In message , at 15:06:37 on Sat, 25 Feb
2012, tim.... remarked:
I would think that they are using automatic checkout points now, as they
do here in England.

Yeah there was some of those on my last visit.

They were as poorly used as they are in GB

I actually see some pretty large queues for them here in London, at least.

between 12:00 and 14:00?

At my local Tesco there's a queue for them a mile long then.

the rest of the time you are often the only punter using them

All the supermarkets I've been to recently, the queues for the
self-checkout naturally balance themselves with the queues for the
staffed checkouts. The problem being that the management tune the number
of till operatives to keep approximately three customers in each queue.

You can only check out "quicker" if the shop is unusually quiet.

The same happened at banks with ATMs. We were promised that the new (as
it was then) technology would avoid the need to queue; yet now there are
commonly long queues for ATMs. And don't get me started on queues for
train ticket machines! (The one here in the foreground is for the
subsurface lines at St Pancras, in the background is the scrum/queue for
the windows): http://www.perry.co.uk/images/stp-western-queue.jpg
--
Roland Perry