Josh First's Blog

Giant Food’s punishing self checkout

Does Giant have self checkout to punish its customers? To prove that loyalty takes a long time to undermine?

It’s miserably time consuming, it never works, it hangs up, people standing in multiple lines waiting for help from a single clerk. Giant thinks they’re saving a few pennies in labor cost. But the truth is that Giant is following a traditional path to failure.

By building up customer loyalty, and then giving them less and less, many businesses have milked quality, alienated customers, and then crashed.

Another sign of cheapness is Giant’s slow conversion of name brand foods for its own generic label. But I don’t want Giant’s mediocre quality food. I’m willing to pay for better quality.

Capitalism 101 says our family begins shopping at the Wegman’s on the West Shore.