Just one blog post ago I said how sometimes I can appreciate some mobile based applications like the daily paper. Sometimes I am quite content with the old fashion ways like the Sunday paper. Today I tried a new phone app and I might not ever go back to my previous routine. Today I shopped, scanned, and bagged my way through the grocery store.

Ok, I know some of you are already saying that you don’t even want to use the self-checkout. “If I wanted to check out groceries I would have gotten a job at the grocery store!” and “I don’t see anybody giving out discounts for doing their job!” are just a couple of the reasons I’ve heard people give for not embracing self-checkout. Sometimes while in line for self-checkout. And that’s fine. As far as I know, no store has demanded that you have to check yourself out. At least not ones with a brick and mortar presence. They still have cashiers manning the scanner and till and you are welcome to use those lanes if you want somebody else to do the hard work.

I sometimes had problems with self-checkout at the grocery store. Often it was because of a person attempting to use the self-checkout who had difficulty completing the basic “pass bar code over scanner, put on belt or in bag” motion. Rarely was it the technology itself although the express, 12 items or less, self-checkout registers never understood that I wanted to use my own bag even though they gave me that option at the start of the process. A human was always able to provide some intervention and I moved right along.

The “Scan, Pay, and Go” option as my local market has dubbed the service, cuts the most annoying of the limitations of the self-checkout and still gives me the opportunity to shop in non-contact bliss. The process is simple. You download an app to your smart phone or use a provided hand held scanner. Instead of just placing an item into your cart, you scan the product’s bar code and put it into bag in your cart. And you continue through the store completing your shopping list like so. For security reasons you don’t put any payment information into the app and you pay at the end of the shopping experience. At the checkout area you proceed to an area just for the “Scan, Pay, and Go” crowd and scan the bar code on to the checkout stand which retrieves your order. You are given the option to redeem coupons and select payment method, then off you go.

It might not be for everybody. Some people might want even more automation. But for an old guy like me, it’s nice to have done something relevant to the 21st century. Finally.

I can’t wait till next week’s shipping trip.