Unstaffed stores have become more and more popular in Japan recently, with everything from clothes to gyoza now available at any time of the day or night.
Those looking for a Japanese bento or side dish can stop by a well-known chain called Origin Delica, which has an unstaffed store in Tokyo’s Nishi-Asakusa district. Our reporter Seiji Nakazawa, who’d never visited an unmanned store before, popped in one evening to try it out, and when he stepped inside, he couldn’t quite believe that it was unsupervised, albeit with staff hidden out the back, who can be called on if help is needed.

The shelves were stocked with a wide variety of ready-made meals and side dishes, as you’d expect at a regular branch of Origin, but without any staff to be seen, Seiji felt as if he was a character in a video game or some sort of sci-fi world.
▼ Let’s do some business then.

It wasn’t just the look of the store that seemed dystopian but the sound too, because for some reason an alarm kept ringing in the background. Turning around to see where the noise might be coming from, Seiji realized it was emanating from one of the cashless registers.

There were three cash registers inside the store, and the one blaring incessantly was in front of a kitchen where staff prepare food. However, nobody seemed to be around to deal with the alarm, putting Seiji on edge.
Peering over at the register that was making the noise, it seemed to be stuck on the payment screen, showing an amount of 478 yen and the message “If an error occurs, please notify the nearest staff member” in red.

He couldn’t see anybody to call out to, so after picking out his dishes, he took them up to the second cash register, and as he did he saw there were plastic bags available for three yen each.
▼ Seiji couldn’t help but wonder how many customers have taken a bag from here, thinking they might be free.

As this was Seiji’s first time at an unstaffed store, he proceeded carefully to make sure everything he did was above board, scanning each item with an intense level of concentration.


His concentration was soon interrupted as the customer next to him, who was using the third cash register, ran into a problem when they couldn’t progress past the payment screen.
This meant that Seiji’s register was the last one left standing, so he breathed a sigh of relief as he tapped the “proceed to payment” screen…

▼ …but now he was the one in trouble.

A message popped up that read: “The change is near empty. Please replenish change.”

“What the heck?”, thought Seiji, who’d never encountered such bad customer service in all his life. Not only was the store filled with the sound of a blaring alarm, all its cash registers were now out of order.
Desperate to get out of there, Seiji called out towards the back of the store in the hopes that somebody would come out to help him. Eventually, somebody did appear, but they looked just as scared and confused as Seiji.
Thankfully, after assessing the situation the staff member was able to solve the problem, refilling change and resetting the first register, whose alarm seemed to have been activated when a customer forgot to retrieve their credit card.
So in the end, Seiji’s first visit to an unstaffed store turned out to be less than wonderful, but no less memorable, as he was left slightly scarred by the experience. He’d always thought the main problem with unstaffed stores would be shoplifting, but now he realizes there’s so much more that can go wrong when we rely solely on technology in a sales environment.
It may still be too early for humans to pull off completely unstaffed stores without a hitch, so until they improve, he’s happy to continue shopping at his supermarket with its self-checkout carts instead.
Photos ©SoraNews24
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- How to use Japan’s new self-checkout supermarket carts
-- Japanese confectionary chain Chateraise opens first 24-hour branch with self-checkout
-- Floating hologram registers coming to Japanese convenience stores【Video】
- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2023/11/17/chaos-at-unstaffed-japanese-bento-shop-shows-pitfalls-of-technology/
26 Comments
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factchecker
Thanks, I'll know to avoid this dump.
MarkX
Chaos, really! Seems a bit over the top. If a customer forgot their credit card in the machine, that is not the shops fault. No idea why the other customer's machine had a problem, but this story seems to want to criticize these ustaffed shops.
Haaa Nemui
I can see unstaffed shops having issues if a whole lot of them happen at once, but overall I agree with you. The part about people taking bags without paying emphasizes that for me especially as there is zero evidence it happened. While a possible negative, it does look like just trying to find things to complain about.
Mr Kipling
First they are not unstaffed as the article states, the staff are behind the scenes if needed.
Second, chaos? The writer has obviously had a very sheltered life.
virusrex
Staff are there to provide a service, "unstaffed" stores are trying to get away with not giving that service, which could be justified by putting forward a system where that service is unnecessary AND the prices reflect the what the customers are not getting.
The story shows an example where this is not the case, and at least in Japan (with the very high standard of service) it is not going to last much.
Harry_Gatto
No different from using the self checkout at the supermarket which I do regularly. Supermarkets however always have a staff member supervising 10 or more machines to help if necessary. Most problems are customer generated except for the occasional unreadable barcode. Welcome to the future where prices are adjusted slightly upwards to take account of the losses to shoplifting.
Redemption
Seems like a lose lose situation. The register is your only interaction with your customer, better get it right. I see elderly customers frequently having trouble at self checkouts.
GBR48
Companies are trying to get customers to do more work themselves, so they can save cash on staff wages and increase their profits. Local councils are doing the same.
Thankfully, some places are bringing back carbon-based life forms.
Booths supermarket puts staff back behind its tills. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67373472
tamanegi
Excellent post GBR48. I heard about that situation in the UK too.
In Australia self serve supermarkets and stores are moaning about the increase in shoplifting since the introduction of such systems. They lose more in stock in a week than what they would pay staff to serve and watch customers. Duh!
kohakuebisu
Well, if people stealing a 3 yen bag is a problem in swanky Nishi Azabu, god help the rest of the country.
I hope the store in the story with the unresolved "call staff" problems has someone in the back sitting firmly on their backside. Preferably a retiree topping up their pension, albeit at 1000 yen an hour.
リッチ
Hate touch screens. They are filthy and never washed. Japan learned very little in covid (Japanese term corona) the new super market near my place (Daie) is also self checkout but prices are same or more than Life which is staffed. For this article the place looks like a mess like many places here. Self service cleanup also means no cleaning of the table or shelves. Japan used to be the cleanest country unfortunately now it’s filthy and often lacks customer service focus at these self service establishments.
tora
Just get rid of plastic bags entirely. And replace with paper bags (and for FREE by the way). End of confusion, and best for the environment.
falseflagsteve
Why is this bloke having an extreme panic attack in the shop. Just walk out if you don’t like it.
Sven Asai
That's completely normal, because all thoughts go into firing the real people, installing those automated sale points and hoping for big and easy profits at lowest possible costs. Not one brain cell -if any are involved- is wasted for that it at least also reliably works technically and free of chaotic unforeseen errors.
Norm
I’ll agree with the posters above that it wasn’t “chaos,” but imagine yourself in the same situation.: You saunter into a shop and expect to pick up a few things and then stroll out and be on your merry way.
But, things hit not one but two (or more) snags. Yeah, it’s not chaos but it’s not what you expect in Japan.
I still prefer having a person — in view — who can assist if needed. I’m an old-fashioned type, you see, and I’ll definitely pay the same prices (no discounts for your inconvenience) for a better experience.
RonJB
Not the case in my experience. There are also the frequent problems when the weight doesn't quite match what has been coded or the discount on the shelf hasn't been updated for the registers, and recently I had to wait two minutes for a coin, while the machine rattled and whirred (with the attendant watching on) looking for the coin. A local store has four "cash or card" machines, three of which are regularly adorned with a sign saying "card only".
falseflagsteve
Well, I’m not keen on all this automation lark you see. I want to be served by a person not do the job myself on a machine, I think it’s a bloody cheek actually.
Harry_Gatto
So you never shop in a supermarket where you select your chosen items from the shelf, put them in your trolley or basket yourself and push said trolley to the register? Where increasingly, you have a choice of using a self-service checkout or joining the long line for the attended register?
falseflagsteve
Harry
This place isn’t a supermarket, your comment is off top and irrelevant to my comment. Supermarkets have floor staff to assist people if needed and I don’t use self service checkout, I despise them, they are annoying, time consuming and encourage theft by evildoers.
kuroneko
Nishi-Asakusa and Nishi-Azabu are worlds apart.
BackpackingNepal
I'd rather use the machine than to get bad customer service from the discriminated staff.
Desert Tortoise
Costco and Wally World are both removing self check out. Reason? Primarily because they experience too much "shrink", meaning losses, but also due to the customer service problems with grumpy self check out stations described in the article.
opheliajadefeldt
How long will it be before they ask customers to stack the shelves to? The supermarket I use in the UK has self service registers and there is always a staff member there to help if required, and the tills have voices too. I very often get the voice on mine saying to ask for a staff member for help, but I just ignore it and carry on and it still works.
Desert Tortoise
I used to deliver frozen foods for a Japanese company, Konoike Pacific or "KPAC", out of their distribution center in Carson CA. Your comment reminded of one big grocery store chain warehouse I delivered a load to where their dock manager wanted me to take the freight across his warehouse, pallet by pallet using a hand jack, into their refrigerators. The guy got mad at me because our company told us to leave the freight on the dock, their job to put it away. I dropped my freight on their dock while the a-hole fumed and left. The grocery business is hard nosed and they treat workers like dirt.