Will CVS Self-Serve Kiosks Make Life Worth Living Again?

By on June 15, 2010 8:30 am in Shopping

cvsJust went to buy some Sharpies at CVS and saw a crowd gathered near the registers. Was it an early-morning irate customer? Possible elderly shoplifter? No! The answer was even better—self-serve kiosks. Sure, it’ll take months for people to figure it out, and some never will. But if given a choice, kiosk wins with me every time.

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  • AAR

    I hope that they return the Sovereign Bank ATM soon — a surprise — ofcourse, no sign to explain why/where it had gone…

  • tb

    I wonder if my husband could actually figure these out. Hmmmmm…….

  • AEB

    The learning curve for these resembles the pitch of Everest. I speak from bitter experience.

    So many questions regarding “what now?”are required the first seventy go-rounds or so, that one could otherwise be out of the store and halfway home.

    “Progress”–humbug!

  • WillowtownCop

    Looks like they are trying to sell convenience for the store as convenience for the customers. More people replaced by machines.

  • Clark Street Resident

    I welcome these kiosks with open arms…much better than dealing with their staff of cashiers who are constantly doing anything besides their job.

  • Norman E-Mailer

    When will these kiosks be coming to the Monty Key Foods?

  • CFB

    In a related vein, Key Food on Atlantic Ave took out the rolling belts at the check-out counters; flat counters only now. I wonder if they’re contemplating a similar technology shift?

  • Sonny

    while I agree that these self-checkout machines will help in not having to deal with the unpleasant staff, they still have their inefficiencies. the CVS by my office has 2 and you can be sure that on any given day, one is always broken. there is a staff member standing by to help, but they often aren’t trained on them. and the machine doesn’t let you proceed to the next step until you “place item in the bag.” It practically yells at you to do this. I usually get a couple items that don’t need a bag, yet have to “place item in the bag,” just so I can complete the transaction and get out of there. in the end, they’re not very efficient.

  • David on Middagh

    Stupid question: can you pay with cash? Or do these machines require cards?

    I don’t know why people don’t think everything they buy doesn’t cost 3% more because of all the card transactions. There’s a middleman there, and the middleman takes his cut.

  • Clark Street Resident

    To answer David’s question, the kiosks do take cash. I’ve used them @ other CVS locations within the city.

  • brooklynite

    @CFB
    Key food got rid of the old registers and widened the register rows so that you can actually have room to get through with a stroller or shopping cart. they also moved the shopping carts outside to free up more space inside. i have also noticed that their produce is the same price if not cheaper that the veggie stand down the block. looks like they want to give them some healthy competition.

  • Andrew Porter

    The Sovereign ATM is gone? That ATM did not charge any fee. I feel much more uneasy using the machines at the Sovereign on Montague Street. Hope it comes back.

  • liam

    this is a great move for CVS
    they have 6 registers and only 1 checkout clerk most of the time

  • Liz

    Hello all, glad to see our new checkouts are generating some excitement! I’d like to address some of the questions/comments I’ve seen here –
    yes, the ATM will be returning. It will be going in the area where the photo lab is now. This requires moving photo to the other side of the store, which will entail some intensive construction. We are hoping to have that done in the next couple weeks.
    yes, the self-checkouts will take getting used to, for us as well! Please be patient while we train everyone. We will have someone stationed there all the time however they may get pulled away sporadically to assist another customer, look for an item, call for change, etc. This doesn’t mean the checkouts will be closed, feel free to use them as long as they say “Open”.
    yes, the machine telling you to bag your item is annoying, this is a security measure. That’s all I can say about that.
    yes, we take cash.
    and yes, sometimes we might have only one cashier up front but there are always more people in the store doing other things, I ring as well if I have to. We try to keep the line down as much as possible but at certain times of day there are more customers in line than even all five of our registers can handle. We hope that the self checkouts will alleviate that. If anyone experiences problems or has questions, please let me know! Liz, Store Manager

  • nabeguy

    The technology of self check-out lines varies. However, the better ones that I’ve found (e.g Home Depot) still need a human supervising them. The failure usually is not in the customer, but the way the system was designed. Man cannot live by barcode alone.