Self Checkout (2 Viewers)

[bigdaddysaints]

If you've got 15 items you're approaching the limit of self-checkout time savings, depending on lines of course, and depending on the quality of the self-checkout technology. Walmart has great self-checkout hardware/software, usually pretty quick, Kroger's is awful, usually lots of errors. Kroger I'm probably going to a human cashier with 15 items if the lines are comparable, Walmart 15 items is no problem.

walmart has some full sized lanes for self checkouts. i use those when available if i have more than a handul of items.

One glitch i found using self checkout paying with Walmart pay is i found out you cant use it twice in a row. I had a $25 walmart giftcard on my walmart app, so i split my order up. paid with the gift card first for the items that came close to $25 total, and whe i rang the rest of the stuff and tried to pay again usuing walmart pay, it kept giving me an error, sayng payment declined. after a few attempts, i used my debit card (the same one linked to walmart app) and it went right through.
With walmart pay and tap to pay everywhere else, i use my phone 99% of the time, but walmart doesn't use Tap topay on thier system.

 

[Optimus Prime]

It's a common sight at many retail stores: a queue of people, waiting to use a self-checkout kiosk, doing their best to remain patient as a lone store worker attends to multiple malfunctioning machines. The frustration mounts while a dozen darkened, roped-off and cashier-less tills sit in the background.

For shoppers, self-checkout was supposed to provide convenience and speed. Retailers hoped it would usher in a new age of cost savings. Their thinking: why pay six employees when you could pay one to oversee customers at self-service registers, as they do their own labour of scanning and bagging for free?

While self-checkout technology has its theoretical selling points for both consumers and businesses, it mostly isn't living up to expectations. Customers are still queueing. They need store employees to help clear kiosk errors or check their identifications for age-restricted items. Stores still need to have workers on-hand to help them, and to service the machines.

The technology is, in some cases, more trouble than it's worth.

"It hasn't delivered anything that it promises," says Christopher Andrews, associate professor and chair of sociology at Drew University, US, and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy. "Stores saw this as the next frontier… If they could get the consumer to think that [self-checkout] was a preferable way to shop, then they could cut labour costs. But they're finding that people need help doing it, or that they'll steal stuff. They ended up realising that they're not saving money, they're losing money."

Many retail companies have invested millions – if not billions – of dollars in self-checkout technology, which Andrews says was first developed during the 1980s, and started appearing in stores in the 1990s. They're not exactly cheap to get into stores: some experts estimate a four-kiosk system can run six figures.

Despite the cost to install them, many retailers are reversing course on the tech. Target, for instance, is restricting the number of items self-checkout customers can purchase at one time. Walmart has removed some self-checkout kiosks in certain stores to deter theft. In the UK, supermarket chain Booths has also cut down on the number of self-service kiosks in its stores, as customers say they're slow and unreliable.............

'It hasn't delivered': The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology

Unstaffed tills were supposed to revolutionise shopping. Now, both retailers and customers are bagging many self-checkout kiosks.

www.bbc.com

 

[bigdaddysaints]

Self checkout should only be for the people who WANT to use them. Places like walmart shold still have regular checkouts. I know the neigborhood walmart by my house only has one regular register open, but after like 7pm, its ONLY self checkout. Self checkout is good if you are the type of person that can use it competently...

 

[Sailorsaint]

 

[Saints1257]

In my city walmart took out all self check outs at some locations because theft became too much. It's kinda nice to see walmart with nothing but regular registers and lots of cahiers like back in the day. No self check out. It's sad it took rampant theft for them to return to the old days. No more 10 or more employees standing around watching us ring up our groceries. Instead 10 or more employees working a register.

 

[bigdaddysaints]

so they went back to having 3 registers open and 20 people waiting in line?

 

[Saints1257]

so they went back to having 3 registers open and 20 people waiting in line?

Actually 10 registers open. I was shocked.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Gen Z’s habit of swiping extends past their phones. The young generation of shoppers also admit to swiping from retail stores, a habit that’s only become easier with the advent of self-checkout kiosks.

Young shoppers have a stronger affinity for self-checkout than older generations, a survey this week from Avery Dennison found. More than half of Gen Z and millennial respondents said that a self-checkout option would be a reason for them to switch retailers, compared 41% of Gen X and 30% of Baby Boomer shoppers.

While Gen Z customers said that self checkout is faster, and they enjoy not having to wait in line or interact with others, there’s another reason why they may love self-service shopping: It’s easy to steal.

Almost one-third (31%) of Gen Z shoppers have admitted to shoplifting from self-checkout aisles compared to 15% of shoppers overall, according to a November LendingTree survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers. Almost half of Gen Z participants (46%) said they plan to lift the most expensive item in their cart, while 37% said they will loot the basics, such as food and water.

Gen Z’s spending power is increasing, making it crucial for retailers to attract young buyers, including so-called frictionless shopping opportunities that make paying easier. But self-checkout sleights of hand are having a real impact on retailers, with Walmart, Costco, and Wegmans are cutting down on kiosks, citing intentional shoplifting as reason for doing so. Satisfying a growing customer base while trying to protect from theft has left retailers unsure how to approach the future of automated checkout.

"While self-checkout is convenient, it certainly poses a risk for shoplifting,” LendingTree Chief Credit Analyst Matt Schulz said in a statement. “Ultimately, retailers need to decide whether the self-checkout terminals are worth the risk.”

Walmart, Costco, and Wegmans did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Designed to increase convenience and ease labor costs, self-checkout kiosks have cost retailers in shrink, or inventory lost due to poor record-keeping or theft. For UK, U.S. and European retailers, the mobile scan-related shrinkage rate, 3.97%, was more than twice the overall shrinkage rate of 1.79%, according to a 2017 study in Security Journal.

In September, Walmart pulled self-checkout lanes from at least three New Mexico stores, opting to bring back cashiers to ring up groceries. Walmart employees and shoppers said elf checkout was responsible for a stealing surge.


Some sticky-fingered Gen Z shoppers believe that shoplifting is justified and that corporations have too large a stranglehold on the economy, leaving small businesses to suffer.

“We have so many companies that don’t care about their customers, only making money,” one shoplifting teen told Vice. “If we can punish the corporation, we feel we have done our best.”............

Gen Z loves self-checkout because it makes shoplifting easy

Gen Z loves self-checkout because it makes shoplifting easy

fortune.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Self-checkout might make shoppers feel less loyal to a store, according to new research.

Retailers, including Kroger and Costco, have turned to the tech over the last couple of decades. But customers don't like bagging their own groceries or the other tasks of ringing up their own purchases, surveys of shoppers conducted at Drexel University's LeBow College of Business found.

Customers are more likely to return to stores where they used a human-staffed checkout, versus stores where they used a self-checkout, according to the researchers, Yanliu Huang and Farhana Nusrat.

"Our findings indicate that self-checkout systems, despite their advantages in terms of speed, ease of use, and cost reduction, can result in lower customer loyalty compared to regular checkout systems, especially when the number of purchased items is relatively high (e.g., more than 15 items)," Huang, a professor at LeBow, said in a press release.

Customers were more likely to come back to a store when they used traditional checkout, the researchers say, because of the easier process and a "sense of entitlement" to good service while shopping.........

Self-checkout is alienating shoppers, new research finds

New research suggests self-checkout may decrease customer loyalty to stores, despite its speed and cost benefits.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

From Thursday, self-checkout lanes in all Schnucks stores will be limited to customers buying 10 items or fewer, the retailer confirmed to Business Insider. Customers with more than 10 items will be redirected to its staffed checkout lanes, it said.

"While the primary intention is to improve customer service and checkout efficiency, we do expect there to be some benefits to stopping theft," Schnucks said in a statement. "Because self-checkouts are more susceptible to theft, this item limit will help us maintain our costs while keeping the prices lower for our customers."

Schnucks operates 115 stores in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. It told BI that all its stores had self-checkouts, with between four and eight on average at each location.

"When self-checkouts were first introduced, they were intended for smaller orders," Schnucks continued in its statement. "Over time, larger orders began moving through self-checkouts, and we are hoping to address that concern."

Retailers across the US are rethinking their self-checkout strategies as companies fear that they're facilitating theft.

In some cases the shrink, as it's known in the industry, is intentional — customers deliberately don't scan some items or put them through as lower-cost products — while sometimes it happens by accident.............

A grocery store chain is limiting how many items you can buy at its self-checkouts as concerns over theft mount

Schnucks customers will be limited to 10 items at its self-checkout. "We do expect there to be some benefits to stopping theft," the retailer said.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[bigdaddysaints]

I can't believe yall thiefs are ruing self check out.. I guess it wass good while it lasted.

At work (plant Warehouse) we tag all items with an RFID tag (3x1 inch labels, but they make them much smaller). If they pass back through the door with 10 items, it picks those items up.
Seems like a option to put these tags on items over a certain dollar amount and if you do not scan this item, it knows you didn't and puts up a red flag. Now, just like when self checkout started it was a pain with ITEM NOT BAGGED, but eventually, it got better. i rarely have issues with self check out.

 

[0rion]

I can't believe yall thiefs are ruing self check out.. I guess it wass good while it lasted.

At work (plant Warehouse) we tag all items with an RFID tag (3x1 inch labels, but they make them much smaller). If they pass back through the door with 10 items, it picks those items up.
Seems like a option to put these tags on items over a certain dollar amount and if you do not scan this item, it knows you didn't and puts up a red flag. Now, just like when self checkout started it was a pain with ITEM NOT BAGGED, but eventually, it got better. i rarely have issues with self check out.

Ok....so someone doesn't scan it and the buzzer goes off when they leave the store. Now what? My daughter works at a retail store.....they're specifically told not to pursue or detain anyone for shop lifting. Crooks know that too. She says people will just come in and walk out with stuff.

 

[Doug B]

I see the articles Optimus posts in this thread, but I kind of don't believe they really point to any true anti-self-checkout trend in the U.S. The articles seems to me more like low-scale outrage/engagement generation.

I'd be shocked to see self-checkout go away around here. There are ways to mitigate against theft, and it's not that different from mitigating against old school theft. Plus more technology will come to bear, as it already has at some places where a camera is not only recording but also automatically evaluating your hands, items, and bags' movements.

The WalMart Fresh Market in Gretna has this in place -- if you grab an empty bag and flick it around near the camera, the self-check station will alert an employee to come over and clear the fault. The WalMart employee views the last few seconds that the camera recorded to see what triggered the response. And so far as I've seen, this camera evaluation is not "ticky" or prone to error -- if you check out normally and pay attention to what you're doing, it's a breeze.

 

[Doug B]

She says people will just come in and walk out with stuff.

And this happened pre-self-checkout as well. Among other theft methods.

 

[0rion]

And this happened pre-self-checkout as well. Among other theft methods.

The place my daughter works doesn't even have self checkouts.