Self-checkout lanes have become a topic of debate in the retail world in recent years. Does it speed up the process and cut down on labor costs, or are they high-maintenance money pits that put people out of work? Are they intended to be used for small purchases of just a few items — or is it perfectly fine to get in line with a full week’s worth of groceries?

This is the question posed by Consumerist reader Shannon, who was just trying to pick up a few items for the weekend and thought that self-checkout would be the way to go… Until she ended up behind someone buying hundreds of dollars worth of stuff.

Some stores do put limits on how many items you can bring through self-checkout, often because the machines don’t have the counter space to hold more than a few bags of groceries.

But for those stores that don’t have specified limits, we want to know from you:

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