A bold plan to boycott supermarket self-serve checkouts on November 4 has been met with a mixed reaction in Wagga.
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Several Wagga shoppers were asked what they thought of self-serve checkouts and the proposed boycott outside Woolworths on Gurwood Street.
Older shoppers were united in their disdain for the technology, with several saying “they put people out of a job”.
Lake Albert Foodworks owner Rod Porter agreed and said a boycott might give Coles and Woolworths something to think about.
“They’ve got one person managing six registers and it’s unfortunate for those people not employed by big mobs,” he said. “It depends what you want, some people like to buy off a pallet and pack their own bags, we prefer to offer good service.”
Professor Steven D'Alessandro from Charles Sturt University’s School of Management and Marketing explained people who were familiar with a technology like self-service were more likely to accept it and retailers had to offer help to people reluctant to adopt self-service technology.
“Having a person to assist an elderly shopper, who may otherwise take longer and defeat the whole purpose, could actually result in better service,” he said. “However, a boycott would have to be quite significant to have any effect.”
A Woolworths spokesman said the company wanted to offer customers “choice about how they get out of our stores”.
“We offer a mix of self-service, express and traditional checkouts,” he said. “Self-serve checkouts are very popular with our customers nationwide and we always have a team member available to assist customers as they complete their shop. Self-serve checkouts can be found in more than 70 per cent of our stores, with an average of six in each.”
Coles was approached by The Daily Advertiser but declined to comment.