Why Self-checkout Is Changing The Way We Shop Today

When I'm shopping at the grocery store, I love to self-checkout. I typically have about 3 or 4 items. There's no reason for me to go through a regular line. Pretty much any retail store that has self-checkout I will probably use regardless of whether it's a grocery store or not. 

But here's something to think about. 

Self-checkout may save me a little time, but self-checkout is also saving the store a lot of money. 

According to msn.com,
‘Retailers want self-checkout to work because it saves them money. They may not come out and say that, and some may pretend it’s about giving customers what they want, but the reality is that it’s a cost-saving move.’ 

But there's a problem with self-checkout lines, and that is theft. In the retail world, they call it shrinkage, and retailers like Target have to Balance the savings of fewer checkers against semi unsupervised self-checkout. I say semi unsupervised because there's usually one staff member watching all of the self-checkout kiosks. Whether there's four or six or eight of them, usually one person is there to supervise. 

If you're doing the self-checkout at Costco, there's usually 2, sometimes three people supervising. I will say this about the Costco Supervisors; they're very quick to help you when you're doing it yourself and have an issue. 

Target has an interesting plan. They want to cut down the number of self-checkout kiosks in order to curb shrinkage, and they also want to limit the number of things that you check out, in your self-checkout. But they don't want to add more manned check stands to keep traffic flowing. This seems to me like a no-win situation. Target wants to save money, and they want to ruin my shopping experience at the same time. 

The only upside to this situation for me is that I seldom shop at Target, although I do probably pop in there once every year or two.  

I must not be in their core shopping demographic. 

Target's anti-theft self checkout changes cause bigger problems 
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