Things I Love: Self Service

September 28, 2015 Unknown 0 Comments

Self Service terminals at a Woolworths

 Self service is a very common part of the culture in Australia. In a grocery store, there's typically 2-3 cashiers but 10-20+ self service terminals. In America, self service is reserved for "20 items or less" or sometimes "10 items or less" in supermarkets and is fairly clunky in its implementation. There's no item limit on self service in Aussie stores, you can do your full weeks worth of grocery shopping and use the self service terminal if you wanted to.

This sort of service is available in a lot of bigger stores, such as McDonald's, Woolworths, Coles, and Big W. I found it a lot more enjoyable to do my shopping without having to worry about dealing with small talk with another person at the end of your shopping journey. However, this type of service goes hand in hand with the express PayPass/PayWave culture that exists as the standard for credit card and debit use in Australia. PayPass or PayWave is a chip implemented into your card which lets you simply tap it to the machine and make a payment. Sometimes it will require you to input a pin number. It's the standard that if you don't use PayPass then you use a pin number rather than use a signature. It should also be noted that some places don't take signatures. If you have to use a signature for your card, which is a rarity for everyone except foreigners, then you need to have someone come help you. In this case, it's better to just head to the cashier to deal with it. That being said, you can also use cash at these terminals to avoid the ordeal of using a card altogether.

The convenience of this service makes it a more approachable experience to go shopping for groceries or to grab a quick snack. Funnily enough, it's one of the things I miss about living in Australia the most.