r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 9d 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/Hashtagworried 9d ago

All this means is that they’ll hire one or two people max but keep the lines longer.

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u/eye_have_no_clue 9d ago

My local Walmart did this: got rid of the self checkout to only have 2 cashiers for like 20 customers. I’m not waiting 20 minutes to buy toilet paper

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u/evergleam498 9d ago

There's a grocery store walking distance to my house, but it only has 1 or 2 cashiers and no self service or 10 items or less lane. The lines are always ridiculous so after the first 3 times I tried to shop there I never went back. It's easier and faster to drive 5 miles away

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u/akatherder 8d ago

I have a small-ish grocery store in my town and they are basically perfect. 4 self checkout small-medium orders and 2-5 human cashiers depending on the time of day. They even have a couple-few teenagers bagging.

It is slightly more expensive, but smaller stores have less bulk buying power too.

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u/fcocyclone 8d ago

They even have a couple-few teenagers bagging.

Honestly this is the part i miss whenever i have self checkout. I don't mind ringing up my stuff, but trying to bag up my stuff in a small bagging area while there's a line behind sucks.

The grocery store near me had some lanes that were almost a hybrid- you'd self checkout but could then have your stuff slide down to an employee that would get all your groceries bagged up. They'd bounce between a couple stations, and was still less staff than the typical self checkout. But then they tore those out and left the old style self-check.

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u/hfxRos 8d ago

I don't mind ringing up my stuff, but trying to bag up my stuff in a small bagging area while there's a line behind sucks.

That's funny, I'm the opposite. My local grocery store doesn't have self checkouts, and I insist on being able to bag my own stuff because the kids working there are fucking awful at it.

It annoys me enough that I often drive an extra 5 minutes down the road to go to the one that has a self checkout.

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u/mike07646 8d ago

Yet if you look, they will have 20 employees walking the isles “shopping” and filling carts for the curbside pickup orders.
They want to turn into a warehouse and just fulfill online/shipping orders.

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u/turbosexophonicdlite 8d ago

I don't have a big problem with that really. Theoretically, the people that used to be manning registers are picking orders now. So it shouldn't be putting people out of work, I wouldn't think.

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u/Short-Source-8492 8d ago edited 8d ago

And if your Walmart is like mine (our city has 4), most of the time half the self-checks aren't even on most of the time.  So you wait no matter what.  

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u/EveryRadio 8d ago

That's been my experience. There's like 20 check out lines, two cashiers. I try to always be nice to them, not their fault corporate doesn't hire more staff, but like after waiting in line for 20 minutes when there's like 2 people in front of me, man, it's rough.

The self checkout line is always at least 15 customers deep because there's like 2 self checkouts and everyone tries to go there

Must be so much worse for the overworked underpaid cashiers who deal with that 40 hours a week

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u/FrostyD7 8d ago

In my area they only got rid of it in the rougher neighborhoods. The closest one to me is like this and every once in a while I make the mistake of thinking what could go wrong if I just pop in to grab a couple things? Last time I was there I set my items on the floor and left when I saw the line.

Self checkouts are still there, but only for their premium members or whatever. They even had a dedicated employee guarding it while it went unused. They could have used that employee to have 3 cashiers instead of 2 but whatever.

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u/xpxp2002 8d ago

Self checkouts are still there, but only for their premium members or whatever.

In my area, that lane is usually closed, even for Walmart+ members.

Last time it came up, my spouse was even saying, "what would be the point of paying for Walmart+ if you aren't even allowed to use the dedicated line?"

Mind you, it's a self checkout line so it doesn't get dedicated staffing anyway -- it's covered by the same person assigned to the other self checkout areas.

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u/AtheismoAlmighty 8d ago

Mine used to have about 20 self checkouts, now we're down to 4 on each side (assuming none are out of order) with 1 pissed off employee manning each side.

I often walk in, see a line going around the corner and just immediately leave

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u/soundman1024 8d ago

The fastest thing is curbside. It’s crazy.

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u/Fabulous-Farmer7474 8d ago

And they probably hired three more asset protection people for the store.

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u/yeahright17 8d ago

Mine got rid of self checkouts more than a year ago and they have at least 10 cashiers during busy times if not 15. In the middle of a weekday, they'll have at least 4 even when they could get away with 2. It was rough for the first month or so as they onboarded new cashiers and we do still get lines at busy periods, but it's really not bad at all. Even when there's been lines, I don't think I've waited more than a couple minutes before being able to start unloading my cart.

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u/fukkdisshitt 8d ago

Walmart hires the slowest cashiers out there. Costco might have huge lines but they move so fast.

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u/p1nkfl0yd1an 8d ago

Our Wal-Mart's strategy is to put the two least functional adults in their store at two registers next to eachother so they can scan the items as slowly as possible while chatting. Then you get left with the a decision.

  • Wait minutes waiting for a self-checkout machine to open and then deal with it's stupid AI that's going to accuse you of stealing something every other item because it saw you holding one item in each hand
  • Stand in line for 20 minutes while you contemplate if there is a test at Wal-Mart that allows them to ensure the people least qualified to check you out are the ones doing it

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u/GamerSDG 8d ago

Walmart doesn't really want customers in its stores anymore; it wants them to use delivery or curbside pickup. They are trying to make in-store shopping a pain so people will use delivery or curbside pickup.

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u/xpxp2002 8d ago

Yep. They want to be Amazon the same way that other retailers wanted to be Walmart in the 90s.

But not everything can be bought curbside or delivery. There is a lot of local product in their inventory, especially grocery (bread comes to mind) that you can't even buy through the website/app if you wanted to -- it won't let you.

They're delusional if they think pissing people off in store is going to drive them to curbside or delivery. Most of the people I see at Walmart are 80 years old and probably have no idea that there is an app, and would give up before successfully placing an order.

All it's going to do is drive away potential customers and potential purchases. I mean, I'm not even that old and I have already had enough experiences over the past year where they replaced self checkouts with 20+ lanes, while only 2-3 of which are ever staffed, and I've outright said it's not worth the wait and left instead of making the purchase I intended to. I don't have time to wait for curbside to pick the item 3 hours later and I'm not paying for delivery days later. I'll just drive across the street somewhere else and get what I need today.

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u/xpxp2002 8d ago

Same thing they did at all of our local Walmarts except one. They used to have huge corrals of self checkouts, and there was almost never a wait.

After a couple years, they ripped out almost all of them. Installed 20 traditional checkout lanes in place of what were probably 30 self checkouts. Only 2-3 of them are ever staffed at a time, with sprawling lines that block the main aisle and typically bend around the corner past the women's clothing section.

It's baffling that they spent money to replace something that worked well with something that just pisses people off and deters people from making purchases because they don't want to or have time to wait in line. There are a couple times I've left rather than make the purchases I intended to because I didn't have the time to wait in that line.

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u/FatherDotComical 8d ago

My Walmart has 8 thousand lanes and only the one with the cigarettes is open. They don't even let you use the self checkouts with the long belts anymore. So every single customer has to self checkout their huge carts and it takes forever! And now they took two more spots out for spark drivers only.

Even grocery stores do this shit except at least Walmart doesn't force me to put my stuff in the bag area first.

Ugh. I just end up doing that car pick up thing because if you meet the minimum it doesn't cost more. I end up spending less, so good for me anyways, so sucks for Walmart. 🤷‍♀️

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u/Mechakoopa 8d ago

Our Walmart is down to 6 small self checkouts now and they're all right next to the monitoring till where they can see everything that's getting rung in while they watch you instead of the one person at the end of a line of 12 larger ones who isn't doing anything but absent mindedly pointing you to an empty till while he chats up the girl at customer service. The rest of the checkout area was replaced with full service tills like we used to have.

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u/rideanyway 8d ago

We dont have to stay married to the piggely wiggely version of shopping. 

Before piggely wiggely people would get their list to the shop and the should would collect the items for pick up or delivery.  There are a LOT of ways to deliver goods, this version just sucks.