Business Walmart joins other big retailers in scaling back on self-checkout - Retailers are ditching and limiting shelf-checkout at some stores, particularly those hit by theft and customer complaints.

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Walmart is joining the ranks of retailers rethinking self-checkout, with the industry giant in the process of removing the self-service lanes at a store in Missouri.

The return to registers staffed by humans at the Walmart store in Shrewsbury, a suburb of St. Louis, comes a month after Target announced only those buying 10 items or less could use the self-checkout lane at its stores, and Dollar General reduced self-checkout at thousands of its locations. The latter removed the option entirely at 300 locations most-impacted by shoplifting.

Retailers are pulling back, but not abandoning self-checkout, according to Neil Saunders, managing director, retail, at GlobalData. "They are trying to see how does this play a role in the future, but it's not going to be the same thing they've done for decades, where it's a free-for-all, and anyone could use it," he told CBS MoneyWatch. There is a lot more caution."

Walmart cited customer feedback as among the factors in its decision to remove the self-checkout kiosks at its store in Shrewsbury.

"As part of our announced plans for additional investments and improvements to stores across the country, we're converting the self-checkout lanes at our 7437 Watson Road store in Shrewsbury, MO., to traditional checkout lanes," a Walmart spokesperson emailed CBS MoneyWatch. "We believe the change will improve the in-store shopping experience and give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service."

Self-checkout increased in popularity among retailers and customers during the pandemic, allowing shoppers to limit their contact with others and helping to relieve a labor shortage that made staffing registers more difficult.

Still, as the pandemic wound down, many shoppers returned to their former habits, and the appeal of self-checkout lost some of its allure.

"It's a very love-hate technology. A lot of customers see it as a deterioration of the service, and they have to do more of the work. So it's not good for driving customer loyalty, " Saunders noted.

Still, rising theft — part of what retailers call "shrink" — is the primary reason self-checkout is being ditched in some stores and restricted in others, according to Saunders.

"Self-checkout is an area of the store people can steal things," said the analyst, who noted that shoppers also make genuine mistakes, such as not scanning items properly. "Retailers are very actively trying to reduce it, or in Target's case put more restrictions around self-checkout to try to reduce the losses they incur from it."

Costco in November added more staff in self-checkout areas after finding that non-members were sneaking in to use membership cards that didn't belong to them at self-checkout. Costco said shrink had increased in 2023 "in part we believe due to the rollout of self-checkout."

Another approach is adding a receipt-scanning gate at self-checkout areas, which Safeway has done at multiple locations in California, in addition to shutting down self-checkout entirely in some stores.




Remember what they took away from you.
 
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Nah, I'm with the boomers on this one. Self-checkout at this point is making the customer work for free, especially when they only have three people on the checkout lanes at most. It should be there to supplement the primary checkout lanes, not replace them!
That's how I morally justified my use of the self-checkout lines. I figured if they were going to make me scan my own groceries, I figured the money I saved from scanning a box of Great Value shit and bagging the brand name product would be my payment.

But getting back on topic, I am glad to see people getting their jobs back. They remodeled the Walmarts where I live to have nothing but self-checkout lines. They had to revert them back to the way they were because apparently theft was getting out of control.
 
I actual like self-check out at Walmart and hated the one that took it out. It took 24 mins longer because annoying checkout people that have no idea what they do and I do better job bagging it quicker then them. They could not even scan cold medicine right. Only place I like going to with normal employee checkout is Costco because the employees are quicker and more skilled at what they do.
 
That's one reason I hate shopping at Walmart: they don't have small carts, only huge ones. Pushing one of extra large carts feels similar to trying to maneuver one of those old boat-sized cars from the 70s.

A lot of places have gotten rid of baskets. I assume because it's too easy to fill it up and run out the door. Retail theft in Philadelphia is very bad. So if I want a few things that are hard to carry but not big enough to justify a cart I have to get a cart anyway.

Speaking of huge carts, everywhere I go that has smaller carts needs more of them. Because that's what people take first. I guess Walmart doesn't care that some people would prefer smaller carts. They want you to load up on Little Debbie and 3x spaghetti tops just as nature intended.
 
Walmart cited customer feedback
"customer feedback" is a funny way to spell niggers.
What really sucks is that Walmart is cutting off self-checkout and still only hiring 3 people to man the registers while lines pile up.
I know a target that does that. And then there's a line of people waiting across the front of the store to check out. I end up abandoning what I was going to buy and leaving. Don't want to staff the front appropriately. Ok. Now you can staff someone to put the shit back I was going to buy.
That doesnt stop retards, but it gives leeway for someone like me that uses the small cuck cart.
I love the cuck carts they are so small and maneuverable. And its easier to scan from the cuck cart than a full cart. Stores don't' have enough cuck carts. They have none at wal mart and most of the time there are none to be found in the super market. I wish I could buy my own fold up cuck cart so I always had a cuck cart for shopping. #CuckCart4Life
I don’t steal and am a huge fan of self checkout. This will suck if rolled out nationally.
I never intentionally stole. I'm pretty sure I fucked up a thing here and there but, hey I'm not good at being a cashier. Sue me.
 
I don't think they realize how easy it could be to shoplift even at the staffed checkout. Sure this will slow down niggers just walking out with full carts, but anyone with some foresight could easily pull a fast one.
 
Sure this will slow down niggers just walking out with full carts
It doesn't, because if anyone tries to lay a hand on them to slow anything, they're going to jail. Changing checkout policies is corporate trying to grapple for a procedural solution to a nigger moment, and we all know how well that goes. Only thing that's gonna work is consequences, and the only consequence left to levy is "retailers leave", and that'll just trigger more seething rather than awareness and reflection.

Too late to cork this bottle back up, even if they wanted to. At this point, public sentiment against retailers is incredibly negative for a whole host of other reasons, nobody would tolerate them trying to be more proactive about protecting assets, they'd rather they all failed. Most just don't think far enough ahead as to what that looks like for a city.
 
Only thing that's gonna work is consequences, and the only consequence left to levy is "retailers leave", and that'll just trigger more seething rather than awareness and reflection.
They can bitch about food deserts all they want, it's either leaving or armed guards at the exits to Wally World.
 
Open another fucking register then! Sick of waiting in line for twenty minutes because a hundred people are trying to check out with just three registers open and another ten going unused.
Nah, they're too busy hiring room temperature IQ people for the "Walmart Express" online shoppers who are too lazy to actually go inside and get their groceries. You know... they're the ones that have the huge carts and scanners. whipping in and out in front of actual customers, cutting them off and ignoring them as if they don't exist. While the 2 checkout lanes at the front of the store are backed up and the self-checkouts are half closed and backed up by mouth breathers or grandmas slower than molasses on a cold winter day.
 
Self checkout should be the express lane, 15 items or less. If you've got a cart full of shit go to the regular register.
There are places like that already, the problem is enforcing it. The on-duty cashier knows full well that if they tell the shit-head they can't take their full cart through the express lane that the mouth-breather in question will go screaming, crying, and shitting themselves to the management. Which will almost always side with the customer, rules and guidelines be damned.
 
I never expected to say this, but thank you, niggers! I hope this means they'll finally keep some actual cashier lanes open.

That's one reason I hate shopping at Walmart: they don't have small carts, only huge ones. Pushing one of extra large carts feels similar to trying to maneuver one of those old boat-sized cars from the 70s.
Just hold them from the ends of the handle instead of in the middle, you get more torque that way.

I never intentionally stole. I'm pretty sure I fucked up a thing here and there but, hey I'm not good at being a cashier. Sue me.
I avoid these whenever possible but they literally had no cashier lanes open today so I was forced to use the self-checkout. I didn't steal anything because I'm not a nigger, but when I was bagging something, I got like 20 bags stuck with it instead of it just opening the next bag. I didn't notice until I was putting everything in my car, but fuck them, I'm keeping the free bags. Consider it payment for doing a cashier's job.
 
Open another fucking register then! Sick of waiting in line for twenty minutes because a hundred people are trying to check out with just three registers open and another ten going unused.
Problem is a lot of places have generally eliminated the role of "cashier". They've reduced staffing so instead of having people sat behind tills waiting to serve you, someone's got to come running in from the shop floor where they were doing something else. It's "more efficient" for the store not to have cashiers hanging around potentially having downtime between customers and whenever they brought in the change, the executive got a slap on the back because number go up that quarter. Trying to revert back will make number go down that quarter, and because they can't think outside of financial quarters it means we're going to be stuck dealing with a long queue because a pallet of goods has just arrived to be stacked and some online orders need pickers and therefore none of the other floor staff can go use the till.
They can bitch about food deserts all they want, it's either leaving or armed guards at the exits to Wally World.
A few places over the pond tried using scanner gates.
receipt.jpg
You had to scan your receipt for the (waist high) gates to open and let you out of the checkout area. This backfired horribly because nobody here uses cheques anymore so nobody really needs to balance a chequebook - and therefore unless you're expensing something there's little need to actually pick the option to get a receipt... therefore after shopping a lot of people couldn't get through the gates. Also if you changed your mind about purchasing something, you also couldn't get through the gates. The regular shoplifters, meanwhile, would just run out through the shop entrance. They quietly wheeled this one back.
 
Open another fucking register then! Sick of waiting in line for twenty minutes because a hundred people are trying to check out with just three registers open and another ten going unused.
they do this to make their store look busier and more profitable if any of the company executives or big managers pay unannounced visits to the business. almost everything in retail that pisses a sane man off is by design.
 
I like self-checkout because I am quick at scanning my shit and hitting the road. I hated waiting in line for what seems like forever with people with a bajillion things and the cashier is slow as fuck at scanning them
 
Bullshit. It's because you have hordes of people that learned that they could easily steal shit if they just went to the self-checkout lane. For all the "complaining about extra work" that customers have to do if they don't go to a manned station, people have the choice not to use the self-checkout. What really sucks is that Walmart is cutting off self-checkout and still only hiring 3 people to man the registers while lines pile up.


California also allows people to steal $600 without penalty, according to their laws. No wonder a lot of stores there are going bankrupt or pulling out of the area entirely.
The California no crime theft limit is actually ~$900

Even more fun
 
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Why do people want to use the regular checkout lanes anyways? I can scan my shit and get out of there way faster than whatever retard cashier they have manning the regular station.
 
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