Walmart joins other big retailers in scaling back on self-checkout
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- Improve the layout. Provide more input side workspace for the customer to unload their cart. Make the workflow more like cashier checkout - unload cart onto conveyor, pass items across scanner, deposit in bagging area. Don't cram so many self checkout stations into a small area that customers and carts are crowded together trying to use them. De-clutter the self-checkout area. Get rid of the high-margin impulse items. Remember Bed, Bath, and Beyond, with the most cluttered checkouts in retail? Remember what happened to them? As one retail consultant wrote, "Never put an obstacle in the way of the customer giving you money".
- Big screen with no distractions showing what you've scanned, without abbreviations but maybe with item pictures. Do not treat this as an advertising opportunity. It's a progress chart.
- Use multiple cameras and computer vision to watch what's happening. Provide good cues - "Didn't get a good look at that item - please show it to the scanner again." Use something with enough smarts to approximately recognize products. The system should be able to tell how many bags you used without user help. It should be able to resolve most minor problems without human assistance. This is not primarily an anti-theft measure, although it will help. It's an anti-confusion measure.
- Get the payment system properly synchronized with the checkout system. Never show a display that says to present a card until the system is ready to accept the card. Once a card has been read, say so. Get RFID readers with decent receivers so the customer isn't struggling to get the card read properly. (Looking at you, Toast.)
There's probably a YC24 in this for somebody. All the necessary hardware exists. The integration is terrible.
- optimize the system to run in true realtime - most self checkouts I used have perceptible latency of a few seconds between one scan and the next one - usually lagging behind of how fast a person can scan all their items, if they are positioned conveniently. Also, after all scanning is done, going to payment has its own delay. The system has to be very responsive...
I recently tried to eat at Roam, on Union Street in San Francisco. But they could not sell me a burger. Their cloud POS system (from Toast, naturally) had failed. So they were out of business until Toast got around to fixing the server end. They couldn't even accept cash - the cloud controls the cash drawer.
Self-checkout is failing because of theft. Therefore, all of your suggestions are unhelpful. Helpful suggestions would sound something like (for demonstrative purposes only):
Fully gate in the checkout area and ensure all items are scanned and paid for before opening the exit gate.
> Another approach is adding a receipt-scanning gate at self-checkout areas, which Safeway has done at multiple locations in California, in addition to shutting down self-checkout entirely in some stores.
One Software issue is probably not one for most, but for kg-price or non-scannable items, I’d love text input for search, and the same instant numbers that the employees can use (e.g. 1056 = cauliflower (by weight), 1432 = cucumber (per piece)), as well as a "repeat" button. That would have to be behind an "advanced interface" switch to not confuse most people, so that will never happen. Still, it’s nice to dream.
Very much agree with the layout. I usually have a full shopping cart. That means, despite me technically preferring the self-checkout, I’ll only use it if my wife is with me because otherwise I’ll run out of space and can’t properly pack things away at a decent speed.
Even buying drinks is a hassle, because of the pop-up asking you if you bought 1 or 24? Why not just let me input the number I bought? Or better yet, measure it automatically.
The biggest shortcoming of the self-checkouts are the fact that you can't edit an order. Oh, the system scanned the item twice? Good luck getting a cashier to help you remove it again. I've walked over to another self-checkout before, because that was quicker than waiting for someone come over and edit the order.
For multiple items, there is separate bar code on larger packaging. Ofc, this does not solve the issue of some large number of individual items...
One approach I've thought about is if the shopping cart coul be the POS.
There's often a tradeoff between security and convenience. Maybe it's a drop bin once something goes in it.
Retail has a large set of known problems with theft, re-labeling, etc. Not sure how many of them could be solved vs how much theft retailers are willing to tolerate.
It’s fast and convenient.
The idea is to replicate the item handling at human checkout.
For big stuff in the bottom of the cart, there's an existing object recognition system, LaneHawk.[1] So you don't have to take out the case of beer or the bag of seed; the system will recognize big stuff automatically.
[1] https://www.datalogic.com/eng/retail/fixed-retail-scanners/l...
Ultimately, it's cheaper to hire minimum wage workers to just deal with stuff. There's always going to be people so desperate for a job that they'll work there and get public assistance to cover what their paycheck doesn't.
I scan things with my phone as I put them into my cart. As I approach the self-checkout area I press "checkout" in the app, and it tells me how many items it thinks I have and I tell it that is right.
At the self-checkout terminals on the home screen there is a QR code. I scan that from the Walmart app, tell it how many store-provided bags I'm using, and click the "pay" button. A second or two later it thanks me on the screen, the green "this terminal is available light" above the terminal comes on, and a receipt appears on my phone.
I push my cart out to my car, holding up the phone so the person at the Walmart exit can see the receipt. At my car I unload the cart into my bags.
If it is cold or rainy out so I don't want to be standing behind my car unloading my shopping cart I'll bring my bags into the store and load them as I shop.
The only real annoyance was weighed produce, but they recently fixed that. The way it had worked was when scanning the item in the app it would tell you it needed to be weighed and that would done at checkout. At checkout it would go through the items that needed weighing and ask you to put them on the scale. Then it would update your cart with the calculated prices for those items and you could continue checkout.
The problems were that (1) if you put an item on the scale too early it could get confused, and (2) the communications between the scale, terminal, back end, and phone was sometimes flakey. The result was that sometimes checkout would hang at the weighing and an associate would have to come and reset things or transfer your cart to a human operated register and complete checkout there.
It was annoying enough that I'd sometimes not scan the items that would need weighing from the app, and then when I got to the self-checkout terminal I'd first scan (with the terminal's scanner, not the app) and weigh the items that need them, pay with my physical credit card, and then do another checkout for the app scanned items.
A month or so ago they put in new digital scales in the produce section. Now if I add an item that will need weighing from the app it tells me it will need weighing and tells me I can do it at one of the scales or at checkout. The scales in the produce section give the weight in both human friendly form and as a QR code. From the app I pick an item that needs weighing and point the phone at that QR code, and the app updates the item with the weight and price.
Edit: one story of many https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/walmart-shoplifting-la...
“Another approach is adding a receipt-scanning gate at self-checkout areas, which Safeway has done at multiple locations in California, in addition to shutting down self-checkout entirely in some stores.”
I'm not a thief and won't be treated like one.
Its also loss prevention.
Bag checkers at BestBuy, on the other hand....
We’re not talking about “government database” kinds of people.
Really? How many of them are prosecuted? Tell me, how is it that porch pirates (thieves) are so prolific if there's some master database of every thief everywhere?
> Retailers should concentrate on those instead of harassing non-thief customers.
Retailers must not discriminate against anyone until after a crime has been committed. Otherwise it's a slippery path down to redlining.
I understand it is in response to theft, but has no one thought about the detriment this does to the consumer using self check out? The very nature of the self check out and all of its problems are driving people to hate them, and in turn resent the retailer.
It's just not civilised.
I mean, everything in my cart is stuff that I just finished willingly recording into their sales records, so it's not as if I've had time to develop much sense of privacy or attachment over it.
For whatever reason, I think I'm more annoyed/discomfited by the "higher security tiny store within a store" thing some places have been doing, especially when all I wanted was a single toothpaste or something.
It is straight up illegal in Canada for a store to require you to show your receipt in order to be allowed to leave. It's unlawful detainment.
This applies to Costco as well. Of course you can have your membership revoked if you refuse there. However other grocery stores have no recourse if you leave without showing your receipt.
That seems like a straw-man argument. I've never seen anyone actually detained by private employees who suspect theft, and I'll bet many companies' policies quite explicitly prohibit those employees from trying.
Of course they actually do. Just be glad you're lucky enough not to have had to deal with that.
C'mon man, citation needed.
I'm going to pre-buttal a bunch of "that's not actually the same claim" items here:
* If it's a couple notable incidents before the company gets a bloody nose in an expensive lawsuit and changes things, then that's not regular behavior.
* If the employee detains someone in accordance with local laws (e.g. the seldom-usable "citizen's arrest"), then it's not illegally acting like police.
* If the person is detained by actual police because the employee called them over, then that's not the private company doing the detention.
For example, down in Washington State, I'd paraphrase the law [0] as "store owners can't be sued back if they had good evidence and only stopped the person enough to record information." (Note, that's separate from "citizen's arrest", which comes more from common-law precedents than from explicit statue.)
It's not just not a strawman, it's already happening, even if it is illegal
Your link doesn't say that though. Where does it supports the claim that suspect-customers were/will-be illegally detained?
Do you have some other source? And I don't mean "it happened once or twice before the company got slammed with a massive lawsuit that made them substantially change the policy."
Not sure what your understanding is, but imo if a person is physically blocked from leaving a store, then they are being detained. It doesn't matter if an employee is doing it or if it's a gate with a receipt scanner
They can and have had employees standing at exits to check receipts in the past, but people are under no obligation to present a receipt in order to be allowed to leave so most people just walk right by
Physically placing a barrier in the way to prevent that is detainment. Replacing the employee with a scanning machine doesn't somehow change that.
What are you talking about? I use self checkout at every opportunity I can. Feel free not to if you don't want, but this projection is weird.
I feel like I'm going crazy when I read comments online about the people who love self check out. Unless you're going into an unpopular CVS to buy a single soda on a hot day, it nearly always takes the same time with more work or longer to check out.
A grocery store with non barcoded produce in self check out is basically the worst a shopping experience can be. Especially now that stores realize many of the biggest lovers of self check out were people who used it to steal so everything requires a double check if anything is off by more then a gram.
Completely disagree. Self checkout is much faster 90% of the time in my experience. Even when there is literally zero line for the cashier self checkout tends to be faster for me.
Grow some patience and empathy. Someone who is penny pinching deserves your respect. Someone who is unable (or perhaps unwilling) to use technology also does.
If you go into a grocery store and aren't patient for those around you... well maybe you should be paying the premium to purchase your groceries online and have them delivered to you. Then you don't have to worry about the extra five minutes it takes for granny-not-yours to write out a check whose sum total is a significantly large chunk of their social security for the month.
It is not penny pinching, it is simply keeping the coinage in their purse light.
It is not from frugality that some people wait until the cashier is giving them the total that they start writing out their check including date, recipient, and purpose.
It is why I prefer the self checkout line, and I do my best not to slow down the people behind me so that they do not have to wait an extra 5 minutes for me.
Still, rising theft — part of what retailers call "shrink" — is the primary reason self-checkout is being ditched in some stores and restricted in others, according to Saunders.
Walmart is also putting other anti-shoplifting measures in place, such as locking away certain expensive small items like beauty products. I don't know if there is a cultural shift going on, profit seeking or if it's somehow a reflection of the political status quo.
It's wild. Almost defense-industry-like.
[1] Or possibly ever programmed a computer. I am very possibly the World's Worst Programmer[a], and my completely shambolic first attempt at an Electron-based data entry system with a smartcard auth thingy worked way better than this thing. I at least hid Windows errors for chrissake.
[1.a] I've got that on my business card, along with the incredibly niche things I might actually be able to help you with. Incredibly, I've gotten programming gigs with this.
[2] As shoppers fearfully wonder how many of these transactions are actually posting to accounts.
At my local Home Depot, all the staffed registers are long unavailable, with the exception of one in the "pro" section. There are self-checkout registers... but they're all manned by Home Depot Employees. Not to watch over you, but running them in an admin mode, and using them as normal registers. It is absolutely ridiculous.
I believe the reason may be related to theft. All of the entrances no longer open except one. Well, at least for entering the store, as you can still exit through any of the doors just fine.
If this seems bad, here's how bad it is: Last time I went to Home Depot to get one or two things because they had it and I wanted them now, there were two older women in line in front of me. Aged 60+. They were discussing how ridiculous the situation was. One even said, "I realize they've probably done this because of theft, but this is so stupid now that honestly, I almost feel as if I should steal from the store to stick it to them!"
When old ladies feel that stealing from your store is justifiable, you've done messed up.
That was the worst experience I've had at Home Depot and I'll never purchase anything from them again.
Now I buy from Lowe's. My aunt works there -- but at least I know I'm not going to get screwed by family. Or, if I do get screwed by family, then there's family-political solutions there. It's clearly nepotism :) but if it works better than capitalism then sobeit.
In Singapore, where I live, self-checkouts are gaining popularity and work quite well.
Here in the Netherlands at the local stores, I walk up, scan my items, pay, and walk out. Randomly, the POS selects you for a check and a person comes by and scans a random 5-10 items from your cart to make sure you don’t have extra items. There’s also no “please but the item in the bagging area” bullshit. I literally scan the item and toss it in my backpack or cart; though you learn (from the random checks) not to put it in your backpack unless you want a random stranger digging through your backpack to scan items.
At some stores, you don’t even scan the items. They have an rfid system (similar to some libraries in the US) that just knows what you have. You then just double check the list and pay.
Just thinking about US self-checkout makes me angry. After being treated like an adult, it just makes you angry.