Concerns over till changes at Eastbourne Sainsbury's

Paul Jordan said he was told by the manager of the Beacon branch of Sainsbury’s that the store will soon have just three staffed checkout desks as there will be more self-service checkouts.

Currently the store has 12 self-service checkouts for basket-sized shops, six staffed trolley checkouts and five staffed basket checkouts.

Mr Jordan said, “What concerns me is that many residents in the town, myself included, prefer to use the manned cash desks and that despite assurances by managers, I feel that the remaining ones won’t always be staffed adequately .

“I was told that there will be more staff available to help with self-scanning but my experience is that you often have to wait for assistance while the staff are dealing with other customers. If they are going to have more staff to help on the self-service, why don’t they deploy them on the checkout desks?

“My other concern is that this is simply a job cutting exercise and potentially staff could lose their jobs.”

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said, “We regularly review the services available in our stores to make sure we offer the most convenient experience to our customers.

“This summer we will slightly increase the number of self-service checkouts at our Eastbourne Superstore so that we can meet customer demand for this service. Our colleagues are on hand to help anyone who may need support using them and we continue to offer manned checkouts for our customers who wish to use them.”

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