These stores are getting rid of self-checkouts (and supposedly not for the reason you expect)
For some shoppers, they’re the invention of the century: self-checkouts. No more waiting in endless lines at the checkout, but paying for your groceries and getting out immediately. Yet the system has quite a few drawbacks. For some stores, such as Action, that’s the very reason to stop using self-checkouts. Understandable or a bad choice?
Action introduced self-checkouts in 2019 in a large number of its stores. According to spokespeople for the discount retailer, the company is still testing the best way to provide customer-friendly service. That is supposedly the reason for now removing self-checkouts from some of its stores. The increased number of thefts would ‘not necessarily be the cause’ of the self-checkouts’ disappearance.
More self-checkouts = more theft
It has long been known that self-checkouts encourage theft. Store employees carry out random checks at self-checkouts, so there’s a chance you won’t get caught. And for more and more shoppers, that’s reason enough to walk through the store gates without paying for some—or any—of their purchases. It gives many stores with self-checkouts a major headache. Because what can you do about it? Some stores are fighting theft at self-checkouts. They’re experimenting with all kinds of security techniques, from image recognition to artificial intelligence. But closing self-checkouts to limit theft still seems to be a no-go for most stores so far. Even if we are to believe Action, which is now actually going to close some of its self-checkouts.
1 + 1 = 2?
Still, we doubt that the increase in theft at Action is really not a reason for the retailer to stop using self-checkouts. Store employees told journalists something different—namely, that the opposite is true. Action denies this. So does Lidl, incidentally, which announced last year that it would stop using self-checkouts in Belgium, at least. If you notice that much more is being stolen from your store since you introduced self-checkouts, then one plus one seems to equal two. Right?
Are self-checkouts really that great?
That raises another discussion. Are self-checkouts really that great? Of course, in a certain sense they are convenient. You scan your products yourself and put them straight into your bag. But the personal aspect of your shopping experience completely passes you by. Along with jobs, the chat with the cashier also disappears. For some groups—especially lonelier older people—such a chat can make their day. That’s why Jumbo opened special ‘chat checkouts’ in its stores at the end of 2021. And did you know that you’re not necessarily faster when you scan your own groceries than when the cashier does it? In fact, a cashier takes 1.9 seconds per product, while you take an average of 7.8 seconds to scan one item.
Customer-friendly checkout
That is probably what Action means by testing customer-friendliness. Will that social aspect return if the stores switch back entirely to ‘regular’ checkouts? And will customers appreciate that too? If the number of thefts also decreases, that would of course be a nice bonus for Action. But since that was supposedly only a side issue in closing the self-checkouts…
Also read:
- Wow: Albert Heijn’s self-checkouts cannot be trusted
- Painful: cashierless Aldi turns out to be largely customerless too
- Why some people should not be allowed to use a self-checkout
Source: RTL Nieuws
