’s just a process and there’s no human interaction.
“It’s interesting because the older people are, the more loyal of the supermarket customers, and they are, in a large part, loyal because of the personal interaction that they have with the ‘checkout chick’.”