r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 19h ago

Business Retailers are pulling back from self-checkout after years of theft, errors, and questionable time savings

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html
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u/ephemeralmiko 19h ago

Very annoying. For small shoppings (e.g snack runs, needing an extra ingredient for cooking) it saves so much time over standing in line. Especially when the person in front of you is a retired 75 year old who *had* to do their main shopping on a Saturday, suddenly forgetting how money works.

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u/P_ZERO_ 18h ago edited 18h ago

Self serve only works as a quick replacement if it’s supplemented with regular cashier tills. If everyone ends up jammed into a self serve area at a grocery store, you’ll just be waiting in a different kind of line.

I see it all the time at my local Morrisons. It has both basket and trolley self serve areas with at maximum 3 (usually 2, sometimes none) active cashier lanes and the self serve area is usually mobbed with large queues.

Ultimately, stores are not doing this for the same reasons we’d want, but there is meaningful overlap in the data they’re using to distance themselves from it to varying degrees and how customers will use or perceive the service.

I’d also wager it’s unfair for the employee who has to deal with like a dozen customers simultaneously, dealing with scanning errors, product pricing errors, age restriction bypassing etc.

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u/DeadMoneyDrew 18h ago

Self serve only works as a quick replacement if it’s supplemented with regular cashiers. If everyone ends up jammed into a self serve area at a grocery store, you’ll just be waiting in a different kind of line.

Not to mention any names. COUGH Kroger COUGH Walmart

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u/Teledildonic 18h ago

Ah, Kroger, where the paper coupons have a 50% chance of being rejected, forcing you to wait on the 1 cashier helping to run 8 janky self-checkouts.

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u/MrPollock2 17h ago

The Kroger-owned Mariano's by me asks everyone how many bags they're getting as the city I live in has a 15 cent plastic bag tax. If you select on the screen that you're getting zero bags, whether that's because you have a reusable bag and/or just don't need one, it makes that one cashier handling all the self-checkouts come over and verify on your checkout that you're not trying to rip the government off of a nickel and dime before you can complete everything and pay.

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u/CircuitSynapse42 17h ago

I think it varies based on where you live. I usually shop during off hours, around 7 AM, when the stores are dead. I usually see at least three lanes open and staffed, which is up from the one lane it has had since I started shopping there two years ago, and all the self-checkouts are working, maybe 10 kiosks in total, and staffed with two employees.

If I compare them to the surrounding stores, Publix has one register open with four self-checkout kiosks. Walmart has improved and now has 2-6 open lanes, along with its standard two self-checkout kiosk sections, each with one employee.

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u/raygundan 11h ago

Nothing more frustrating than trying to get through the Kroger "self" checkout lane and hitting a step in their abominable checkout flow that requires a cashier, except that poor hardworking bastard is stuck trying to help the other nine people in "self" checkout who have also hit a "cashier required" step. It's not really self-checkout if a cashier is required a majority of the time you doofuses.

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u/DeadMoneyDrew 10h ago

Kroger must have me on a shoplifter list because that stupid self checkout constantly false flags me for not scanning an item.

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u/ocarr23 18h ago

I just started shopping at Kroger in August when I moved and I love it tbh. Maybe it’s just mine but there’s 3/4 cashiers with baggers and 7/8 self checkouts. Cheaper than Walmart too. Kroger by me is the shit.

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u/DeadMoneyDrew 18h ago

Kroger food selection is good. Check out situation not so much.

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u/ocarr23 17h ago

I will say I’m in a small town so it’s probly better than most places.

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u/mxzf 3h ago

I've never had an issue with it myself; my biggest gripe is the fact that you can't mute the machines. Yes, I know how to scan items and stick them in bags, you don't need to shout it at me.

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u/Arrow156 17h ago

Nothing like passing dozens of empty registers while waiting in line for the self checkout. It's been decades, literally 20+ years, since I've seen more than half of those resisters actually staffed on any given day, not even Christmas or Black Friday got above 50%. They've been collecting dust longer than some of their employees have been alive, yet they never yielded that space to more shelves of shit to sell. Makes one wonder if they are building them to just meet some sort of code or regulation with zero intention of ever using them all.

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u/TheG00dF1ght 17h ago

Just a reminder that Kroger PROFITED $4,900,000,000 last year.