Penny Problems

I work at... a certain retailer, let's say. They have self-checkout machines; today 3 of the 5 that take cash couldn't take cash anymore, because we were out of pennies to put in them. On human-operated registers this isn't a problem; we can just round off the change to the nearest nickel (always in the customer's favor). But the computers haven't been told how to do that, or even that they can do that, so... they insist that being out of pennies means they can't take cash.

None of the human-operated registers were even given pennies when we opened today. From what I hear, IT is trying to update the POS software to do 2 things:
1. Tell self-checkout stations that they can round off prices, and change due to the customer, to the nearest nickel
2. They can accept cash even if the penny hopper is empty

We're hoping this is in place by another week or two, but no estimate yet on when this will happen. Likely within the next day or two without more pennies, or the software fix, none of the self-checkout stations will be able to accept cash, so any cash customers will have to go to the handful of human-operated registers we have.

This as this company is trying to move to like, 90 to 95% self-checkout ("cashiers" mostly are there to observe and assist customers in the self-checkout section, with only 1 or 2 cashiers running an actual register).

This topic has probably been beaten to death already lol, but thought I'd throw in personal observations about what the transition to a post-penny world is looking like in the early stages.

(BTW I'm all for getting rid of the penny, good riddance, and it was a long time coming. Just observing what the transition is starting to look like as they work out how to deal with the consequences of no pennies.)

 

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Around here, I shop at Food Lion, Harris-Teeter (part of the Kroger kingdom), and Aldi.

Aldi runs nearly everyone through self-checkout, and the self-checkouts don't accept cash. But they were the first store to post about a penny shortage, and that they'd be rounding totals for cash payments in the customer's favor.

H-T followed soon after, with signs saying there was a shortage and asking people to provide exact change if possible. Their self-checkouts silently round in the customer's favor, and did so from the beginning. It doesn't seem like they had an issue updating the machines.

I think Food Lion had a sign up about the shortage at one point, but their self-checkouts are still providing cents as change. I have been held up at checkout there in the past, but that was when the self-checkout had run out of nickels. I was hoping the supervisor could just hand me my change and then settle it up between her register and the self-checkout, but no; I had to wait while she went and got a roll of nickels and dumped it into the machine through the normal coin hopper. THAT surprised me; I thought the machines had to be fed separately, but apparently not.

 

Three words.... "Shop From Home".

 

One Walmart I go to already had the self checkouts rounding up and down (they accept pennies), while another one I go to is giving back pennies.
A regular grocer I go to, so far is not rounding up or down.
It's really a non issue and people are going to realize that fairly soon.

 

Duh, what's going on dude. Credit cards are reaping the profits. If Kroger were a football team, they would win the Super Bowl.

 

Oh yeah Mr. Fancy pants ! What would their team name be? The Kroger Krueger's?? Invite Freddy on over......

 

Sudden flashback to college days, in the time of "Let's Go Krogering" - my best friend stuck one of the (then fairly new) plastic bags to his door inside-out, so the slogan was backwards. His hall would occasionally break into a chorus of "oG s'teL gniregorK" when it was time for a grocery run. Still pops into my head occasionally.

Edit: here, now you can have the original jingle stuck in your head, too! Along with a 1982 sale price for yams, just 12 cents/pound!

 

I noticed the Safeway near me had all the cash accepting self checkouts card only. Crap. I like to use cash. There are billions of cents out there. People need to empty their jars.

 

That happened sometimes even before the cent shortage. I think sometimes the manager on duty just can't be bothered to reload the machines.

 

I think while prob illegal, they won't even accept cents anymore.

 

…AND…when you do get pennies in change (now, like I did today) they are mangled, corroded Zincolns. This is the way it will be going forward.

 

I don’t use self checkouts. I stopped going to Lowes because it’s 100% self checkout. I want a person because I want customer service.

 

Hey Sal, the Kroger Grocers, feeding America one dollar at a time, duh.

 

Not the change I got today.
MS 1963 cent and shiny zercons.

 

Aside from making us sell the products to ourselves (self checkout) I wonder when they are going to have us stocking the shelves as well!

 

I fully agree. I feel like if I'm using a self-checkout I should get a discount since they're not having to pay a cashier.

 

It’s early days…give it time. But nice you got something interesting. ‘63 had quite a few varieties, if memory serves…Spark

 

I don't have the time to be sorting my change, I'll take a Quick look but if it isn't silver or Strike me as Odd...it goes into the coin jar and when close to full gets turned back into the wild.