After years of investing in self-checkout machines, some major retailers are beginning to change course.
Dollar General said it has eliminated self-checkout options at about 12,000 locations, most of its stores, after it began the process in the first quarter of this year. Five Below is working to remove self-pay entirely in some of its “higher risk” locations. Target also announced moves to limit or eliminate self-checkout options in some stores this year, and Amazon is pulling its “Just Walk Out” checkout system from its grocery stores.
U-turns are happening at retailers that once touted the advantages of fully self-service stores. By 2022, Dollar General described the potential for self-checkout technology to “enhance the convenience proposition while enabling our associates to spend even more time serving customers.” The company had been trying to test 100% self-checkout kiosk stores in hundreds of its retail locations.
The decisions come amid ongoing efforts by retailers to reduce “shrink,” an industry term for all the ways inventory can be lost, including through error or theft by shoppers or employees.
Some of the self-pay gear shifting companies have blamed theft for their moves. In March, Five Below CEO Joel Anderson said the most significant change the company made in testing its theft mitigation efforts was replacing self-checkout options with employees. Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said in May that the company’s goal is to limit self-access to high-traffic, low-theft locations.
Still, industry complaints about shoplifting have occasionally raised eyebrows, and at least one retail executive admitted last year that he had overestimated the decline in concerns.
The shrinking of own controls “could absolutely be intentional by bad actors,” said Claire Tassin, a retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult, “or it could be accidental.”
“I know I’m not the only one who has struggled with a self-control machine,” she said. However, in some cases, customers may be deliberately “pretending to scan something and just collect it anyway”.
People always complain that machines are hard to use, or loud, or just challenging in some way.
Consult in the morning with analyst Claire Tassin
According to a LendingTree survey last year, 15% of self-checkout users admitted to theft while using the machines. Some 41% of consumers said they almost always use self-checkout when it’s available, but 21% said the option feels like they’re doing “work for free” and 14% saw it as taking a job from a potential cashier.
Representatives for Dollar General and Five Below did not immediately comment.
Tassin said some retailers may also be looking to improve the customer experience. “People always complain that machines are hard to use or loud or just challenging in some way,” she said.
That’s how Jerome Osei described them recently at a Morton Williams supermarket in New York City. “I have to wait for someone to come in and fix it, and it’s just a waste of time,” he said, opting for the cashier instead.
Other shoppers there had more favorable views. “Super fast, easy, convenient” was the comment of fellow shopper Jessi Clayton. “It’s a great option to have, especially when you’re in a rush.”
Consumers who have been worried about the impact of self-payments on work may be cheered by the recent comebacks. Five Below and Dollar General said they are reinvesting in workers as part of their changes.
“This tells us that it is more profitable for the retailer to pay employees to manage the cash register,” Tassin said. “And they’re certainly going to be better at that than the average untrained consumer than supporting machines, where they’re probably getting less-than-accurate checkouts from consumers.”
But despite the shift to human cashiers, she doesn’t expect shoppers to pay more. “Retailers know that consumers are very price-pressured. So I don’t think it’s going to make a massive, meaningful change in consumer prices” at the moment, she said.
While some stores are moving away from self-nuts, the option doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. According to the Food Industry Association, about 44% of grocery store transactions were completed in self-checkout lanes last year, up from 29% in 2022.