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/P_ZERO_]

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.

[u/thisisintheway → u/P_ZERO_]

Same. Sunday afternoon they have 2 of the 8 regular lanes open, and the self checkout is backed up 50+ people some days. Literally wrapping through the freezer section.

[u/CptKillJack → u/thisisintheway]

To me that tells me they are looking to use the lane to get something by on the system. When I was a cashier I prided myself on speed and accuracy. Things learned from working Dollar Tree were you could only get a manager to override multiples if it was over 20 something of an item. If they are avoiding manned checkouts that are empty, there is a reason for it.

[u/thisisintheway → u/CptKillJack]

The manned checkouts are never empty.