Looks like various retailers are re-thinking self-checkout usage.

(NOTE: From somewhat older articles, dating back to late '23, but still, thought it was worth discussing)

Marketplace, CNN

Among the stores to announce this include:

Dollar General

Walmart

Target

Costco

Booths (UK store)

The biggest citation? Predictably, it's uptick in theft.

Thoughts? I've never been one of those "self-checkout is taking our jobs" folk (especially hearing from customers to hear that... like I WANT to hear that even if it WAS true) when we still needed humans to manage them (though some places, it's worse than others, like managing up to like eight to ten machines... like damn), but I always thought there needed to be a balance between manned registers and self-check out.

Are you noticing anything like this where you live?

The point of them is definitely to reduce the number of jobs, but that's good (increases productivity).

But yeah, they made theft way too easy. Most people are happy to pay for their stuff and leave. The others steal every time, lol.

I was never really a fan of the self-checkout unless I was getting like one item.

But if I'm doing a full grocery store run, I will happily wait in line 5-10 minutes for a human cashier than spend 1 minute using one of those self-checkout things.

I think it's lame and greedy of the store chain owners to devalue the human aspect of the job. YEs, that's an emotional and non-pragmatic response, but there it is. I suppose the ideal is to have both.

What's really funny is how they always seem to need one person (and often a supervisor) to moderate the self checkout lines lol. Makes you wonder if that person would be better used as an actual cashier...

With that said...it's not a big deal to me either way. People that steal from places like grocery stores or dollar stores are literally taking pennies away from the corporations. While I don't support theft at all, I also don't think it's really this big deal either. They can measure it in potential loss of profit all they want but at the end of the day stealing an apple cost the company like two cents.

Don't mind self checkout kiosks but its making manned register far more jammed due to reduction of staff.

@mrbojangles25: The problem is it normalizes it, increasing its depth and scope. My cousin would happily tell us how she cuts her grocery bill into a fraction by scanning tortillas with a pack of steaks under it or hiding shrimp under a box of donuts.

Yup, definitely a slippery slope.

Have to wonder if they're going to admit they made a mistake and are willing to pay to have human cashiers, or if they're going to double down and continue with self-checkout and hire more security.

Either way it's silly, and it will probably inconvenience the legitimate consumer.

I never thought that was a good idea, and that was before daily headlines of flash mobs raiding stores and running out with thousands of dollars worth of goods.

That's on that particular retailer for not having a proper system with scales on the basket side and the scanned item side, where both have to mach by the end of your scanning, or an employ comes over to double check your bullshit job at it.

Sure, people could still scan the wrong barcode or select the cheaper item for the scaled items like when buying loose fruit and stuff, but at least they can't just skip the expensive items altogether.

I have seen people selectively steal stuff, they don't steal everything (that's too obvious), they just conveniently forget to pay a couple of items. Not sure how to solve that.

Easily solved if there staff or guards that lookout for suspicious activity and as well as check and stamp your receipt before leaving the store.

Ah, but then we have to add extra employees to guard the machine that is supposed to remove extra employees from payroll!

CHECKMATE!

I know you're joking, but, like, yes!

There's already a lot that can and does go wrong in the process. Unreadable barcode, item on sale not scanning as on sale, item not in system, item not in inventory.

As we start adding in complexity, more things can go wrong, and we ask more of untrained customers trying to do a job they don't know how to do. All items must be bagged and so they can be weighed. If I have more bags than fit on the weigh station, how do I handle that? If I remove one to make room for another, can the system handle that? What if I have an item that's too big to be bagged or fit on the station? Do I even know if this location weighs items?

There are some locations I shop at which I can scan the same item numerous times if I got multiples. Others require every UPC to be scanned individually despite the fact that cashier's can can scan once and enter "multiply by x."

Another location I shop at places second barcodes on sale items. Which is the customer supposed to scan?

This all increases complexity and increases personnel requirements on a system which has a selling point of being automated.

When I used to work at a grocery store, I definitely saw theft. No-one was watching the self-checkouts so... I saw a guy just not finish the transaction and walk away. The people up front didn't seem to care about the self-checkouts anyway. It was pretty bad. I found twenty dollars on the floor beside a cashier worker, so there were definitely some problems other than the self-checkout. I wasn't getting paid enough to stir things up, so I just mentioned these things and let them take care of it. Usually they dealt with it with a nonchalance that I found to be common in the South.

I digress. I think it's probably a good thing they are getting rid of self-checkouts. They don't seem to work well as far as anti-theft goes. It would be nice to get some faster workers at the register though. Sometimes it's a real chore waiting for a cashier to ring stuff through. Even worse, if they have to bag it themselves as well.

my grocery store has a shitty implementation of self checkout. it's basically set up for very small baskets/carts. so if you have a lot of stuff, you have to leave it in the cart and pull things out one at a time, scan it, and bag it individually. a better setup would be space to unload everything, scan everything, load everything. i think it would speed things up significantly.

years ago my local store had individual scanners you would walk around with. you'd scan the item when you took it off the shelf and immediately bag it. then at the front a machine would read the data and you'd just pay and walk out. it was so much better. not sure why they got rid of it, maybe too easy to steal.

Well, I guess when ai starts doing everything else, we'll have retail to fall back on.

Stealing from robots is pretty easy *shrug*

@sargentd: target just introduced their new enforcement bot, still working out the kinks

Canadian Tire was one of the first big stores in Canada that I saw that implemented self-checkout. They are also the first big store that removed self-checkout. People would walk out carrying canoes, power tools and shit. Theft is still occurring, but they make it more of an obstacle course for thieves to make it out of the store. Pretty much all they can do cause staff aren't allowed to touch thieves, and depends with security. I heard that customers are taking it upon themselves to intervene. They're sick of prices going up, and having to wait in lines cause thieves ruined the convenience of self-checkout. Not like cops show up anymore for that shit.

@comp_atkins said:

@sargentd: target just introduced their new enforcement bot, still working out the kinks

That's what I thought it would be as a kid when we got robots..

Instead they just built useless coward robots

@sargentd said:

@comp_atkins said:

@sargentd: target just introduced their new enforcement bot, still working out the kinks

That's what I thought it would be as a kid when we got robots..

Instead they just built useless coward robots

Loading Video...

i'm wondering if we'll actually see armed autonomous robots in non-military use this decade...

@comp_atkins: We already have the hardware, it's just a matter of the software.

Yeah, I see like 1 out of 5 in need of help with the self-checkout machine. And it's often the cashier who pauses taking customers to help someone out with it. Personally haven't even bothered with the self-checkout thing yet. I just go up to the cashier, it's almost always faster anyway.

i'm assuming also MAJOR regulatory hurdles to clear as well. but i assume that's nothing a little money in the right hands won't solve.

I sometimes use them but it's not a hard line I draw for it. My frustration comes when you have 2 cashiers being run ragged with lines on a Saturday and self checkouts are used as a buffer for short staffing. I understand a cashier is an entry level work position, but I wonder if the cost savings for only having two people and one bagger on the heaviest day of the week would absorb any theft occuring that day with self checkouts.

Also, I would argue that inflation costs would be a bigger contributer to theft than self check outs. Everyone knows the higher cost to live, the more people on the poverty line or below will are more likely to resort to theft over suffering. If a person on the poverty line sees a protein price increase of 30% over what it was last year at Walmart, and walmart just posted record profits on the news, I believe they would have a much higher probability of stealing it than they would the previous year.

This reminds of the "I'm not XXX but .... " when in actuality, that's exactly what you're doing. You're diminishing it, deflecting from the actuality and by de-facto condoning it. Remember this does not exist within a vacuum of space. The pieces fall effecting everyone from employees to consumers. How do you like having your toothpaste be behind glass because of "those pennies", or has the "Napa atmosphere" not reached the level of depravities of Solano County?

Yeah you're 100% right, of course. I think I wrote this from a different frame of reference. Funny how a few nights sleep, re-reading something, can make you go "Hmmm that isn't quite right" lol

The pendulum has to swing back eventually. I look forward to when my toothpaste isn't behind glass... granted, that's probably following my retirement to another state. :P

You do know that retail theft ends up increasing prices for everyone else?

That robot delivery stuff is golden. It was sad to see the gal get robbed from doing her job and kicked as well luul.

Yup! I've been pulled back into security as a witness to thefts all the time and I've heard the security teams AND the police reiterate this damn near every time.

I use them because where I shop because I usually don't have an option. The annoying thing is if you're buying more than a couple of items something the machine inevitably messes up and you have wait for an actual person "gasp" come over and reset the machine. I find it funny that instead of saving money on human cashiers they now have to hire human security.