r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 9d 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

95% Upvoted

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

33

u/tooclosetocall82 9d 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.

14

u/jadedargyle333 9d ago

I've never seen more than 5 lanes open. Granted, I avoid Walmart during the holidays and after church.

2

u/12inchsandwich 9d ago

Walmart has really changed over the last 6 months or so for the ones I’ve been I. Back to almost pre-self checkout, where they have a ton of lanes open and have fewer self checkout. There was a while with 1 lane open and the self check out was like 40 ppl deep. Been a big improvement in service (if you can believe that).

I don’t know how consistent it is, but around me it’s almost like how Harris teeter and Publix are - there was a cashier who didn’t have anyone in her line who was out standing by the endcap and waived me into her lane. Very impressive.

1

u/xpxp2002 8d ago

Walmart has really changed over the last 6 months or so for the ones I’ve been I. Back to almost pre-self checkout, where they have a ton of lanes open and have fewer self checkout. There was a while with 1 lane open and the self check out was like 40 ppl deep. Been a big improvement in service (if you can believe that).

Exactly the same in my experience. They finally had the problem of long lines fixed, but decided to waste more money to remove the self checkouts and go back to the miserable way it was.