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To be honest, I prefer to use an automated checkout. With a cashier, I'm always stressed because I have to put the items in the bag as quickly as they scan them, to avoid delaying the queue and wasting the cashier's time. In the automated checkout however, I can take my time to organise the bag and pay when I'm ready.

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It depends on the automated checkout. In the Washington, D.C. area (U.S.), Giant Foods installed automated checkouts that are the same "length" as a regular checkout. You scan your items, put them on the belt, and they go to the bagging area at the end -- you can't bag them as you scan them. Once you're done, you're rushing to bag items as someone else decides to start scanning their items and send them down the belt, mingling with your items.

At Harris Teeter, on the other hand, you scanned an item and put it in the bag. You could load the bag as you wished.

Why was this downvoted? By Americans who have never experienced this?

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