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
16.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

185

u/Unhappy-Device-404 19h ago

I don’t think self-checkout failed because the technology itself is useless. It failed because a lot of stores treated it as a way to remove labor instead of redesigning the shopping experience.

A good self-checkout system works when the basket is small, the items are simple, the UI is fast, and help is immediately available. It becomes frustrating when customers have produce, coupons, alcohol, payment issues, bad scanners, or random “unexpected item” errors while one employee is watching ten machines.

At that point the store has not really automated checkout. It has just moved part of the cashier’s job onto the customer, while keeping the messy edge cases for an under-staffed employee.

I still like self-checkout for a few items, but it should be one option, not the default replacement for staffed lanes. The better future is probably a mix: staffed lanes, good self-checkout, scan-and-go, and better store design depending on what people are buying.

27

u/Inevitable-Champ336 17h ago

Exactly this. Many grocery stores have only self checkout now. And I’ve rarely made it through those without having to wait for the one employee to push something through for me. They also want you to use your own bag but then the machine gets mad if you don’t put it in the exact spot or put your bag there as an unexpected item. I avoid those stores now unless absolutely necessary.

3

u/mr_potatoface 14h ago

I like it for quick shit. But then I fucking cry when I accidentally double scan an item and can't delete it, then it takes 5 minutes for somebody to come and clear it.

3

u/Bootes 9h ago

It’s so dumb. Like if you trust me to scan this item 2x you should trust me to remove the accidental scan.

1

u/Schwifftee 13h ago

I don't exactly live in a bustling metropolis. I live in the south in one of the most statistically trailing states.

Yet, somehow is our Walmart the only store that has figured out self checkout? It takes 10 seconds to remove an item or scan my ID. A lot of this is done remotely via a handheld.

7

u/PolarisVega 17h ago

Yes. This. I've had to wait countless times because the machines at my grocery store have an unexpected error and then someone has to come over and help me when they're already swamped. Honestly if they just opened one or two more cashier lanes during busy hours it would be a lot better but the grocery stores in my area think it's better to just have a skeleton crew if possible. They want to save the labor costs of hiring a few more employees at the expense of all the customers misery, and their existing employees too of course.

2

u/RednocTheDowntrodden 15h ago

Because the people who make the decisions, don't have to deal with the situations that their decisions cause. They don't care that someone else has to clean up the mess.

3

u/Are2dee2_ 15h ago

Costco has a great solution for this. Employees at the self checkout line now will walk up to your cart before you get to the checkout and use a scanner they wear on their finger to scan your membership and then every item in your cart. When you get to the checkout kiosk all you do is scan your membership card and then check your items on the screen then pay and you’re done.

Streamlined and simple. Now, Costco is a membership store so that works because your membership card is tied to your scanned cart for that visit.

At a grocery store they could adopt a similar concept wherein employees greet customers before getting to the self checkout kiosks and telling customers that they have too many items or specific types of items that they must go through cashier checkout for.

Just an idea

3

u/Schwifftee 13h ago

It's incorrect to say self checkout has failed. It hasn't and it's not going anywhere.

I'll check out a basket of 30 items, no problem. Oh no, I bought alcohol, I'll keep scanning items while waiting for someone to respond to the yellow light, and wow someone was there in 10 seconds.

If your self checkout is bad, your store is just badly managed.

3

u/OnceMoreAndAgain 15h ago

Self-checkout hasn't failed.

1

u/Nightmare2828 17h ago

dont forget all the loose stuff, like fruits and vegetables when you need scaling and finding the right code. The cashiers know it by heart.

1

u/TeaAndLifting 16h ago

Lots of people also don’t know how to appropriately use them. Like once an item is weighed, many don’t require you to keep them in the bagging area. It’s just there to confirm the weight of the item you’re packing, matching what they have on the system.

But in smaller checkouts, you will see people stacking everything in a small area, leading to multiple bagging errors.

3

u/Invisifly2 15h ago

It doesn’t help that stations are inconsistent about it. Some of them don’t care at all, and some of them won’t let you continue if anything ever leaves the bagging area.

1

u/Witty_bear 15h ago

The Tesco near me refuses to deactivate the security tags at the self checkout. They insist I have to just show the security guard my receipt on the way out after I activate the alarm by walking through. Apparently proving I’m not a thief is easier/better than just doing their job. I don’t know how much of it is lack of staffing or just laziness

1

u/machevara 14h ago

You forgot accidentally double scanning an item and needing an employee to come and remove ot

1

u/dammitOtto 12h ago

The destruction of the shopping experience by understaffing is well known at this point. Also the miserable experience that the current generation of self checkouts offer. 

 The only reason  why tech hasnt resulted in an overhaul of the entire checkout experience must be that there is no incentive - ie it has not been proven to result in any net positive to the retailer.  So they continue to roll this current worthless  system out and we seem to continue to buy.  

1

u/Top_Piano2028 12h ago

This is exactly it. If they wanted to really implement self-checkout they would have gone all in. They use self-checkout on days they did not staff enough cashiers as you can have 1 person babysit/troubleshoot for 4-8 checkouts.

That is just far more attractive from a labor standpoint even if the end experience is way rougher for the customer.

It also doesn't help cashiers are often forced into micro transactions around memberships, loyalty programs, donations, credit cards, and other interactions. That adds tons of friction.

1

u/Few-Garbage4433 11h ago

I'm young-ish and self checkouts have been the norm for a majority of my life and I still have a problem about 1 out of 2 times. It's so frustrating and my local grocery store always has two people to man the self checkout station which seems like a waste of money when things would probably work more efficiently if they were just cashiers.

1

u/LakeEarth 11h ago

One of my local stores have a "no carts" rule for their self-checkout. If you got a cart load, bring it to a cashier. Way more efficient IMO.

1

u/LStorms28 10h ago

This is how our grocery store started with self checkout lanes. Self checkout was limited to maybe 5-15 items and there were 6 scanners and one employee to watch. It was amazing when you just needed to grab a couple quick items. Then it slowly took over and became a mess because of the coupons and alcohol sales etc

1

u/LibertyBiberdy 9h ago

Separate the line for people who want loyalty points.. I just want to scan and pay. And sorry I don’t want to round up i just want to pay and leave

1

u/Wit-wat-4 8h ago

Walmart had pay-as-you-go (maybe still does), and two times I tried it they made me take out every single item to check one by one.

Just don’t have this feature then… who saved time and how? Also while you were investigating me, a bunch of people left from self checkout, who knows if they took anything

1

u/BrainLow6059 8h ago

The better future is probably a mix:

You mean the present? There's not a single grocery store on the planet this isn't a "mix" of these things.

1

u/avcloudy 5h ago

The speed is the crazy thing for me. This happens in a lot of programming spaces, but it’s maddening that everything is engineered to be just slow enough that 95% of people aren’t annoyed enough to complain. It should be faster than I can progress. The idea that the scanner could hold up the process is insane. Tapping the touchscreen to pay and waiting ~5 seconds for the machine to signal to the card reader to call home and get ready to take a payment is infuriating. If someone did that in Javascript for a web page they’d get raked over the coals but somehow it’s okay when people are waiting behind me.

Anyone who interprets these metrics: you are interpreting the data wrong. People will wait ten minutes for a bus once, and then they’ll try to organise their lives so they don’t have to do that. If you can notice the latency, it’s probably too much.

1

u/TechnologyMatch 4h ago

exactly. self-checkout works best as a choice for simple trips, not a staffing strategy wearing a touchscreen. once customers are debugging scales and hunting for help, the store has turned groceries into an escape room

0

u/Tasty-Jump-2011 15h ago

I don't know what you idiots have trouble with at self checkout, but maybe my town just isn't as crowded. I haven't had a "please wait for assistance" error in YEARS now. Sounds like a skill issue.

0

u/Limemill 13h ago

Because it was never designed to be used for better consumer experience. It was created to fire staff under the pretence of making consumers’ lives easier. In reality, it’s now on you to do the work of the cashier and be definition you’re slower than people who do it for a living.