Grocery self-service is an old, but new, concept

The checkout lines spill into the grocery store aisles, and you suddenly regret swinging by to pick up dinner. But hey, wait! You can use the self-checkout line. Only, as you scan the goods, the checkout system starts arguing with you. Rescan this, place that here, and so on and so forth. Who thought self-checkout was a good idea?

Self-service grocery stores, in general, are a relatively new concept. Go back to the turn of the 20th century, and you’d tell the clerks what you needed, and they’d retrieve it for you.

Then, in 1916, Clarence Saunders implemented a radical change, launching a self-service grocery store in Memphis called Piggly Wiggly, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Instead of clerks fetching goods, customers put in the work themselves. This model eventually became the modern standard.

Of course, self-service fetching was just the first step. In the 1980s, David Humble, the president of an electronics company, came up with a novel idea while stuck in a long grocery store line: Why not let customers do the scanning? In 1984, the first automated checkout machine (ACM), the CheckRobot, was introduced. This early machine was massive, like those clunky airport luggage scanners.

The technology did what technology does: It advanced. In the 1990s, Howard Schneider introduced streamlined systems resembling modern ACMs. Now, most Walmart and Kroger stores offer ACMs. Walmart is even piloting Super Centers that offer only self-checkout. Meanwhile, Amazon and others have been testing stores that lack checkout lanes entirely. You can simply grab your goods at an Amazon Go store and walk out the door. Of course, nothing comes for free, and the stores will automatically track, report, and charge you for what you select.