![]() "For the most part, retailers have been thinking about self checkout through a financial-savings and customer-experience perspective," said Kelley, who previously served as a senior manager of asset protection at Home Depot. Matt Kelley, a loss-prevention expert at security solutions company LiveView Technologies, told Insider that it's "definitely very valid" that self-checkout, which he said most big-box retailers have implemented in some form, has led to more thefts. Security experts concur that self-checkouts make it harder to deter theft. Self checkout is where most theft happens." They are converting stores to more self checkouts with less employees. "If corporate actually visited at the store level and spoke with actual employees that deal with the theft, they might see how to fix the problem. "Theft is horrible at my store," the employee said. ![]() I'd much rather see a person checking me out than an cold-hearted machine."Ī Walmart employee at a store in Spokane, Washington, who asked to be anonymous for fear of retaliation, told Insider that her store went down to six staff-operated registers a few months back, with the rest of the machines being self-checkout. "I don't use them because it is taking a job away from someone. "Get rid of the self checkouts and watch the thefts decrease," she said. The best way to protect against theft and make customers happy is to eliminate self checkouts, according to Polly Kearns, a Walmart shopper from Gulfport, Mississippi. ![]() "While we don't discuss details related to illegal activity in our stores, we're continually exploring effective ways to protect merchandise, keep prices low and provide a safe environment for the millions of customers we serve weekly," a Walmart spokesman told Insider in a statement. Reuters reported in 2015 that the world's largest retailer likely was losing about 1% of its US revenue - or roughly $3 billion every year - to stealing by customers and employees. Walmart declined to answer questions on its ratio of self-checkout kiosks to traditional checkout lanes, staffed by cashiers, across the country what surveillance tools it uses to prevent theft if self-checkout has posed additional risks of theft, and how much Walmart has lost in theft this year. Walmart even put out a press release in June 2020 to extol the virtues of its "manned checkout experience," where there is a round area for self-checkout registers and Walmart employees monitoring and assisting with the process. But the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant, like so many other retailers, has increasingly relied on automation as a means of improving customer experience and reducing labor cost. To be sure, Walmart still utilizes cashiers at stores across the nation. ![]() "I'd say they are losing so much due to that." "They need to hire cashiers again and do away with so many self-checkout," said Mindy Stanley, a Walmart customer from Ashland, Kentucky. Walmart CEO and President Doug McMillon told CNBC earlier this month that theft "is higher than what it has historically been" and there will be consequences "if that is not corrected over time." Since McMillon made those comments, more than 100 Walmart customers and former and current employees reached out to an Insider reporter imploring the retailer to rely less on self-checkout. Walmart's CEO has warned that the retailer may need to close down stores due to theft – but many of the company's customers and employees blame one growing feature of the store for enabling shoplifting: self-checkout. ![]()
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