Costco Eliminates Self-Checkout

[Alpha8472]

Costco has ended self-checkout at its stores. Self-checkout at Costco was very difficult to implement. When people shop at Costco they often have a huge shopping cart with over a hundred dollars of groceries at least. This is extremely difficult to deal with.

When you spend that much money, there is no doubt that people will try to steal. People purposely neglect to ring up items. This is a huge amount of loss for a store. The Costco receipt checkers cannot check every single item on a receipt. It is impossible with the massive crowds of a Costco. When you have such long lines and huge crowds, you can only imagine what a pain it is when the self-checkout locks up due to an error made by a customers. The machine will freeze up and an employee will need to come over and fix the machine. When you have tons of items the employee will often have to come over 3 or 4 times to fix the machine.

A warehouse store is not a good place for self-checkout with the tons of groceries and junk that people buy.

[Super S]

I was in a Costco in Kalispell, Montana a few years ago and was surprised to see self-checkout, as, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Portland area stores had it. It simply does not work with large, bulky items.

Perhaps this will trigger a change for other stores such as Lowe's where it can sometimes be impossible to find a regular cashier. i am not holding my breath though.

[Alpha8472]

CVS has been opening up some new stores in San Francisco and they use self checkout as the main checkout system. There is probably only 1 cashier in these new stores at most times. It is a mess. There is so much shoplifting in these stores. CVS is being robbed blind. CVS has a policy to not stop shoplifters, but it is ridiculous. Literally, the few employees at the front are so occupied by helping clueless customers try to figure out the self checkout machine that homeless people and thugs are running out the front doors with armfuls of stolen items.

You could post a police officer at the front of the store and still be overwhelmed by the shoplifters. I can see why Rite Aid abandoned San Francisco. They were being overrun by shoplifters day and night.

When you go to a Walgreens in San Francisco you see so many items locked up in plastic cases. You need to call an employee to unlock the condoms, shampoo, laxatives, etc. It is because these stores are being robbed blind. CVS doesn't get it because they believe in leaving all items on the shelf unlocked where it can be easily stolen. At least at Walgreens, there are plenty of cashiers at the front of the store to confront shoplifters and get them to drop some of their shoplifted items. I never want to go to another drugstore in San Francisco again. Literally there were so many people that you felt like you were in a subway car in Japan. You could hardly move.

Self checkout doesn't save money for CVS either. The shoplifting losses are staggering and there are still long lines at the front checkouts.

[storewanderer]

Funny, the CVS Stores I have visited in San Francisco have been very slow as far as customer count goes. I went to one in the financial district that oddly did not have self checkouts, but the others I've been in all do have self checkout. Actually, I am not sure if the CVS on California/Hyde had self checkout... and I think that is their newest store in San Francisco. Maybe they have learned? In the Clement St. location, self checkout was the only option for checking out.

Between high overhead and shrinkage issues, that is a difficult market. There is a reason Longs stayed out of San Francisco for all those years and why Thrifty and Payless were both very, very selective with their locations in the city. Rite Aid went into some visible but very high rent locations that were never going to make money. Walgreens seems to have a formula in San Francisco that works. CVS should know how to do business in a large city, they have a lot of experience with it back east, but from what I am seeing in San Francisco so far, they are appearing pretty clueless. Maybe it is due to Longs people trying to run things.

[arizonaguy]

I like the Self Checkout machines at my local Sam's club. They're fast and kind of fun as they consist of a price "gun" scanner as opposed to simply setting the items on a scanner.

[Alpha8472]

Those self-checkouts rely on the honor system. If a customer fails to scan a few items the store could lose a lot of money to shoplifting. What if you fail to scan a few $100 items? The receipt checker cannot possibly check every single item in the shopping cart. It would hold up the line. These self checkout units are supposed to save money for the company, but the increase in theft just reduces profits. Also, some employees are eliminated due to the need for less cashiers.

In this day and age, we don't need more unemployment. When people lose their jobs, those are people who have less money to spend. It just goes into this unending cycle of more unemployment, less spending, and an economy that just goes downhill.

[arizonaguy]

The way Sam's Club around here does it is that the regular checkouts have receipts printed on white paper and the self checkout is on blue paper. The receipt checker than can pay extra attention to the people who used the self checkout.

[Super S]

Some stores do a better job with self-checkout than others, though. Fred Meyer stores in my area have self-checkouts, however, they also have many regular cashiers available. I have noticed that employees tend to direct those with large orders toward the regular cashiers, and it works ok because it leaves the self-checkouts free for those who want to get in and out quickly.

However, some other stores, such as Lowe's, frequently have ONLY self-checkouts available. Sometimes even the lumber end of the store has no cashiers, and then you end up with a long line because people are trying to figure out how to scan a piece of plywood or sheetrock. The attendant that is supposed to be watching these frequently and regularly walks away from the area as the store is understaffed. I would hate to see what happens when somebody purchases a refrigerator or riding lawn mower.

Self-checkout can be a good thing when it complements the regular checkstands, when they are open and staffed by cashiers. However, when chains such as Lowe's use them as a way to pretty much eliminate front-end staffing, it can drive people to shop elsewhere. Granted, the Home Depot in my area is not much better, however, they ALWAYS have a fully-cashiered lumber end of the store.