Stop & Shop

On Saturday I went to the Stop & Shop store on Main St. in Winchester for some last minute baking supplies.  (I was making two large loaves of banana bread, yum!)  I decided that since:

1. I had brought my own bag
2. I did have some time to spare
3. I was feeling adventurous &
4. I love all electronic things that make me feel special and nerdy

I would try the new hand held scanners.  This is how it works....  There is a display with the scanners on it when you first enter the store.  The first step is to scan your stop&shop card.  The machine then decides which scanner you should use and notifies you by flashing a light on/or behind the scanner.  Then, you are on your own!  (But first you should grab some bags if you didn't bring any with you.)  You scan items as you grab them and place them in your bags.  When you have completed shopping you report to a self checkout line.  You scan a special barcode on the self-checkout station with your scanner.  You follow this up by scanning your stop&shop card again.  (Don't worry - there are directions at the beginning and end to help you along).  You can then use the payment method of your choice.  Once you are checked out you are done!  I do believe they randomly select some customers to audit though. 

Overall, there were ups and downs with this system.  

Pros:

Fun

Entertaining

Bag yourself (that's a pro for me, but maybe a con for others)

Know how much you have spent

Cons:

Takes more time

Feels like more work than grocery shopping typically is

Bagging while you go is a little bit difficult

Bottom line: this is probably not very efficient when you are doing a large grocery shopping trip but, it was fun and practical for my smaller trip.  I must say that I am very picky about how my groceries are bagged (especially my bananas!), so I was glad to be able to do it myself.  Sometimes when I use traditional means of checking out, I wish the bagger would step aside and let me bag.  I did, after all, work at a Shaws for 2 weeks in High School. :)