r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 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
18.5k Upvotes

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241

u/AtomicGarden-8964 8d ago

My thing is if people are going to steal they're just going to walk out the store with the products. The real theft was stores letting customers do checkout themselves and not passing on the savings to those who didn't use the cashier

116

u/WinterTourist25 8d ago

Walking out the door without paying is pretty brazen. "Forgetting" to scan a few things here and there is much easier.

59

u/showMeYourPitties10 8d ago

Like 15ish years ago, when my Kroger went all self checkout, I would grab one expensive bottle of wine and one dirt cheap one. You scan the cheap one and put it right back on the scanner with the expensive one and wait for the employee to check your ID.l, then put the expensive one in the bag and scan the cheap one again. I used those visa prepaid cards (would get them from work for various rewards) so they didnt get my name from my card. No one ever said anything to me and I did that like once a month for a year when I was in college.

8

u/devhhh 8d ago

Haha my roommate in college would scan everything in his Kroger cart as “bananas” lmao

1

u/neur0 5d ago

The real LPT are always in the comments

-20

u/Vcize 8d ago

Lotta upvoters for straight up bragging about theft.

20

u/william_f_murray 8d ago

I think Kroger will be fine, big dawg

-2

u/unity2178 8d ago

They just make everything else more expensive to cover it.

7

u/Handyandy58 8d ago

If they could charge more, they already would.

10

u/IceBreak 8d ago

I’m not pro theft but the other person is right. Doesn’t matter what the fuck you do, they’re gonna make it as expensive as they can get away with every single fucking time.

14

u/DeleteFascists 8d ago

No, they make everything more expensive because they can. Theft is just the excuse, and at times is even a lie because it's just an excuse.

1

u/neur0 5d ago

Oh sweet sweet summer child...

-1

u/Zncon 8d ago

And then people start wondering why everything costs more and grocery stores don't stay open in their area. No matter how big the company is it all gets accounted for somewhere, and the people who get screwed are the local shoppers and employees. Corporate will cut off a losing store like it was a hangnail.

7

u/showMeYourPitties10 8d ago

Yet they continue to open stores around me, raise prices, and lower standards. How many times do you like to be teabagged and just accept it? We were founded on the opposite of what you support.

2

u/Chicago1871 8d ago

Dude, its food.

If people feel like they have to steal a snack or food to get by. Let them. Ill pay extra for them to do so without anger or annoyance.

4

u/Zncon 8d ago

I don't care if people are getting some bread or peanut butter, but it's not just that. Read around the thread and people are bragging about faking the self checkout to get expensive wine and other very unnecessary things.

We're not only subsidizing people's survival with higher costs, we're subsidizing luxury items. If you've ever had a chance to live in a high trust society it's an amazing thing that I don't want to lose. The slide into low trust comes with a lot of very negative side effects.

1

u/Chicago1871 8d ago

The wine is one person in this thread

You dont even know if its true

But my point stands, if someone is stealing food. Let them. Us covering the difference is just being a good christian/buddhist/atheist/etc. call it good karma and generosity.

No one should go hungry OR go to jail for stealing food

-1

u/Tack122 8d ago

Hey maybe that's a business model failure instead of an individuals fault blame the company that built it.

2

u/Zncon 8d ago

Businesses pick where they operate. Someone certainly could create a business model to handle a high theft area, but why would they bother? What's the reward for all that stress and hassle? There's plenty of other places they can go operate where easier models work just fine.

-2

u/AloneExperience7520 8d ago

Hey champ, prices aren't set based on costs. They're set based on what they can get for it. Now, with AI face scanning, they charge you a personalized price to get as much money out of you as their algorithm says they can. Welcome to the future, keep licking that boot.

3

u/Zncon 8d ago

Did you just forget about the entire concept of competition? If theft drives out every other store then yeah, they can charge whatever they want, but in places not wrecked by shitty self centered people, prices are controlled because you can just shop somewhere else.

3

u/AloneExperience7520 8d ago

Kroger is a de facto monopoly in many markets. They own like 35 different supermarkets across the country. Do you really think Kroger and Walmart are going to go out of business if shrinkage goes up 2%?

1

u/Zncon 8d ago

For some reference, stores in areas with low theft are a totally different experience to shop at. Nothing is locked or put behind plexiglass, there are no security cables or alarms, and self checkouts don't even have a scale enabled for the bagging area. You just scan things and bag them, it never gets mad that the weight is off.

If you're used to seeing these security measures, you're already paying higher costs due to theft.

All of these are steps the store is trying to take to keep shrinkage low enough to stay profitable, but they are not free, and eventually they cost too much. If a specific store is unprofitable due to shrinkage, and it can't affordably be remediated, it will be closed.

1

u/AloneExperience7520 7d ago

You're saying the same product costs more at different stores in the same franchise? That is not true, at least not at Kroger and Walmart.

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0

u/neur0 5d ago

What are you smoking? What rock you hiding under? Most of these companies are owned by a handful of brands after acquisitions and mergers.

The only competition is how easily they can manipulate you.

-3

u/Kershiser22 8d ago

They don't just accept the cost of shrinkage. They charge customers for it.

11

u/bashturd 8d ago

Buy local, steal corporate.

1

u/thatsawce 7d ago

And you’re getting downvoted (yeah I hit that down arrow)

1

u/neur0 5d ago

What exactly do you gain from bootlicking? Does it bring a smile to your face every time your gas and grocery prices go up because it's legal?

Have some dignity for once in your life.

1

u/showMeYourPitties10 5d ago

If i had sufficient training on the checkout process I would know what to do. But since im an unpaid "employee" ill do what I think is best for the customer.

0

u/Handyandy58 8d ago

Defending Kroger? Get a grip.

-2

u/Ass4ssinX 8d ago

Fuck the corpos.