Walmart customers getting hostile at self-checkout – they blame anti-theft tech

The article seems to be based on the assumption that the anti-theft technology is perfect, and that if it flags then that always means that customer has not scanned an item (intentionally or otherwise).

But given how many issues you get with every other aspect of the self checkout process (items failing to scan properly, machines being broken, "unexpected item in bagging area", etc) that seems to be a very generous assumption.

And when someone has had to wait in a queue to use on of the working self checkout machines, has to go through scanning all of their own shopping (which is stores have managed to get customers to do for free so that they can make more money), has to wait for someone to come over to "assist" them when the machine complains about something, and is then (directly or indirectly) accused of trying to steal from the store because of a faulty self-checkout machine, it's not a huge surprise when they get pissed off about that.

I think the sense of injustice may sometimes be to blame. Let me elaborate.

There have been times at Whole Foods when item after item isnt scanned, now you have to wait for an attendant. Usually they have 1 attendant for 10 machines, so now you've queued up to be helped.

Except there are times where attendants just go randomly help people, or help people who are loud or pull them in. If you have 3 or 4 people waiting for help, unable to proceed, the attendant should help in the order they needed help. You shouldnt see new people suddenly being helped if you've been waiting.

In any case, this has been so infuriating sometimes that I literally just walked away. I left everything, including frozen goods right at the checkout counter. I didnt know what to do to be helped on a fair basis.

I’ve had significant issues with some particular models of self-checkout. They have some sort of weight check after scanning an item, to see if I’ve placed it in the basket. I assume they’re matching up the items known weight, with the change in the weight in my bag.

However, it’s implemented poorly, with frequent false positives. Furthermore, there’s a race condition between scanning the item, the machine saying “place it in the bag”, and the actual weight check. If I move too fast, the item is in my bag before the check starts, and I have to wait for assistance.

Maybe folks are frustrated that their theft is being caught, but high frustration seems to be the base case here.

Sacrificing customer comfort and customer goodwill is the new forefront of business optimization, and it is reaching levels where every interaction with every company always leave a bitter aftertaste for the customer. It all started with the famous tale of the airline that saved millions by giving passengers one less olive each, and it became a race to the bottom with companies continuously trying to find the crappiest experience that customers will still tolerate. The self checkout theft prevention measures are just the latest example, where they purposefully make the machines a bit hostile to everyone, making everyone's experience feel bit worse in order to prevent a percentage of thefts. It burns customer goodwill, but at the end of the day they decided that too much goodwill won't bring profit, so they might as well burn that goodwill to try and extract something from it.

It is unsurprising that some customers are growing agitated with self checkouts. Others have mentioned issues with weights and "accusatory" automated voices, but recently I ran afoul of the computer vision technique used to detect theft. A machine flagged me twice for holding produce in my left hand while trying to find the item number on the screen with my right. Both times an employee had to come and override the system.

It's just a machine but when people are being accused of theft while just trying to buy their groceries, frustration will grow. Since then I've gone back to cashier based checkout. I wonder if we will see more people doing that in future.

I get hostile at self-checkout regardless.

It’s slower (even without the errors), all the errors are infuriating making it even slower, and I should receive a discount for the labor I employed doing someone else’s job. This is on top of being annoyed that I’m in the self-checkout to begin with because they have 10% of the regular lanes open… if someone then stopped me and accused me of stealing I’d just ask for a full refund…

Maybe the typical price discovery tactic of increasing prices until sales drop off is not telling the whole story. Maybe when people start stealing more and more, it means that prices are too high.

Alternatively, the COL of skyrocketing and people can't keep up anymore. This infinite growth economic structure is unsustainable.

Some locations of Target (US supermarket) have started disabling self-checkout at 8pm, and also limiting self checkout to 10 items or less. So they are literally de-automating their process. Not sure but it seems to do with theft - they have also started locking up or electronically tagging certain items as well.

I think this is probably because the "Target philosophy" is they dont want customers to go through the trauma of the Walmart experience, nor others around them to have to witness it. Target never checked receipts, I've heard they just silently record everything on video (they have dozens of cameras all over the store) and ban you once you've stolen X amount of stuff. I guess that wasn't quite cutting it so they have moved back to cashier checkout.

On average I have been shopping in a Walmart more than once a week for more than six years. So I saw the rollout of checkout cameras.

There's almost certainly facial recognition and radio frequency thumbprinting involved in the whole process of shrinkage mitigation because:

1. The first systems I saw had a camera pointed at me and a display showing that image. There are still some of these systems deployed, but the more recent one's don't show a selfie shot...but I am not naive enough to believe my face isn't being captured.

2. I take my phone in the store with me. A big box store has some properties similar to a faraday cage, yet the cellular signal is strong enough to suggest internal hotspots. Walmart would be foolish not to try to negotiate data access with providers. Walmart is not foolish and has the leverage to negotiate such a relationship...I mean they even sell cell phone plans in their stores.

3. I use the Walmart app in the store to find things on my list because all Walmarts are little different. So Walmart has my exact location and ID.

4. All of this data gets validated when I pay by credit card.

5. And of course there are cameras in the parking lot and my van has a license plate.

A privacy nightmare? No more than the rest of the world. This stuff goes on everywhere there is sufficient technology 24/7 for far less reasonable reasons.

Though YMMV of course.

My Target mini-store downtown has no checkers at all. It's self-check or nothing (or steal I guess).

I hate self-check. Always buying that fruit or piece of lumber or whatever that won't scan or has no sticker or whatnot, then having to navigate the touchscreen to find it among their 1M items.

Fortunately this store ignores the scale (so no 'put item in bagging area' nag) and even though it shows you on a screen from a surveillance camera, those signals go no further than the station. No bandwidth in Target's in-store network for all that video; no storage for it either.

And the mini-store is made items, not a lot of produce for instance, meant for students and loft-residents to buy readymade lunch or whatever. So everything is coded.

I wonder if there’s a tipping point where lost sales due to customer frustration exceeds ROI on loss prevention features and self checkouts.

I also wonder how close we are to that tipping point.

I frequently encounter issues at self-checkout where I scan an item, hear a beep, assume it's added to my total, but the previous item hasn't registered on the scale yet, so it doesn't add the item.

These systems are often rigid, hard to use, and differ between stores. Sometimes, customers are blamed for theft, but it's not always intentional. Many struggle with these systems. Why can't they make self-checkout user-friendly?

I loathe the camera and the little screen that shows me standing at the self check out. It is degrading. Self check out needs to go away.

I don't see how more people don't understand self-checkout to be the uncompensated labor that it is. You're not getting paid, you're not getting any discount (certainly nothing meaningful). It's jobs lost for your local community and pure profit filling the pockets of distant fat cats.

Self checkout effects my time (especially when served lines are available for a large grocery order).

They also impact my tolerance for reusing my bags, because anti theft video and scales make it very difficult to adjust your bags.

Is this an American thing?

In Europe these "unexpected items in packing area" errors which require staff to come and clear are taken in stride and became a bit of a meme.

I imagine these angry encounters will substantially decrease over time as people realize they can't get away with missed scans anymore

Besides anger being used as a standard deflection tactic against rule enforcement, I imagine people who have been successfully stealing from these for a while feel entitled to do it and get angry when contradicted.