Wal Mart Remove Self Checkouts

[storewanderer]

Building permit showed up in Reno recently for the Wal Mart on Kietzke.

The job is for $30,000 to REMOVE SELF CHECKOUTS ADD STAFFED CHECKOUTS. Not sure exactly what that means but I guess it is self explanatory. This store has a massive front end with like 16 regular checkouts and about 24 self checkouts as it is.

This store has most of drug/HBA locked up and also recently locked up most of men's clothes and some of shoes. Along with various other things locked up. It is strange because the store usually looks pretty good. Clearly there are some major problems.

They also recently had inventory so I am guessing that did not go too well.

[Alpha8472]

There are rumors of self checkout removal at Walmart stores in the San Francisco Bay Area due to theft. It could happen later this year. There is a ton of self checkout fraud and even unintentional theft.

People claim that the price on the shelf was wrong so they just decide to ring up some cheaper item instead to get a cheaper price. It messes up the inventory as now the store thinks the item not rung up is shrink.

Many of the Walmart stores in the San Francisco area have tons of cashiers. It is unbelievable as other Walmart stores in other parts of the state have few cashiers, but due to self checkout theft, the store purposely staffs extra cashiers to discourage self checkout use. The cashier lines move fast, while the small self checkout area moves so slow.

The local store is all locked up with glass cabinets, but there are tons of employees to open the cabinets. The people who stock the shelves can open the cabinets as well as dedicated employees who run around opening cabinets all day long. With the massive amount of sales that the local Walmart stores do, they can afford better staffing. The manager at the local store is really good at allocating employees to where they need to be.

[storewanderer]

We will see how this goes. I have not waited in a line to buy anything at Wal Mart in quite some time due to all these self checkouts they installed. There were a couple "problem" stores in the area who only had a few self checkouts but they remodeled in 2021-2022 and added tons of self checkouts to those stores so no more waits in line.

If this Kietzke removes all of its self checkouts and I start waiting in line for more than about 90 seconds to pay, I won't be going there anymore.

[Alpha8472]

The San Francisco Bay Area stores have very few self checkout machines. The number one Division 1 Walmart store in the Western US has 4 working self checkout machines. The store has about 8 or more staffed cash registers at busy times.

The self checkout area has about 4 employees watching the self checkout area, because customers are stealing left and right. At that store, it would be a more effective use of employees to put those 4 employees on cash registers.

In lower theft areas, of course self checkout can still remain. However, if you have skilled cashiers who are motivated, they can be even faster than self checkout. Some customers have no clue how to use self checkout and this slows down checkout for everyone.

Perhaps if the checkout lanes were made more like Winco or Food4Less checkout lanes, it would speed things up. You could have 2 lanes where customers can bag their own items.

[storewanderer]

The San Francisco Bay Area stores have very few self checkout machines. The number one Division 1 Walmart store in the Western US has 4 working self checkout machines. The store has about 8 or more staffed cash registers at busy times.

The self checkout area has about 4 employees watching each self checkout, because customers are stealing left and right. At that store, it would be a more effective use of employees to put those 4 employees on cash registers.

In lower theft areas, of course self checkout van still remain. However, if you have skilled cashiers who are motivated, they can be even faster than self checkout. Some customers have no clue how to use self checkout and this slows down checkout for everyone.

Perhaps if the checkout lanes were made more like Winco or Food4Less checkout lanes, it would speed things up. You could have 2 lanes where customers can bag their own items.

Many Wal Marts are so reliant on self checkout that I don't think they have any efficient cashiers left. The people who go to the regular cashier are either buying tobacco or are customers who are in no hurry and speed is not of concern to them.

Watching Wal Mart customers try and do a cartload of groceries with produce on self checkout is PAINFUL. This is where they need cashiers, but having a ton of self checkouts so those customers aren't clogging up a few machines suffices. However, the upgrade where they got rid of NCR Self Checkout and switched to whatever this new Apollo system is as they call it, has sped things up a little bit.

[Alpha8472]

The self checkout removal has been confirmed by employees at the San Francisco area store.

However, a total remodel of the store is coming soon. This is the deluxe remodel with the more upscale looking decor.

[veteran+]

The San Francisco Bay Area stores have very few self checkout machines. The number one Division 1 Walmart store in the Western US has 4 working self checkout machines. The store has about 8 or more staffed cash registers at busy times.

The self checkout area has about 4 employees watching the self checkout area, because customers are stealing left and right. At that store, it would be a more effective use of employees to put those 4 employees on cash registers.

In lower theft areas, of course self checkout can still remain. However, if you have skilled cashiers who are motivated, they can be even faster than self checkout. Some customers have no clue how to use self checkout and this slows down checkout for everyone.

Perhaps if the checkout lanes were made more like Winco or Food4Less checkout lanes, it would speed things up. You could have 2 lanes where customers can bag their own items.

These retailers make it more complicated than it is through their lens of cutting expenses and maximizing profits "by all means". Hysterical because that fanatical myopic view has cost them dearly.

Open up regular lanes with trained checkers and watch problems go away. Done

[ClownLoach]

The San Francisco Bay Area stores have very few self checkout machines. The number one Division 1 Walmart store in the Western US has 4 working self checkout machines. The store has about 8 or more staffed cash registers at busy times.

The self checkout area has about 4 employees watching the self checkout area, because customers are stealing left and right. At that store, it would be a more effective use of employees to put those 4 employees on cash registers.

In lower theft areas, of course self checkout can still remain. However, if you have skilled cashiers who are motivated, they can be even faster than self checkout. Some customers have no clue how to use self checkout and this slows down checkout for everyone.

Perhaps if the checkout lanes were made more like Winco or Food4Less checkout lanes, it would speed things up. You could have 2 lanes where customers can bag their own items.

These retailers make it more complicated than it is through their lens of cutting expenses and maximizing profits "by all means". Hysterical because that fanatical myopic view has cost them dearly.

Open up regular lanes with trained checkers and watch problems go away. Done

The real question is how much will they curtail or restrict the online ordering capacity once self checkout is removed? And how much will they raise prices at these specific locations? The price increases might be significant.

Self checkout is installed to offset the massive payroll of online ordering fulfillment. I'm sure stores losing self checkout will be removed entirely from eCommerce ship from store order fulfillment, but that is still probably less labor intensive than order pickup. Walmart is amongst the best in the industry for order fulfillment, but they are still averaging 15 minutes of labor per order when a good cashier can sometimes hit over 50 transactions per hour. With even ten percent of orders moving from check lanes to pickup, you can see how nearly all labor would be removed from check lanes plus potentially cutting other departments to make ends meet and keep up with the difficult pickup workload. I have heard fulfillment workers comment they walk 15 miles a day or more pulling orders. That's a lot of labor spend.

Remember too that the best trained checkers in most of these stores moved to order fulfillment because they get more hours/FT promotion in many cases, fixed schedule, usually starting early morning at 4AM. My understanding is that the average Walmart moved 50+ cashiers to fulfillment in the past three years. So either they're going to have to drastically cut back the number of orders filled each day and move the fulfillment workers back to cashiers, or they're going to have to hire more cashiers thus increasing the hours spent per week and then passing along those costs to the customer.

I don't think the shrink savings from self checkout removal will entirely offset the increase in required labor to otherwise hold up both ends of the business, front end and eCommerce.

[BillyGr]

The San Francisco Bay Area stores have very few self checkout machines. The number one Division 1 Walmart store in the Western US has 4 working self checkout machines. The store has about 8 or more staffed cash registers at busy times.

The self checkout area has about 4 employees watching the self checkout area, because customers are stealing left and right. At that store, it would be a more effective use of employees to put those 4 employees on cash registers.

In lower theft areas, of course self checkout can still remain. However, if you have skilled cashiers who are motivated, they can be even faster than self checkout. Some customers have no clue how to use self checkout and this slows down checkout for everyone.

Perhaps if the checkout lanes were made more like Winco or Food4Less checkout lanes, it would speed things up. You could have 2 lanes where customers can bag their own items.

These retailers make it more complicated than it is through their lens of cutting expenses and maximizing profits "by all means". Hysterical because that fanatical myopic view has cost them dearly.

Open up regular lanes with trained checkers and watch problems go away. Done

The real question is how much will they curtail or restrict the online ordering capacity once self checkout is removed? And how much will they raise prices at these specific locations? The price increases might be significant.

Self checkout is installed to offset the massive payroll of online ordering fulfillment. I'm sure stores losing self checkout will be removed entirely from eCommerce ship from store order fulfillment, but that is still probably less labor intensive than order pickup. Walmart is amongst the best in the industry for order fulfillment, but they are still averaging 15 minutes of labor per order when a good cashier can sometimes hit over 50 transactions per hour. With even ten percent of orders moving from check lanes to pickup, you can see how nearly all labor would be removed from check lanes plus potentially cutting other departments to make ends meet and keep up with the difficult pickup workload. I have heard fulfillment workers comment they walk 15 miles a day or more pulling orders. That's a lot of labor spend.

Remember too that the best trained checkers in most of these stores moved to order fulfillment because they get more hours/FT promotion in many cases, fixed schedule, usually starting early morning at 4AM. My understanding is that the average Walmart moved 50+ cashiers to fulfillment in the past three years. So either they're going to have to drastically cut back the number of orders filled each day and move the fulfillment workers back to cashiers, or they're going to have to hire more cashiers thus increasing the hours spent per week and then passing along those costs to the customer.

I don't think the shrink savings from self checkout removal will entirely offset the increase in required labor to otherwise hold up both ends of the business, front end and eCommerce.

Or, they just charge those who want the extra service of having their order picked out for them a fee to cover that 15 minutes of pay that it takes to get it done, while leaving prices for everyone alone. That is the obviously fair way to do it, only charging those who require the cost in the first place!

[ClownLoach]

These retailers make it more complicated than it is through their lens of cutting expenses and maximizing profits "by all means". Hysterical because that fanatical myopic view has cost them dearly.

Open up regular lanes with trained checkers and watch problems go away. Done

The real question is how much will they curtail or restrict the online ordering capacity once self checkout is removed? And how much will they raise prices at these specific locations? The price increases might be significant.

Self checkout is installed to offset the massive payroll of online ordering fulfillment. I'm sure stores losing self checkout will be removed entirely from eCommerce ship from store order fulfillment, but that is still probably less labor intensive than order pickup. Walmart is amongst the best in the industry for order fulfillment, but they are still averaging 15 minutes of labor per order when a good cashier can sometimes hit over 50 transactions per hour. With even ten percent of orders moving from check lanes to pickup, you can see how nearly all labor would be removed from check lanes plus potentially cutting other departments to make ends meet and keep up with the difficult pickup workload. I have heard fulfillment workers comment they walk 15 miles a day or more pulling orders. That's a lot of labor spend.

Remember too that the best trained checkers in most of these stores moved to order fulfillment because they get more hours/FT promotion in many cases, fixed schedule, usually starting early morning at 4AM. My understanding is that the average Walmart moved 50+ cashiers to fulfillment in the past three years. So either they're going to have to drastically cut back the number of orders filled each day and move the fulfillment workers back to cashiers, or they're going to have to hire more cashiers thus increasing the hours spent per week and then passing along those costs to the customer.

I don't think the shrink savings from self checkout removal will entirely offset the increase in required labor to otherwise hold up both ends of the business, front end and eCommerce.

Or, they just charge those who want the extra service of having their order picked out for them a fee to cover that 15 minutes of pay that it takes to get it done, while leaving prices for everyone alone. That is the obviously fair way to do it, only charging those who require the cost in the first place!

Exactly! Try telling that to the Wall Street morons who push this agenda though. "Oh my god, you'll be bankrupted in 32 seconds by Amazon crushing you like a bug! You have to give away service for free or you couldn't possibly compete! Remember that any day now every consumer in America is going to stop shopping retail and order everything online for the rest of their lives! You can't stand against the tide!"

The fact is this pickup crap is one of the primary drivers of grocery-specific inflation amongst other retail inflation. I've been on the director only calls... I've seen the finance guys specifically quote eCommerce losses as the factor necessitating price increases. Everyone is paying for these costly services that only a few customers use. Not to mention that they make the retail job experience exponentially worse and have driven engagement levels into the toilet while turnover has skyrocketed industry wide. Nobody likes the current state of affairs, except for the few customers who have others shop for them as if they are some kind of elite.

Quietly the Wall Street people are realizing that they have already bankrupted dozens of retailers with this crap, and they're losing more money on those companies than they're profiting from on the software and hardware businesses they're invested in. They are starting to ask if eCommerce is profitable, and they are going to learn a ugly lesson from the answers.

Remember the same Wall Street morons said we should have seen the last of the grocery stores close nationwide about 25 years ago and we would all be getting our food from Webvan and other dot com delivery firms... Funny how the majority of the public isn't interested in the kinds of services these very rich people require to live their cushy lives in their Manhattan high rise condos and summer homes in the Hamptons...

There should be order minimums that are significant, pickup windows to spread the labor out, and a fee charged (with appropriate exceptions for the disabled who may require such services). Sam's Club has not seen any backlash for their $4 per order fee (waived for plus members), and they obviously are testing this for a full rollout at Walmart. I would expect only Walmart+ members would be exempt from such a fee.