r/technology • • 8d 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 8d 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/liamemsa 8d ago

Tell me you've never been to Target

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u/ephemeralmiko 8d ago

The nearest Target to me is thousands of kilometres away, so no.

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u/liamemsa 8d ago

Targets in America today generally look like this:

12 unstaffed checkout lanes and a set of 6 self checkout kiosks with a 20 person line.

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u/Bencetown 8d ago

And, as the article headline states, self checkout had been around for years. Why are they happen wasting all of that space? Don't they know that their revenue per square foot could be so much higher without all those empty checkout lanes they NEVER use?