I write this while waiting in line at Costco… why are Taiwan checkouts so fucking slow??? In Australia staff scan things so quickly it makes your head spin.
Why are they slow in Taiwan? Is it because minimum wage is too low?
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Probably because they don’t have Aldi 
I have also wondered this. The people in front of me have like five items, I have like five items, and I’m still standing in line for like 10 minutes. With the same brainwashing dumb song on repeat the whole time. I’ve determined that it’s always faster to have food panda or Uber eats do my grocery shopping for me. And Costco runs must be done on weekdays since I can’t get the Costco stuff I use regularly delivered.
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I think a lot of it is having to faff about finding the right 4 apps on your phone to get have the staff scan from.
I’m sure pre-smart phones it was faster.
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Totally.
Also, ask Costco. That’s their issue. For those not in the industry, there is a massive push towards making cashiers more inconvenient in order to slowly implement automation. Just be aware, it’s already a few years in the making. Same with self order, qr code, scanning etc. Personally I think we should stand up for customer support with humans to both protect consumers and jobs. But many people don’t care much about others and just like that little % nugget the companies offer to sell out their employees.
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How are they going to sort out shoplifting? I guess they’ll need to have some staff randomly checking customer self-scanned bags.
Lots of stuff is slow people walk slow, cashiers at convenient stores are slow too
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From what I have seen, they don’t. Outside the usual scanners, the reality the massive savings on cut labor costs (=less jobs) far outweighs any amount of shoplifting. Need to also understand many large scale supermarkets completely rape their suppliers, so they already have nearly no risk as it is. Massively high %, shelving fees, stocking fees, transaction fees, getting in with them fees, long term oayouts (usually 1-4 months in taiwan), crazy return terms and so on. That’s the basic truth people are reluctant to admit. So when they also start fucking their employees, it’s beyond the line.
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Good points made above. The typical Taiwanese supermarket having about two miserly checkouts open at peak hour doesn’t really help either.
The big Carrefours are pretty fast. Costco… it depends. I just don’t go on weekends at peak hours. I also try to avoid peak hours at PX/Carrefour. I’d rather not wait in line 10 deep. The lack of automation is also an issue at most supermarkets. No rolling counters, no dedicated service counters at ost PXs so many things have to be handled by the teller. It’s the result from sub-optimal decision making. Or the result of cheap vs quality vs fast. You can have two out of three typically.
Costco - cheap & quality
PX - cheap & quality
7-11 fast & quality
…?
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This probsbly has a lot to do with it too. Everything needs to be slid and put in a basket and then there’s no room to bag your stuff while the next customer checks out so you block everyone unless you’re nice enough to go to a repacking area (which many PX Marts and small Carefours don’t have since everything is crammed in there)
I’m not too worried about job loss in things like checking out items. It’s a minimum wage job and there isn’t the population to support the number of jobs that are out there. What I hate is that it takes significantly longer to do self checkout (including kiosks at places like McDonald’s) than just having a trained employee do the job.
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self checks are now a standard in developing asian countries. this is what happens when you are woefully lacking in any iota of international mindset. healthcare, traffic light wait times, taxes and protectionism policies on a SMALL ISLAND are overrated.
I think the key is to not be in a hurry when you shop at Costco. Just go with the flow and enjoy the experience. When in Rome…
Apparently taiwanese think they’re slow too - I’ve never seen so much jockeying for position than at the grocery store.