Citizen Printer

What are the ethical issues faced with a self service point of sale checkout within a supermarket?

This is to be realated with Information Technology or Information Process and Technology. This is to do with the introduction of a new information system within a supermarket and how a self service checkout will improve the superseeded operations used prior to the new system. Hope I've given you all the details you need. Thank you.

Public Comments

1. Supermarkets usually offer products at low prices by reducing their economic margins. Certain products (typically staple foods such as bread, milk and sugar) are frequently sold as loss leaders, that is, with negative profit margins. To maintain a profit, supermarkets attempt to make up for the lower margins by a higher overall volume of sales, and with the sale of higher-margin items. Customers usually shop by placing their selected merchandise into shopping carts (trolleys) or baskets (self-service) and pay for the merchandise at the check-out. At present, many supermarket chains are attempting to further reduce labor costs by shifting to self-service check-out machines, where a single employee can oversee a group of four or five machines at once, assisting multiple customers at a time