this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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Pretty much the title. Like, get those handheld scanners and attach them to the carts. I scan items as I put them in, roll up to a "register" where the cart is weighed and verified by a cashier. I just hand over the cash then leave. Or even better, install load sensors in the cart.

Usually I like to pack my groceries into my boxes as I get them into the cart. Keeps things orderly and neat and I also don't buy more than I can carry home. But this means I have to unpack them to place on the belt then pack them all over again after paying. It would be kinda nice to just pay by the cart load.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 hours ago

I’ve been doing this for years! My local grocery has a little scanner you can take around with you, I carry 2 wicker baskets, scan items as I fill them, and then the self checkout lane reads a code from the scanner, I tap to pay, and walk home. It’s honestly seamless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

Grabbing a scanner at the door makes more sense otherwise they would have to be made waterproof since people take and leave their carts outside.

I worked for a company that did a demo using RFID tags. Every item had one and you just walk through a scanner when you're done shopping and it rings everything up instantly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Some giants have had handheld scanners for a decade... You just grab one as you walk in, scan and pack everything and hand it to the cashier on way out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

And you need a membership card because of course you do

Also why involve a cashier when self-checkout is available?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

Honor system wouldn't work in all places unfortunately

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Walmart doesn't even let you do the scan and pay thing with your phone unless you're a Plus member. Which is fucking stupid. We basically already have a scanner with the ability to pay in our pocket, and they even have systems that let you do exactly what you're asking about. But then they make you pay extra for it. Like, you're already trying not pay employees and you expect me to pay you to do what a cashier does? Fuck that and fuck you, Walmart.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm going to assume you're in a country where they have the self checkout things which have a 'bagging area' of some sort wit a scale under it?

In the Netherlands we have selfcheckout without this weighing. You walk into the store, grab a handscanner, and as you walk through the store you can pick something up, scan it, put it in your own bag and continue. When you get yo the register, you scan some barcode on the screen of the register woth your scanner, touch your nfc bank card to the terminal, and walk out. No need to take anything out of your bag.

Sometimes they do random checks, then some employee comes over and scans a few items from your bag. But you can just let it be their problem. They'll usually put the stuff they've taken out back in again aswell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

Some places in the US have this! My local Stop and Shop does.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

We have something similar in the UK.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago

Typically, you need to already be a member of the stores loyalty/rewards scheme, so that they know who you are before you start scanning items. And if anything goes wrong, like you try to rip them off, or a technical issue with the scanner, you get locked out from using the scanners until you call their support line and sort it out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

We had those briefly where I was in the states right before and during COVID. It was so nice being able to pack things in bags neatly and just ring it all up at the end easily.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

At least in Germany, at a lot of Rewes (supermarket chain), this is absolutely a thing and very common. You can place the handheld barcode scanners in a specialised holder on the cart handle and then scan as you go, and neatly package all your stuff before going to the checkout and paying at a terminal. If even Germany has got this by now, then every other country on the planet surely does too lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Our Edeka has a system like that too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

So does Kaufland and Albert in the Czech Republic

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Do they make it easy to put something back if you change your mind?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Yup, you can just edit the amount of items you scanned. Also makes it easier to "scan" an item in bulk.

They dont check the cart weight, instead they just randomly pick out people where they go through their scanned items and check that nothing else is in the cart. I'm being checked about once every 20 times I go.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

That all sounds awesome. We definitely don't have that in NW US yet. Hope we get it eventually.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

Already exists and being used, search for "smart shopping carts"

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I heard some grocery chain was experimenting with rfid chips on all their products so you can just load up and leave and sensors at the door detect what you're carrying and charge you the appropriate amount automatically. Personally I'd rather pull up to a register and have it show me a list of what's in my cart and the total price rather than automatically charging, but otherwise it's not a bad idea.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm with you. Automatically charging sounds like a nightmare. I still always want a human to verify everything a computer says. I don't trust a corporate entity to not try and rio me off.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well you'd get a ticket or a screen showing it all before paying? Like when you scan yourself.

My concern is the e-waste of a trillion RFID chips.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah, RFID may be a shit way to go tbh. I was definitely thinking just traditional barcode scanners attached to a small computer on the cart.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That exists and it's really nifty. At least in France, you have them in most big brand supermarkets. The downside is that it requires a user account.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Very interesting! I haven't had the chance to do groceries in France yet. I'd love to see it though. It just seems so nice.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The downside is that it requires a user account.

Most large US supermarkets make you have loyalty accounts to get their real prices anyway as it is, in exchange for your buying habits, otherwise everything is marked up.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I really hate this shit and honestly I feel like it should be illegal. Like, offer discounts for the loyalty program members, sure, whatever, but the price on the shelf when you pick up the item should not be able to have contingencies attached.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Discounts for loyalty members is the same thing as higher prices for the general public.

Discounts for volume are the only fair discounts for individuals.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago

If you pack your groceries in boxes in the cart, wouldn't that throw off the weight at the checkout?

Sam's Club does it all with a self-checkout app and cart-scanning cameras at the exit. If you only get one or two things and don't use a cart, then an associate needs to spot-scan on the way out, but otherwise it works great!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

The grocery store I often go to had these barcode scanners you could borrow at the entrance and scan your stuff as you go, along with scales on which you could print a barcode sticker for the stuff you pay by weight.

Once you were done, you'd scan a QR card at the self-service checkout to upload all the stuff you scanned, then pay.

It was awesome, you could just pack as you go. Unfortunately they scrapped the project once they found out that the amount of theft was significantly higher with this system. So yeah, we can't have nice things 😒

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Theft, pretty much. They wanna see you empty that shopping cart before you leave.

You know what would be nice? Check out the Uniqlo checkout booths in Japan Video and imagine that tech connected to a single shopping cart that just charges your card when you walk through the door

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Well it's a good thing they hardly ever employ cashiers and make me go through self-checkout. I'd never steal from self-checkout.

I'm guessing those checkouts you linked use some sort of RFID chip in the tag? Pretty interesting!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Walmart spent millions on rfid trying to do this. Howevera cart full of razor blades would always not read something so they gave up.

as others have said what you ask for evists - but only where most people are honest enough to not cheat. Where stores don't trust everyone the cost of verification is more than any savings.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Sam's Club, owned by Walmart, does this basically.

You scan items with your phone, check out, then walk under this arch camera things to leave, I haven't been stopped to be manually checked in ages.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Tesco in the uk does this.

Coincidentally enough this post a few down from yours (on my feed) shows a trial for the second part of your post

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

S Chain in Finland offers this, you have to of course have their customer loyalty card.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

But if you want to just use the self-service cashier automats, I think the loyalty card is optional. For scanners though it might be required, I've never used those. The self-service cashier points are easy enough for me. 😊

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago

For the scanner you need the card, yes. For the self check out only no

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

We have this at my local grocery store (Meijer) down in the states. You use the grocery store’s app and scan as you go then pay at a kiosk. There’s a scale at the kiosk to weigh produce or I think there’s an app for that too. No need to weigh the whole thing. It’s called “Shop & Scan”.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

amazon fresh stores do something like this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

They had this at Stop & Shop for a while in the US. Don't know if that's still how it works though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Yeah, seen something like this in the UK. You take a scanner and scan everything as you shop, then just lay the bill as you exit. To begin with they even offered a discount I think. But they didn't have a weigh option, just that they'd check some carts 'at random'. My understanding was, like self checkouts, even if there's a little more theft it's more than made up for by less workers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

I do this with my phone at meijer. No need for a device when you're phone can scan already.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Tesco in the UK has had handheld scanners for years, and are trialling scales.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose all do this in the UK

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Sam's Club in America you can use their app to scan your stuff and pay. They check your receipt on the way out.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

There’s at least one UK supermarket that lets you do this.

Info:

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In Switzerland big super markets have this with handscanners. You can also use the Supermarkt App and scan the stuff with your smartphone. When you leave you just checkout and payment is processed automatically if you have set it up or you can pay at a terminal. Sometimes they do random checks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Same in Belgium, no scale involved, just a handled scanner you bring in the shop. At checkout you give (or put back depending on the supermarket) the scanner, then an algorithm tell you if you're elected to a partial control (in which case a cashier scan some of the articles, again there are some rules depending on the brand of supermarket - some ask rescan 5 random products, some 10, some explicitly list most valuable items, some require the cashier to count items,...). I say an algorithm because experience show it's not just random (for example in the supermarket brand I most often go, if you cancel an item on the scanner, you're 100% sure to have a control).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

We have that in one shop. It started with just a scanner and at the register you'd get random searches. By now the scale is integrated into the cart.

It sucks a bit because with the first system you could quickly scan ten items and throw them into the cart. But now you have to wait a bit after throwing something into the cart for the scale to give the ok.

They don't weigh at the end because that way you can have your shopping bags or boxes in the cart. That way the cart's weight at the beginning is registered as 0 and when you're done shopping you just have to lift your bags directly from the cart into your car. I guess that could be mitigated by having a scale at the entrance of the shop.

But for all the waiting after scanning one item it's still much nicer than having to load everything from the cart to the register and then back into the cart again.

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