Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Buying Groceries In France...On Your Honor

This time of year, the grocery shops are full and long check out lines await....
But not in France !!
In the south of France, I discovered the largest grocery shop I have ever seen...
So many aisles of yogurt...how would I ever decide??
But the part that really caught my eye....was their honor system

When you arrive at the shop...
you can choose to slide your credit card through a machine...
Select the hand held scanner that lights up...scan each item as you place in your cart....
When finished shopping, ...
Bag your own groceries...
Slide your card once again to say you have finished...
And go to your car !!!

No long check out lines !!!


To keep everyone on their toes ... there are random checks to be certain you scan all the items ;-)

Oh, how I wish my Atlanta shop would copy this system

5 comments:

  1. Amazing! I was not familiar with this concept. I don't think Americans would "honor" it! LOL!

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  2. Actually I've been to two stores - an Ikea in Sacramento, CA and a Safeway in Marin County - that have this system. It seems to work relatively well except when one of the machines gets grumpy. Then it can be a long wait.
    But I do like the system.

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  3. Pat, I am happy to know the system may catch on here. Ikea, I can see...but happy to know Safeway is willing to try and trust!!
    Thanks for giving me hope.

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  4. So cool, we found this also in Italy, when shopping in a smaller market town, Sansepolcro. I had no idea what it was....
    What a clever way!

    xx Victoria

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  5. What a great system! I think when people use the honor system it usually brings out the best in them.
    We live in a small town and people will leave farm stands with fresh tomatoes, peaches, etc. and leave a bucket for payment - pretty neat, I think.

    I have passed on a blog award to you - see my post today. If you would like to post and pass it along, please do. If not, no problem! Happy New Year and I will look for you at Marburger this spring.

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