Americans react to Walmart’s removal of self-checkouts

Walmart has continued to ditch some self-checkouts in stores — and shoppers couldn’t be happier.

Self-checkouts were introduced to reduce labor costs and supposedly streamline the customer shopping experience. But for the most part, they were hated.

DailyMail.com readers and X users came out in droves to explain why they hate the machines – and their reasons varied.

Some viewed them as a frustrating waste of time, while others simply enjoyed the human interaction they could have with a cashier. Many said they just wanted to keep people employed.

Ironically, a funny photo of a self-checkout at Walmart, right next to a sign claiming the retailer was “investing in American jobs,” went viral.

One reader joked that if they do the work of scanning items, they should be on Walmart’s payroll too.

“If there are self-checkouts, where will my W2 be at the end of the year,” they wrote in an email. “If I have to check it out myself, I need a discount to get paid for the time spent while I’m your employee. »

Another expressed disappointment at not being welcome at Walmart’s Christmas party. One person joked that if you use the toilet you might have to clean it too.

“The self-checkouts worked so well,” they wrote. “Walmart is expanding other tasks we can do for them. Be careful asking to use the restroom, you may need to clean and shine the mirrors once you’re done.

They share a fake broadcast from the retailer: “Starting Tuesday…customers will now be required to unload tractor-trailers at Walmart. This will be added to your self-checkout duties.

Meanwhile, some people confessed to liking self-checkouts because they made theft easier.

“I like self-checkouts so I can fly, so please keep them,” one wrote.

One X user joked about scanning cheaper items for discounts: “I scanned the TV like bananas during autocheckout. »

Another claimed that they may not be scanning items completely and that when they are processing products, they may not be able to enter every item they take into the system.

At two stores, in Missouri and Ohio, Walmart will replace self-checkouts entirely with “traditional” staffed aisles, as shown.

“I will game the system when using self-checkout,” they wrote. “Oh, those paper towels under my cart, I forgot to call it; how many avocados in this plastic bag? More than I’ll pay.

One person said that when she scans her items, she feels overly supervised and scrutinized by staff members.

“I like going self-service and having 3 paid employees to watch me do their job for free,” they said.

A common complaint was also that self-checkouts were particularly inefficient when it came to processing fresh produce.

“What I hate about self-checkout: getting pinged for not scanning something I so obviously scanned,” one X user wrote.

Others have pointed out in the past that the weights indicated for meats do not always correspond to the weights indicated by scales.

“Dear Walmart, while you’re at it, fix the problem with your scale. There seems to be a mismatch between the scales in the meat section and the checkouts,” one person tweeted.

Some of the biggest retailers have taken steps this year to reverse the failed self-checkout experiment. The machines were designed to reduce labor costs, but they caused an increase in theft.

Last month, Dollar General announced it was completely removing self-checkouts from 300 of its stores with the highest levels of shoplifting and improperly scanned items.

At 9,000 other locations, the company said it is converting some of its self-checkouts to regular checkouts and limiting purchases at self-checkouts to five items or fewer at another 4,500 stores.

Kroger also added traditional checkouts at a Texas store where it previously only offered self-checkouts, the Dallas Morning News reported.

During this time, Costco began assigning additional staff to self-checkout areas to supervise shoppers and ensure all items were scanned correctly, as well as to ensure membership cards were not shared.