Last week I begrudgingly used the self checkout at my local Fry’s grocery store. It was a struggle and while walking home (with my reusable Love Bags) I wondered how we got to the point where we have to find our own stuff, push it to the front of the store, ring it up ourselves and bag it.

This is the abbreviated story of the evolution of retail from dry goods to self checkout.

Before the late 19th century, in most cases, retail goods did not have a fixed price, and customers were expected to bargain. In the 1870s, Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia and Macy’s in New York began affixing physical price tags to items, eliminating haggling. This allowed shorter training time for new clerks and allowed clerks to serve more customers. It wasn’t long before it became standard practice in retail. putting price tags on goods allowed the next change.

In the nineteenth century even large stores kept goods behind a counter, requiring clerks to fetch items for customers. I wasn’t able to find out what retailer was the first to allow customers to serve themselves without a clerk present. But for sure in 1916 Piggly Wiggly was the first grocery store to become self-service. This move to self service both made it necessary to have price tags and was made possible by them. Price tags soon became commonplace in Western retail stores, and haggling rare outside of proprietors and individuals selling used items.

There are still some places that operate with clerk service and they feel old-fashioned. Sees Candy, shoe stores and your local bakery come to mind. But the vast majority of retail sales are now made via self service. And every year more of the sales are also self checkout or online.

People voted with their dollars for each of these changes because they lowered costs and made the process both more efficient and more transparent. The down side is that there are a lot less human interactions involved in the new retail. Change is……

Warm Tip: When I’m at the self checkout I don’t bother with the look up the function. I just shout out so the attendant can hear “What is the code for bananas?” It works every time.

Book recommendation: The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley