The Associated Press News reported on an interesting poll this week showing that 70% of people prefer a hybrid store that allows you to choose between self-checkout and traditional human-operated cash registers.

Personally, I found this outcome a little surprising. I was even more surprised to see that only 13% preferred fully autonomous stores. Maybe not that surprising if you consider the fact that only 3% have actually shopped in one. 

Given that more and more supermarkets and stores are starting to install these self-checkout kiosks, I became a little worried. I will begin with a bold (no pun) statement: For supermarkets, I think self-checkouts are not that great. The way I see it, they don’t make matters better, they actually make matters worse.

Why?