Are German supermarkets strict with customers and kind to staff?!

This is a nostalgic story from my time studying abroad in Germany. On my first day, I headed to the supermarket to pick up some daily necessities. What surprised me most was the checkout. This time, I'll talk about the checkout counters at German supermarkets.

German supermarket checkouts have conveyor belts!

Almost every supermarket checkout has a conveyor belt.

While waiting in the checkout line, we take our items out of our baskets ourselves and place them on the conveyor belt.

There is also a system in place to ensure your items don't get mixed up with the customers in front of or behind you.

Once you've finished placing your items, you are supposed to place a divider.

I didn't know this at first, so when I was placing my items without a second thought, a local German's arm reached out from behind me and placed a plastic triangular prism down with a thud. (Yikes!)

Usually, plastic dividers are lined up on the edge of the conveyor belt.

Eco-bags are essential at German supermarkets

In Germany, which is said to have high environmental awareness (is that true?), there are, of course, no plastic bags at supermarkets. Even if you pay, they won't give you a plastic bag... If you don't have an eco-bag, you'll end up having to carry your items home in your arms. (I've experienced this.)

Each supermarket sells its own original eco-bags with their logo printed in large letters. There is usually a space under the conveyor belt where these eco-bags are stacked. If you forget yours, you can take one from there and purchase it. Back in 2019, I think it was about 2 euros... my memory is a bit fuzzy.

Customers are in a huge rush at German supermarkets

You have to quickly pack the items that have been scanned into the eco-bag you brought. Unlike in Japan in the past, they don't carefully pack your bags for you. On the contrary, they scan the barcodes at lightning speed and then leave you to it.

In Japan, if it gets busy, the staff has to scramble, but in Germany, if the customers don't scramble, the next checkout process starts before you've finished packing your bag! (Crying)

When I bought a lot, I would put everything in the cart first and then hurriedly pack them into my bag at the back of the store.

There aren't any 'tables for packing items from baskets into plastic bags' like you find in Japanese supermarkets, so it's best to put them in your bag as part of the checkout flow, though!

I had a good laugh at a YouTube video of the world's fastest checkout at the major German supermarket 'LIDL'. Please take a look.

Staff sit down at German supermarkets

At German supermarkets, the staff sit while they work the register. I'm quite envious, so why don't we adopt this in Japan too?

Now that I've become accustomed to going to supermarkets, restaurants, and general stores, I've come to feel that the equal human relationship between staff and customers is very pleasant.

Since there is no custom of bowing, it goes without saying that staff never bow.

You also rarely hear words of apology.

The words always exchanged at checkout are

"Hallo." (Hello) "Danke schön." (Thank you)

"Bitte schön." (You're welcome) "Tschüss." (Bye)

I wondered how many times a day I bowed and said "I am very sorry" when I worked part-time in Japan.

For example, if a "customer" asked, "Is this item out of stock?", the response would be something like, "I am very sorry. We are currently out of stock..." In Germany, I think it would just end with, "Ah, we don't have it right now."

Summary

I think both Japanese and German customer service attitudes have their pros and cons, but as a worker, I felt that working in the service industry in Germany is many times more relaxed.

There are some staff members who are absorbed in chatting with their colleagues, but it's not something to get angry about. I love that there are greetings always exchanged and that the staff are sitting down!

The Japanese spirit of hospitality is wonderful, and I also like the beautiful honorific language. I learned a lot from my experience working part-time in the service industry, and there were seniors whose work ethic I respected.

However, I also had many experiences where I bowed unnecessarily. At those times, I felt like something inside me was shriveling up, and I felt quite miserable.

I thought it would be great if we could have customer service that takes the best of both Germany and Japan!