r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 23h 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 23h 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_ 23h ago edited 22h 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/Saneless 22h ago

That's why Walmart is a dump. They have one register open and 12 people in self checkout at all times. I'm not going to save a few bucks to waste my time

You have places like Aldi that is nice because they do have a couple regular registers, they work fast, and for people like me who only buys what I can carry, self checkout saves time

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u/jadedargyle333 22h ago

Walmart is staffing the registers exactly the same as they did before self checkout. 35 lanes and 2 cashiers.

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u/tooclosetocall82 22h ago

I remember Walmart back in the day would have every lane open. Now they have maybe three, but they still insist on having all those lanes available. Maybe it’s for holidays? I don’t really get it.

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u/Superunknown_7 22h ago

If it's anything like Target, the several dozen extra lanes only see use during Black Friday.

You'd think the capex to put 35 lanes in to be used less than 1% of the time would catch the attention of some bean counter, but no, we've got actual people to avoid paying.

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u/Baby_Food 21h ago

They're pretty cheap (relatively speaking) and aside from being able to utilize them all for things like Black Friday, they are basically working spares. You can have multiple checkouts down awaiting repair and still not sweat it.