Are Walmart and Costco getting rid of self-checkout?
Self-checkout exploded in recent years, but now Walmart, Costco, and other chains are reconsidering the technology due to problems they’ve encountered.
Stores have seen a boom in the use of self-checkout in recent years brought about by the covid-19 pandemic, when many shoppers began to use it to minimize interaction with other customers and store personnel.
However, some retailers are now reconsidering their use of the technology in light of problems they have been dealing with recently.
Walmart has removed self-checkout in some stores in New Mexico and renovated the lanes to have employees attend to customers’ purchases. Employees and customers said that self-checkout has resulted in an increase in theft.
However, the giant retailer did say that there is no plan for extensively removing the self-checkout lanes.
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Costco to deploy more staff in self-checkout areas
Meanwhile, Costco will be revising their strategy by stationing additional staff in self-checkout zones so they can assist customers. The company had discovered that there had been a growth of “shrink”, which refers to the loss of inventory that occurs due to theft, errors, or damages. Costco management had attributed the increase in merchandise loss to be in part due to the availability of self-checkout.
Costco had also discovered that customers who were not members of the club were using membership cards that were not theirs to ring up their own purchases.
A study of stores in the US, Britain, and some other European countries, discovered that shops that offered self-checkout suffered a 4% loss, which is more than twice the rate in the retail industry.
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When did stores start to use self-checkout?
Self-checkout systems began to gain prominence in the 1980s to reduce labor expenses and increase efficiency. They became increasingly common in supermarkets, department stores, and other retail outlets throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s.
Retail giants like Walmart, Target, and various grocery chains incorporated self-checkout lanes as a standard feature in many of their stores.