 | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(October 2012) |
Bagger, packer, sacker or bag boy (US) [1] is an unofficial title given to a courtesy clerk at a grocery store. [2]
| The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(October 2012) |
Bagger, packer, sacker or bag boy (US) [1] is an unofficial title given to a courtesy clerk at a grocery store. [2]
The primary duties of a bagger revolve around putting groceries into a shopping bag [3] [1] and then into a shopping cart. Upon requests, baggers may take the groceries out to a customer's motor vehicle or supply other forms of service. [4] Some baggers in stores will do this unless the customer refuses and wishes to bring their own groceries out. Depending on store policy, it may be customary to tip a courtesy clerk for this service. [5]
Depending on the store, other duties may include cleaning the store, cleaning the bathrooms, collecting carts, sweeping the store, fixing and maintaining the bottle recycling machines, giving customer assistance, putting back items left behind, and reorganizing products on aisles to make a neater appearance (commonly called "breaking down", "blocking", "facing", or "conditioning"). Some courtesy clerks can perform maintenance in the stores, such as minor plumbing, electrical, landscaping, child care, elderly assistance, and many more jobs. [6] The duties vary vastly depending on the store and union regulations, and some of the previous duties, in fact, are actually prohibited from being done at some stores by a courtesy clerk due to union contracts.
The title of bagger is the result of an extensive evolution of the position of courtesy clerk. The title bag boy was adopted for some time, until it was finally shortened to bagger.
The position of baggers is particularly widespread in grocery stores in the United States. There are volunteer baggers in Mexico who primarily offer services for tips. [7]
Other countries never adopted this service. There are no baggers in Norway. [8] In Germany, self-service is standard [9] and shopping carts are also used to load one’s vehicle oneself, without necessarily transferring goods to a bag first, with the American branch of Aldi also utilizing this type of non-bagging service to reduce overall store costs (though bags are sold in stores to account for customers loading their own bags in the dedicated bagging section in front of the store after checkout).
Convenience stores usually do not employ baggers. The customer frequency is too low. Instead, cashiers may perform the duties of a bagger (provided the purchase volume is significant enough). In territories prohibiting alcohol consumption in public, liquor stores bag individual bottles at the checkout.
A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market. In everyday United States usage, however, "grocery store" is often used to mean "supermarket".
A shopping cart, trolley, or buggy, also known by a variety of other names, is a wheeled cart supplied by a shop or store, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the premises for transport of merchandise as they move around the premises, while shopping, prior to heading to the checkout counter, cashiers or tills. Increasing the amount of goods a shopper can collect increases the quantities they are likely to purchase in a single trip, boosting store profitability.
Shoplifting, shop theft, retail theft, or retail fraud is the theft of goods from a retail establishment during business hours, typically by concealing a store item on one's person, in pockets, under clothes or in a bag, and leaving the store without paying. With clothing, shoplifters may put on items from the store and leave the store wearing the clothes. The terms shoplifting and shoplifter are not usually defined in law. The crime of shoplifting generally falls under the legal classification of larceny. Shoplifting is distinct from burglary, robbery, or armed robbery. In the retail industry, the word shrinkage can be used to refer to merchandise lost by shoplifting, but the word also includes loss by other means, such as waste, uninsured damage to products and theft by store employees.
Pak'nSave is a New Zealand discount food supermarket warehouse chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative. It is one of the three main supermarket chains in New Zealand, alongside Woolworths New Zealand and New World. There is a total of 58 Pak'nSave stores throughout the country.
A grocery store (AE), grocery shop (BE) or simply grocery is a foodservice retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. In the UK, shops that sell food are distinguished as grocers or grocery shops (though in everyday use, people usually use either the term "supermarket" or a "corner shop".
Atlantic Superstore is a Canadian supermarket chain. The chain operates 54 stores in the Maritimes of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. It is owned by George Weston Limited through Loblaw Companies Limited, and operates under the Atlantic Wholesalers division of Loblaws.
Clarence Saunders was an American grocer who first developed the modern retail sales model of self service. His ideas have had a massive influence on the development of the modern supermarket. Saunders worked for most of his life trying to develop a truly automated store, developing Piggly Wiggly, Keedoozle, and Foodelectric store concepts.
Shop ’n Save was a grocery store chain in the Greater St. Louis market with 36 stores at its peak. The company, headquartered in Kirkwood, Missouri, was a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Plastic shopping bags, carrier bags, or plastic grocery bags are a type of plastic bag used as shopping bags and made from various kinds of plastic. In use by consumers worldwide since the 1960s, these bags are sometimes called single-use bags, referring to carrying items from a store to a home. However, it is rare for bags to be worn out after single use and in the past some retailers incentivised customers to reuse 'single use' bags by offering loyalty points to those doing so. Even after they are no longer used for shopping, reuse of these bags for storage or trash is common, and modern plastic shopping bags are increasingly recyclable or compostable - at the Co-op for example. In recent decades, numerous countries have introduced legislation restricting the provision of plastic bags, in a bid to reduce littering and plastic pollution.
No Frills is a Canadian chain of discount supermarkets, owned by Loblaw Companies Limited, a subsidiary of George Weston Limited. There are over 200 franchise stores located in nine Canadian provinces.
Self-checkouts (SCOs), also known as assisted checkouts (ACOs) or self-service checkouts, are machines that provide a mechanism for customers to complete their own transaction from a retailer without needing a traditional staffed checkout. When using SCOs, customers scan item barcodes before paying for their total shop without needing one-to-one staff assistance. Self-checkouts are used mainly in supermarkets, although they are not uncommon in department or convenience stores. Most self-checkout areas are supervised by at least one staff member, often assisting customers process transactions, correcting prices, or otherwise providing service.
Woolworths Supermarkets is an Australian chain of supermarkets and grocery stores owned by Woolworths Group. Founded in 1924, Woolworths today is Australia's biggest supermarket chain with a market share of 33% as of 2019.
An online grocer is a supermarket or grocery store that allows ordering via websites or mobile apps. The order can either be collected by the customer or delivered to the customer by drivers engaged by the grocer, a food delivery service, or by delivery drones and robots.
Amazon Fresh is a subsidiary of the American e-commerce company Amazon in Seattle, Washington. It is a grocery retailer with physical stores and delivery services in most major U.S. cities, as well as some international cities, such as Berlin, Hamburg, London, Milan, Munich, Rome, Tokyo, and some other locations in Singapore and India.
A reusable shopping bag, sometimes called a bag for life in the UK, is a type of shopping bag which can be reused many times, in contrast to single-use paper or plastic shopping bags. It is often a tote bag made from fabric such as canvas, natural fibres such as jute, woven synthetic fibers, or a thick plastic that is more durable than disposable plastic bags, allowing multiple use. Other shoppers may use a string bag or a wheeled trolley bag. They are often sold in supermarkets and apparel shops.
A retail clerk, also known as a sales clerk, shop clerk, retail associate, or shop assistant, sales assistant or customer service assistant, is a service role in a retail business.
Ruler Foods, Inc. is a discount warehouse store grocery chain in the United States, currently owned by Kroger, and headquartered in Seymour, Indiana. It is a no-frills grocery store where 80% of the offerings are Kroger Brand, the customers bag their own groceries at the checkout, and rent shopping carts for 25 cents. Kroger operates Ruler Foods stores in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.
Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, is an American delivery company based in San Francisco that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada accessible via a website and mobile app. It allows customers to order groceries from participating retailers with the shopping being done by a personal shopper. The company also provides alcohol delivery in states and provinces where it is allowed. It has partnerships with 1,400 retail banners comprising 80,000 stores. In 2022, it fulfilled 262.6 million orders with a total transaction value of $28.8 billion and an average transaction value of $110.
Proposition 67 was a California ballot proposition on the November 8, 2016 ballot. A "Yes" vote was to approve, and a "No" vote to reject, a statute that prohibits grocery and other stores from providing customers single–use plastic or paper carryout bags but permits the sale of recycled paper bags and reusable bags for a fee.
Amazon Go is a chain of convenience stores in the United States and the United Kingdom, operated by the online retailer Amazon. The stores are cashierless, thus partially automated, with customers having the ability to purchase products without being checked out by a cashier or using a self-checkout station. As of 2023, there are 43 open and announced store locations in Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, London and New York City.
You have to bag your own groceries. Norwegians are very self-sufficient and extremely practical. Why would you pay someone to bag your groceries when you can do it yourself?
