Review: Self Checkout at a Family Mart

I’ve never in my life used self checkout for any shop. If there wasn’t a human line, I just picked another shop. If there wasn’t another shop, I just moved on

Today I went to a “convenience” store at 5:30am and was alone, the only customer. I think there was a combini dude in the back. Only self checkout was an option. And I was using some app points to pay.

I decided to do it myself, reading the screen instructions in Japanese. I did it. It took about 10 minutes of wrong screens and juggling my basket of stuff, my iPhone, an umbrella, and an empty coffee cup and plastic lid so I could self-fill a cup of takeout coffee in addition to my filled shopping bag of bought stuff.

I dropped the coffee lid on the floor. I also dropped the 3 yen plastic shopping bag (correctly added to my order through the right “bag option screen”).

I used a code reading gun to ring up my items, before realizing there is also a glass screen I can hold items up to for reading. There were beeps, and items seemed to be adding correctly to a lit screen shopping list.

I found the right screen for paying with the specific app I have points on. I aimed the app’s bar code at a thing that looked like a sensor and it beeped. The machine squirted out a paper receipt that said I paid. My money total on my app screen on the iPhone was deducted from. Good!

I took my paper receipt just in case a John Q Public later tried to jump me for being a shoplifting foreigner. You really never know.

I moved to the coffee machine, to self make and fill. Via numerous Japanese screens, I directed the right size and grind of coffee. Then added two plastic “milks” and capped the coffee for carrying. I then self bagged all my goods, once I found an unused copying machine to place my shopping basket on while I stuffed.

Somehow I dropped nothing more on the floor.

I will never use self checkout again.