[pscoutou]

I’m not sure. When self-checkouts were introduced here, they had staff supervising to help and educate customers then significantly scaled back that headcount.

Fast forward several years, there’s more staff stationed with self-checkout due to theft.

I think retailers are going to calculate the cost of headcount and theft and make a decision based on an equilibrium.

Of course, the best outcome for Walmart is to have an automated LP system to reduce staffing cost for the long term.

[grawprog]

I used to regularly watch staff at a grocery store i used to go to not give even one ounce of fucks as people would walk through the self checkouts with buggies full of groceries, not even pretend to go through and walk straight out of the store. Even the security guards would just shrug and not do anything.

That store must have lost thousands every day from that, but they're an insanely busy store and probably more than make up for it in sales.

Also, I remember when I worked at a grocery store, the policy was if you seen shoplifters you weren't supposed to approach them or do anything other than to just tell the manager. There were a few thefts from that place and this was before the days of self checkouts. I remember I seen a guy once stuff some things in his backpack, I told the assistant manager, he followed him around through the store, but in the end the guy just left and nothing really happened. He kept whatever he took.

[sukilot]

Self checkout has 1/2 to 1/8 the staff of full checkout.

[pscoutou]

In my example, big grocery chains here had 5-6 employees at launch then dropped it to just one.

Now they have 2-3 employees monitoring the self checkout.

There is a certain point where employers become more focused on reducing shrinkage than headcount.

[throwawaygh]

If they’re open 24/7/365, that’s still six figures in savings. And if one of those employees is watching the self checkouts then losses might not even be that much higher. And that with 90s technology — very little/no CV. I think Cashier as a stand-alone job will probably die off in our lifetime. Maybe you still have a store manager who is up at the front of the store whenever they are not doing something else.

(I’ve been a cashier at a grocery store)