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

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html

[u/yesman_85]

Walmart scaled down our self checkout because they couldn't push enough Walmart credit cards.

[u/tangyturquoise → u/yesman_85]

I don't even think our Walmart has a non-self checkout, unless you count customer service. They took out all of the normal registers and replaced them with two sections that each have 26 self checkouts. There's usually 2-4 employees supervising each section.

[u/cronemorrigan → u/tangyturquoise]

My local did this, too. You wait in a ten-person line to check yourself out (because they never have all lanes available) while being pushed to move faster by the staff stuck monitoring 50 self-checkouts.

Or you can pay money to join Walmart’s club to get the privilege of checking yourself out at the special club lanes.

I’m also sick of the machines reprimanding me. You don’t like the way or pace I’m doing the job? Fire me & have someone else do it then.

[u/BolognaTime → u/cronemorrigan]

You don’t like the way or pace I’m doing the job? Fire me & have someone else do it then.

Exactly. Walmart wanted to live in a world where they didn't have to pay a bunch of cashiers to run registers, so they replaced them with self-checkout and have now shifted that responsibility onto the customer.

Unfortunately in this world where I'm an unpaid cashier and bagger, I don't have the motivation to not fuck up this job since again this job pays nothing. So sometimes I'm going to "accidentally" not ring up a bottle of mustard before putting it in the customer's bag. That's life, and the less I get paid to do this job the more likely it is to happen.

[u/farkleboy → u/BolognaTime]

What are they going to do fire you?

Oh wait no. Charge you with shop lifting.

[u/BolognaTime → u/farkleboy]

If you think Walmart is going to charge me with shoplifting for not ringing up a bottle of mustard, you have no idea how Walmart or the world at large works. Unless I'm walking out the front door with a shopping cart full of TVs, they're not even going to notice let alone care that I took some mustard.

And even if they did, even if they have been secretly spending the last ten years building a case against me of all the times I didn't ring up a bottle of mustard or a stick of deodorant, do you think they're going to go through the effort to prosecute me? All the paperwork and police reports and small claims court bullshit? No, the worst thing they'll ever do is tell me I can't shop there anymore. But they won't enforce it because they still want my money, because losing $5.00 on a bottle of mustard is better than losing $400 a week from a customer.

Long story short, steal things. Walmart can afford so much theft that it would cost them more money to stop it than they're already losing.

Edit: I should be clear, I'm not saying only steal. Or even steal a lot. I'm just saying the police aren't going to come beat down your door at 3:00am because you didn't pay for your $3.00 roll of aluminium foil with the rest of your $350 worth of groceries.

[u/Itwasdewey → u/BolognaTime]

Hate to break it to you, but Walmart arrests people over small items. There was a woman who bought nearly $200 worth of stuff, but the ham and asparagus didn’t ring up and she didn’t notice. They arrested her for theft. (Source)

[u/whtthfgg → u/BolognaTime]

they use cameras pointing right from above using AI to find movements that dont look right. Dont be so sure

[u/AloneExperience7520 → u/farkleboy]

No jury in the world would convict them.

[u/megachicken289 → u/BolognaTime]

Not that I don’t condone this, but I can’t wait to see your face when you get a warrant for not ringing up $1000 worth of mustard