Do you organize the order of your groceries in the checkout line?
I'm just wondering what the title asks: do you organize your groceries in the order you will check them out, if doing self-checkout, or arrange them on the belt/counter in a standard checkout line, in the hope that they'll be bagged in a specific way?
I didn't know there was any other way people do it, but just learned some people prefer to checkout/bag without pre-arranging things. I'm kind of curious to see what's more common, or if there's some other options I haven't considered?
Heavy stuff first, cold things together, fragile stuff last.
This is the way
This is the way
Basically this, but with cleaning products/ chemicals last.
Last? I want those first, they are usually in very sturdy containers so putting some stuff on top is fine. They are also usually heavy and heavy stuff goes first. Also if they leak, I want them to leak out of the bottom of the bag and not over all the groceries and then out of the bottom of the bag
I see. I always put them on a separate bag so they're always dead last. If they're on the same bag, then it makes sense to be at the bottom.
Seperate bag seems smart. I usually don't have a whole lot of groceries and a big grocery bag, so if I can I try to get it all in one bag.
And for me, it's the snack I just bought to eat now that's last.
Yeah I'm trying to remember how we used to do it (the last time I went through a normal checkout with a full shop was probably 10 years ago) and this seems right.
Gotta have the heavy stuff handy so you can put it straight into the bottom of the bags. Anything else is wasting time!
Do you have conveyor belts going straight to your fridge now?
Not OP but home delivery got very common since covid lockdowns in my country.
It's been common for a lot longer than that in the UK, we're very lazy :D
There is no such concept as "groceries getting bagged for you" in Germany. I have a backpack with me where I put my groceries.
Regarding your question, yes have a strategy.
The basic order on the belt is heavy to light items, so that the heavy things such cans or glas bottles go to the bottom, light stuff like yoghurt and eggs at the end of the belt so they come on top of the other groceries.
Of course this is not fixed, as light but bulky items may get a prioritized place on the belt. The worst thing that can happen is that you have to repack your backback.
However this is not all. As our cashiers are usually professionals, you will need to stategically slow them down, you want to avoid the shameful and pressuring looks of your successors. I do that by putting items inbetween the other stuff on the belt that have to be counted or weighed, such as pastry and vegetables. This gives you time to pack your stuff or rearrange in case you made mistake a step earlier.
As a European, I have never once had an extra person there whose sole purpose is putting your groceries into bags, what a strange concept.
Here in New Zealand, different supermarket chains do it different.
The third one seems most natural to me. Why not have them put your stuff in a bag since they are already holding it?
I can’t speak for the US, but in poorer countries (like my home country of South Africa), it’s common for someone to bag your groceries. The simple reason is because it provides extra jobs at the store. It’s the same for filling your car with petrol.
So is it customary to tip the person doing the bagging? Or maybe a designated bagger will do it faster, resulting in less wait times?
My favourite system is where I place my cart next to another one, and the cashier will scan everything while placing the item in the other cart, where I could have placed boxes if I wanted to.
But how does this person provide any value though? That person has to be paid as well, and doing something a customer can do well by themselves provides very little value. It used to be necessary, older petrol pumps had to be manually enabled or had no stop valve that person is required. With modern pumps having a person fill up your car is equally unnecessary.
When I was in South Africa, this wasn’t very common. I suppose you could tip them but there isn’t a very big tipping culture there.
Personally, I’ve never thought that having a designated bagger was that much faster (by themselves). Sometimes you’d see someone helping the bagger, this would be faster.
It’s not necessarily about the value they provide. Since unemployment is so high, if you can create extra jobs, the business will do it. When I left, unemployment in my province was at 50%.
It’s the same for self checkout. You could easily do it yourself but you’d lose out on potential jobs (bagger and cashier). This article is really good at showing why these systems are the way they are.
I always thought that such jobs would be best replaced with universal basic income. Maybe even not universal, and only for those who need it
There seems to be a recent initiative to introduce a universal income (read here & here) but it’s minimal.
This shows what you could get with the grant.
That's how a business works though, people do work of value which the business provides to its customers. I know nothing of the situation is SA but ordering business to lose more money doesn't seem like the way to go. I'll agree with the other comment calling for UBI.
That article wasn't helpful though, just a whole lot of people talking with too much conflict of interest.
In Australia the checkout person does the bagging themselves, no second person required.
I think people are being lazy, in a selfish, tragedy of the commons sort of way.
When standing in line, they all watch the customer stand there doing nothing as the cashier checks out items. If only they'd bag their own things, we'd all be able to get on with our lives that much sooner. Instead, they continue standing there doing nothing, as the cashier now bags their items.
Then the next person in line moves up and also just stands there, also unwilling to do anything to help speed things along.
That's even worse, like you said, selfish.
There was this one time when I got that service at an Asian store (in Europe). I guess the Asian workers just imported the practices of their home country, which is nice.
As an american who shops and walks my groceries home like a european, the self checkout is the only option for me. I must have the ability to choose where to put products to keep my bags/backpack balanced to my liking and to prevent bags from failing on my walk home. Stranglely in the us, i risk approaching the "self checkout item limit" which is definitely more social expectation than actually enforced by staff.
A more specific question for you: how often do you encounter scales on self checkouts?
We do buy bulk as well, I'd say maybe 10% actually walks them home? I guess it depends greatly on the type and location of the store.
Every store with self-checkout has them, usually there will be one scale before you actually use a register. It gives you a sticker with the weight/price barcode to scan yourself.
It's wild for me how different that peer pressure in the line is in different countries. In Spain people would even try to make you slow down and take your time when they notice how stressed you are with trying to pack everything fast 🥲 that's very considerate of them
It's true Germans are not known for being very patient and easily get annoyed when standing in line, but I may have exaggerated a bit ;)
I applaud you, sir Gigachad, on bearing the noble burden of carrying your shopping in a backpack. I've been there, and it's not very comfortable.
Great detail on your strategy, too. Though I think I'd rather avoid panicking for time to pack. It's either the leisurely self-checkouts for me, or if on the unavoidable occasion I have to directly interact with another human being, simply speedrunning IRL Tetris with the button-press sequence already etched into my mind.
Yep. Heavy and dense first, all refrigerated together, etc. I shop at WinCo mostly so I bag my own. It's very satisfying making it a super efficient process up front.
I used to work at a checkout operator, long ago.
I ALWAYS order the belt, cans and heavy stuff goes first, then usually cold/frozen stuff, veg and fruit, baking products (flour, sugar etc), then finally the light/soft stuff.
Never worked as a checkout person but that's how I do it too. Seems just common sense to me. But of course there are some baggers who don't have a clue and will put the soft stuff in one bag but then place it in the cart with something heavy on top of it.
Oh absolutely. They are arranged in the trolly before even getting to checkout too but you are querying a crowd on Lemmy that is going to be biased towards programmer / engineer types that tend to function well in their world due to compulsive features often considered pathologic by others.
You reminded me of when a partner and I entered a grocery store to buy sun screen lotion. I narrated my thoughts figuring out where it would be and found it immediately. She commented on how she'd never have found it that quickly. All I did was make logical deductions based on my knowledge of grocery stores.
Truly, people think differently. What is natural to me might be alien to another.
The only logic I can think of is to look for it in the same place where all the other lotions are located. I guess that section should be close to the toothbrush section. I wonder if deduction would actually work in my local supermarket.
I feel personally attacked. :D
Edit: also to answer the question. Yes I absolutely arrange things on the checkout belt.
I group these items: Liquids. Fridge. Cans and bottles. Fruit and veg, heavier ones first so the potatoes don't crush the berries. Frozen gear near fridge gear. Chemicals / cleaning gear separate.
I should add that I'm buying for a lot of people so the shopping trips tend to be large and there would be a full bag of most of those groupings.
First heavy and non breakables or non crushables. Then crushables the veggies then fruits.
Heavy items such as milk goes in first, so that they will also be at the bottom of my backpack. Light and fragile things, such as salad goes last.
My recommendation is to wait until you get home to make the salad. That way you’re not eating a big salad out of a backpack in the park like a crazy person.
Definitely drink milk from the bottom of your bag though, that's fine and normal.
One trick I've learned over the years is that it doesn't matter what order you pour your milk into your backpack in. It will always end up at the bottom.
Strange. I always access the milk from the top.
Check your backpack’s orientation
Just as nature intended
Of course I do, is there another way? How else would one determine packing order and avoid crushing the more delicate stuff like tomatoes and eggs under the weight of the heavier items.
Same with stuff that needs to be frozen or refrigerated. Makes it that much easier to put things away when you're back home.
I put the heaviest and least breakable things first in line so they end up at the bottom of the bag(s). Canned food, stuff in plastic bottles, then all the cold/ frozen stuff altogether, light and delicate things like bread, chips etc last
My only hard rule is refrigerated/frozen items together so I can handle that bag first when I put groceries up.
I'm a car-free city dweller, so I always put heavy stuff first so I can pack it in my backpack, lighter stuff next to fill my reusable bags, with fragile stuff last so it's packed on top.
Makes it easy to walk or bus home with everything.
We have hand scanners you can take with you through the store. I pack everything into collapsible crates as I go, so at the checkout it's just putting the scanner back and paying.
Heavy first, light last. This way the light stuff won't get squished. And we bag stuff ourselves here, we aren't that lazy.
I keep cold things or products that are identical or related together most of the time. So all the bags of chips, or all the cans, all the meats, all the frozen stuff, etc.
And I guess like the other guy, I usually stick fragile stuff on one end or the other.
The stuff at the top of the basket goes first so I can reach the stuff at the bottom?
Have you considered using one of those carts you can open from the bottom?
Not sure what you're referring to, but I'm guessing only because we don't have those here. People either bring their own cart or use a basket
Soft and fragile things on top, heavy things on the bottom, square things in the middle, circular things on the outside, cold things in one bag, non-cold-things in another bag, and anything that can't be organized in this way in a third bag.
I just scan and bag as I go in the supermarket and pay at the end. Much easier than staying in line and bagging everything at the end.
A Tesco where I lived introduced this system couple of years ago, but since they left the country entirely no other supermarket chain picked it up; not sure why, to be honest, doesn't seem much more prone to theft than regular self-checkouts.
Since I usually self check at Walmart and other places that have it, I place the big items in the cart with the bar code accessible for hand scanning without removal, frozen/refridgerated items generally together, everything else in cart doesn't really matter to me. The upper cart space (where toddlers/baby could go) is where I place my eggs, bread, and fresh veggies. Then I scan in this order: Frozen items, regular cart items, eggs/bread, weighed veggies, (bagging and putting back in the cart as i scan them) lastly use the hand scanner for the big items. Sometimes I scan the big items first if i know i need to place bags on top. Once I see that everything has been bagged and back in the cart, then I'm confident that I didn't miss anything, pay, and then GTFO. I'm an efficient self checkout machine, haha
I go to scan-while-you-shop places then strategically bag as I walk around the store. 30 seconds to pay and then leave.
Well at the Prisma I go to we just scan products into bags in the store (you have your bags open the shopping cart)
I generally go to self-scan line, so it's the order in which I bought these. When I go to a more classical line, Heavy, then cold, then light so the heavy stuff goes on the bottom of the bag, the cool stuff in the middle (where they are a bit protected) and the light things on top
Self bagging only pretty much where i live.
The cashiers at lidl are so fast it's hard to keep up.
I just stuff everything in fast as possible trying to maximise damage; this can also save on chewing time later.
But I only have to carry it as far as my bicycle - and I do sometimes need to fish out and reorganize heavy stuff at that point to keep the pain-ears vaguely balanced.
Though it is quite fun to try with 6-7 litres of liquids on one side and 2 carrots and a lettuce on the other.
If it's not too windy I'd just do that - shopping is boring.
If I was walking farther I'd take a big rucksack and yeah I'd probably pack it more systematically.
I can understand car users not bothering to organise though.
Unless you're driving 100km through the desert and think anything frozen wil melt.
What is a pain -ear
And what is a lidl
A gettin'-place
Yep to all these other people.
They nose.
Heavy stuff in the backbag (Eastpak Student style),
Others stuff in the two handbags,
i'm Urbanized.
When i lived in a rural zone, wasnt the same at all.
I am way lax. No pre-organization really at all - but most of the time I also bag them myself with my own bags. I wlll somewhat organize them during that process.
I tend to do my primary shopping at a place where you bag your own. The order is generally produce and bulk items first (it tends to be the bulk of the purchase), then frozen things, boxed/canned things, and finally squishy things like bread, eggs, and uh, delicious Hostess fruit pies.
If you have a big enough purchase, it gets pretty impossible to rearrange on the fly.
Nah not true, ive done it on £200 shops, not perfectly but enough. Take the time to think about where your putting stuff as your putting things in your basket/trolley and its easy to move a few bags of crisps to get to the bottles for example.
This is how I do it. I plan checkout as I put stuff in the cart. Heavy/hard/non-crushables at the back, squashables at the front and delicates in the baby seat. Makes loading the conveyor belt a breeze.
You need to teach me then, haha! I unload as fast as I humanly can, usually with someone else madly bagging at the other end, and quite often there's a giant line behind us anyway.
I can reach down like two layers at most before something either is knocked out of the trolley or the pile topples inside. The best I can try and do is group heavy things together a little bit. I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference.
Items in perfect order of robustness on the conveyor, but more than one bag...
I tend to shop at grocery stores where the cashiers are paid relatively decently and have their shit together (Aldi, Lidl, Costco), so I often don't have time to do more than shovel everything out of the cart top-down as quickly as possible before they're already scanning it.
Not really
Nope
Depends. Aldis, not much. Walmart I absolutely do. Self check, a little, but only use it when only have a few things.
I don't as the cashier are usually kind enough to consider that when they pack them anyway. At least I never had issues with that before.
Reverse alphabetical, duh.
Can’t have my aardvarks at the bottom of the bag.
Yes, I live a short walk from the grocery store so I normally just put everything in a large backpack to carry it home. I organize what I'm buying in the order I want them so the heavy large items are on the bottom and the fragile items on top.
Fuckin... No!
I also tell the cashier that they can stuff it any which way so they don't stress.
Not really, no.
I usually only have a backpack, so I have to make sure everything fits in that one backpack. So yea I order my stuff