This morning I stopped by the local Super Walmart to pick up a few things, and like always, I wandered around a little. I found a nice cover for the new Acer A500 Iconia Tab I bought several months ago. So I picked it up along the stuff I really came for and headed to the checkout.
The Tablet Cover has four different barcodes on the back, none of which were in the store's computer checkout system. So they were completely flummoxed. Rather than ask for a price check, or call a manager, the cashier asked if I remembered the price and was willing to take whatever I said as the truth and enter it manually. Of course I thought about saying $5.98 or anything other than what I thought I remembered as $39. But I didn't. I just said I thought I remembered $39, so she entered it and was willing to move along. But then I balked. What if I wasn't remembering correctly? I had looked at a lot of stuff. What if it was only $29 - then I'd be the one out of the money.
However, no one wanted to walk way to the back of the store to price verify this thing, including the 'manager' who came over to help. The goal seemed to be to get me through the checkout line, no matter if it cost me or the company to do it. So I asked to have the item removed from the list (she had already entered the $39 price). Well, that took a manager's override too, so again I waited.
After the purchase - without the Tablet Cover - I put the stuff in my car and went BACK into the store for the cover. I had the time, and I wanted the cover, but I wanted it all be on the up-and-up. So I hiked to the back of the store (the most exercise of the day so far) and found the covers again. They were $39.99. I took one and headed for the checkout lanes, and chose the Self Checkout. Again, the item wouldn't scan, and I needed assistance. This time it took even longer, involved a cashier and manager, and this time the manager made the trip to the back of the store to look at the item. She came back and tried more things on the checkout, but it still wouldn't register correctly. At this point, all the waiting around totaled about 40 minutes for me.
So I was wondering if the new RFID systems being touted would have helped. As I picked up the item and put it in the cart, it would have been scanned or not, and I would have had to deal with the issue right then and there rather than at the checkout. But this addition of tech probably wouldn't have helped.
First, I didn't use a cart. I only had a few things and I carried them. Second, there was no one in the section of the store where the Tablet Covers were located, so even if it hadn't RFID scanned correctly, there wasn't anyone around to help, and I would have had to wait until someone did come around, or once again head to the checkouts and deal with it all over again.
Nope, can't think of a way tech could have helped with this issue, because the main tech that should have worked, the barcode system, had failed at the start - the store's computers didn't know about the physical product in the store.
