Dollar General is joining the growing list of retail chains reversing course on self-checkout technology.
With an aggressive expansion strategy, Dollar General added self-checkout machines to almost half of its roughly 19,000 stores. Additionally, the business tested experimental storefronts without cashier lanes and with solely self-checkout choices. Dollar General, like other shops, wagered that self-checkout would lower labour expenses and expedite consumers’ checkout times.
The business updated its self-checkout approach to boost revenue and reduce “shrink”—the term for goods losses. Shoplifting, employee theft, harmed goods, mistakes made in administration, internet fraud, and other issues are all included in shrink.
Retailers have been facing an increasing amount of shrinkage, which they attribute to an increase in stealing and have demanded harsher criminal punishments for.
However, the self-checkout tactics used by merchants have also exacerbated their shrink issues. Self-checkout checkout lanes cause retailers to lose more potential revenue than full-service cashiers, both through deliberate theft and sincere customer mistakes.
“When taken as a percentage of total retail sales in 2022, shrink accounted for US $ 112.1 billion in losses, up from US $ 93.9 billion in 2021”, according to the 2023 National Retail Security Survey.
Dollar General is the latest company to backtrack on self checkout.
British supermarket chain Booths announced that it will be eliminating self-checkout kiosks from all but two of its 28 locations. Earlier this year, Walmart eliminated self-checkout kiosks from a few of its New Mexico locations. Following complaints from customers, ShopRite removed them from a Delaware shop.
Target has limited self-checkout to consumers purchasing ten items or less at a few of its locations. Full-service lanes with cashiers are mandatory for customers purchasing over ten items.
After learning that non-members were breaking in to use membership cards that didn’t belong to them at self-checkout, Costco announced that it was increasing the number of employees working in the self-checkout sections.
