new york
CNN
—
There is a growing backlash against self-checkout, and stores are starting to reintroduce the technology that has exploded in popularity over the past few years.
British supermarket chain Booth has announced that it will remove self-checkout from all but two of its 28 stores. In the U.S., chains such as Walmart, Costco and Wegmans have also revised their self-checkout strategies.
“Our customers have told us this over time: The self-scan machines in our stores… can be slow, can be unreliable, (and) It can be clearly inhumane,” Booth managing director Nigel Murray said. BBC.
Paul Melling/Alamy Stock Photo
British supermarket booths will remove self-checkouts.
Customers at the booth often misidentified which fruits and vegetables they were buying when prompted by the self-checkout. Self-checkout systems did not allow for smooth transactions, as employees had to verify the age of customers to purchase alcohol.
“For example, some customers don’t know one apple from another,” Murray said. “There’s all this fuss about it and the moment you put the alcohol in your basket someone has to come and check to see if you’re of the right age.”
A Booth spokesperson told CNN that having employees check on shoppers has improved the customer experience.
Self-service machines were first introduced in the 1980s to reduce labor costs. They transferred the work of paid employees to unpaid customers.
Self-checkouts expanded in supermarkets in the early 2000s as stores sought to cut costs. During the pandemic, many shoppers took advantage of self-checkout for the first time to minimize close contact with employees and other customers.
But now, retailers are rethinking self-checkout. Researchers found that product loss due to customer error or intentional shoplifting (known as “shrink”) was higher with self-checkout than with a human cashier calling the customer. did.
Shrinkage is becoming a growing problem for retailers, who blame shoplifting for the rise and are calling for tougher penalties. But retailers’ self-checkout strategies also contribute to the shrink problem.
A study of retailers in the US, UK and other European countries found that businesses with self-checkout lanes and apps had loss rates of around 4%, more than double the industry average. .
Some products may contain multiple barcodes or barcodes that cannot be properly scanned by self-checkout technology. Produce such as fruit and meat typically must be weighed and manually entered into the system using a code. Customers may accidentally enter the wrong code. Additionally, shoppers may not hear a “beep” that confirms the item was properly scanned.
Lindsay Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Costco is hiring more self-checkout staff.
Some customers have developed theft methods by taking advantage of the lax surveillance in self-checkout aisles. Common techniques include not scanning the item, exchanging a cheaper item (banana) for a more expensive item (steak), scanning a fake barcode on the wrist, and scanning everything properly before paying. For example, you may leave without doing anything.
Stores are trying to limit losses by adding security features to self-checkouts, such as adding weight sensors. However, any further theft prevention measures would result in a more frustrating error, “Unexpected item in bagging area,” requiring employee intervention.
Walmart removed self-checkout systems at some stores in New Mexico earlier this year. ShopRite removed them from its Delaware stores after customer complaints. Wegmans last year shut down its mobile app that allowed customers to scan, bag and pay for groceries while shopping after reporting losses. Costco has announced that it will hire more self-checkout staff after discovering that non-members were secretly trying to use membership cards that did not belong to them at self-checkout stations.
Costco management said earlier this year that shrinkage “we believe is due in part to the introduction of self-checkout.”
Five Below, a discount toy retailer, said stores with more self-checkout lanes had higher shrinkage rates. The company plans to increase the number of manned cash registers at the new location.