Wired News:: "By Nicole Martinelli | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Mar, 01, 2006 EST
Nicole Martinelli
If you've ever tried to stand in line in Italy, you'll understand why self-service scanning at supermarkets has taken off.
Something in the Italian character simply refuses to stand in an orderly fashion and wait. Women in fur coats park baskets near the checkout, disappear, come back and add items, and when they are done, cut in with the banshee wail: 'I am in line!' For dignity's sake, one must swiftly elbow her out and hope a carabiniere husband isn't waiting in the parking lot.
Hence the appeal of quick, orderly DIY checkouts. Self-scanners have long been called the next big thing in supermarkets, but perhaps because of the hellish line situation, Inferno-familiar Italians were quick to adopt them. A Tuscan-based chain started experimenting in 1998, and two out of three supermarkets in my neighborhood in Milan had self-scanning programs before I decided to give them a try.
Datalogic, provider of these doohickeys for four supermarket chains in Italy, did a case study (.pdf) about the launch calling it a 'revolution,' noting that shoppers found using scanners 'fun' and that they waited, at most, five minutes at the checkout.
I didn't see the appeal, at first. To scan-shop, you must belong to store-loyalty programs and, frankly, I have enough commitment issues without having to be faithful to a supermarket in exchange for a cheerful ceramic spaghetti doser. And, while my elbowing skills have improved the longer I've stayed in Italy, I'm a freelancer and can forage for provisions after a providential late-morning cappuccino or before The Simpsons come on at 2:30 p.m. weekdays.
Then, last week, the 'friendly shopping pass' (Spesamica Pass) scanner program hit the supermarket downstairs. A line of spry octogenarians signing up, spurred on by young, pretty women explaining the gizmos, made it clear that shopping at odd times soon "
