Doing shopping in supermarkets in Japan could be different from doing shopping ever. I would introduce you one example of supermarket which is near my apartment. The first thing you should do is take the cart and then put a basket on it. If you think you will not buy a bunch of stuffs maybe you do not need the cart. After that you can start taking any stuffs you want to buy and put them in the basket.
After you finish with everything you need, you must go to the cashier to pay for your stuffs. You have two choices: go to the usual cashier where there is a staff who will take care of your stuffs or go to the automatic cashier (self-service).
If you go to the usual cashier, the main difference from usual cashier is that the staff will not put your stuffs into the plastic bag (Usually the staff will do it). The staff will only move your stuffs into a new basket and after you paid you should move to a table in front of the cashier and you will put your stuffs into you plastic bag by yourself. If you do not bring your own bag, you will need plastic bag and you have to pay for it. There yen for smaller plastic bag and five yen for the bigger one. So my suggestion is that do not forget to bring your own shopping bag every time you want to do shopping in supermarket.
You need to know Japanese if you want to use the automatic cashier because everything which is depicted on the screen is in Japanese alphabet.
The first question on the screen is about what type of bag you want to use: your own bag (right button) or the plastic bag (left button). You have to pay if you need plastic bag.
Then you can start putting your stuffs in front of the sensor so that the sensor will read the barcode. You can see the name of the stuff as well as its price on the screen.
After you finished screening all the stuffs, press the orange button to calculate the total of all your purchases.
Press the left button if you want to pay cash or press the right button if you want to use credit card. I never use card so I will only show you how to pay with cash here.
Put your paper money in the grey hole and put the coins in the orange box.
The last thing you need to do is just take the receipt and your change money.
Finish! Now you can take all your shopping stuffs back to your home.
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