(Image via nypost.com)

Volunteer Writer: Akshit Bagga

Email: abagga@umassd.edu

Years after the technology exploded in popularity, major retail chains like Walmart and Costco are considering shutting down self-checkout lanes nationwide.

Self-checkout counters have been a talking point in the industry for some time now. It is a great technology and an impressive sales pitch for shoppers in a rush: get stuff, scan it, and walk away. While it may be suitable for shoppers, retailers are facing huge problems, causing them to want to remove them and return to their traditional ways of running a counter.

Introduced and first patented in the 1990s, self-checkout machines were brought in to cut down on labor expenses. During the early 2000s, supermarkets slowly started to test and bring in this concept and began starting the self-service lanes.

Self-checkout allowed customers to weigh their groceries, scan items on their own, input coupons, pay for their transactions, and be out on their way with personal convenience. The pandemic further promoted these lanes, with shoppers minimizing contact in retail stores.

With time, the woos of retailers have increased, but they now face challenges. 

Missing inventories, confusion over groceries, thefts, and shrinks (when a shopper pays for only part of their purchase) are some of the main issues retail chains face with these self-service machines. A study of retailers across the United States and Great Britain revealed that self-checkout lanes and app-based services contribute to approximately 4% of their loss rates.

Pressures, competition, and losses can be judged by the retail chain’s decision to shut down the self-checkout lanes.

In September last year, Walmart pulled out self-checkout counters in at least three of their stores in New Mexico with plans to do so for other stores. ShopRite closed self-checkout counters in Delaware, and Wegmans ended mobile app checkout. 

Costco chose to add extra staff in the self-checkout lanes after it found out nonmembers were sneaking in with membership cards belonging to other customers to use the price benefits that come with the subscription.

While shutting down self-checkout is one step, Target is also weighing other options. They plan to limit the hours of operation for their self-checkout counters. This move may only affect some Target locations, as employees suggest that store staffing levels and sales volumes will be critical factors in the decision.

An analysis by Grabango reveals that self-checkout counters resulted in a higher shoplifting rate when compared to traditional registers. The report also claims that eliminating “shrink caused by self-checkout could alone increase a store’s bottom-line profit by 50%.”

Nigel Murray, managing director of British supermarket chain Booths, talked about other difficulties customers face at the self-checking machines. Murray mentioned, “Our customers have told us that the self-scan machines that we’ve got in our stores can be slow; they’re unreliable and obviously impersonal.” 

He mentioned that customers often input the wrong fruits and vegetables into the machines when checking out. Buying alcohol also posed an irritating issue because of the required age verification mechanism.

Decreasing losses while maintaining a user-friendly experience is tough, but companies are currently navigating this route. 

Walmart has introduced a subscription model like that of Costco, where shoppers can enjoy premium benefits by purchasing an annual plan. 

It will be interesting to see how shoppers and retailers alike will cope with the current problem mounting up from cutting back on self-checkout and moving to membership or subscription services.