Grocery stores are usually organized and created with the customer’s convenience in mind. After all, the more satisfied customers are, the more sales an establishment can get. Companies usually spend time, effort, and money, to comprehend the psychology and habits of their clients so they can create the best environment where everything can be made easy for them.
Today’s grocery stores utilize a counter-clockwise design, where you enter the store on the right and exit on the left. In the middle of these doors is the entire store where products are placed, with the essentials towards the back of the store. We think this placement is because you’ll end up picking non-essentials along the way, which adds more sales.
Another new addition to modern stores is those self-checkout lines. Essentially, these are cashiers, where customers can check out their own items using the machine provided. These devices were installed to save the cost of labor. However, it seems to not be geared toward customers.
In a 2021 survey, almost 67% of shoppers had failed during the checkout process at a self-checkout counter. Aside from that, there could also be health risks in opting for purchasing your goods in these places.
Research done by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine discovered that self-checkout stations contained five types of disease-causing bacteria, with one of them commonly present in human waste (Enterococcus). Make sure to wash your hands properly after using one if you need to!
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I never really put mind to this, but I will note that the grocery store I go to does regularly clean their belts between customers. I'll keep safer going to old fashion route.