Walmart is showing self-checkout machines the door at additional supercenters as the retail giant’s automation experiment continues to unravel. The world’s biggest retailer removed the machines from its South Philadelphia store in March, bringing back traditional cashier lanes.
This is only the latest location to axe self-checkout. A Walmart store in Missouri removed all self-checkout machines after the kiosks led to 509 police calls in just five months. In 2024, the retailer brought back staffed checkout lanes for Shrewsbury, Missouri, and Cleveland, Ohio storefronts, in an effort to give customers a more ‘efficient’ checkout experience.
Bosses insist the shift is about service. ‘These changes are guided by feedback from associates and customers, local shopping patterns, and the needs of the business in each community,’ the company said. The change was aimed to ‘improve the checkout experience and enable associates to provide more personalized customer service.’
Encouraging customers to scan and pay for their own items was presented as a way to reduce lines and improve efficiency, but also doubled as a way for retailers to cut down on labor costs. In reality, these kiosks are especially vulnerable to theft — an issue that retailers claim has been plaguing businesses and forcing them to shut locations altogether. Experts say the rise in shoplifting from people using self-checkouts is really why they are being axed.
Lending Tree found that more than a quarter of people who use self-checkout have intentionally taken an item without paying. The survey also found that 69 percent of people who use self-checkout believe they make it easier to steal, and a whopping 27 percent of people surveyed purposefully stole an item without scanning.
‘Walmart isn’t just removing self-checkout,’ financial expert Ted Jenkins told the Daily Mail. He argued that the retailer is ‘quietly admitting’ that when theft leads to major financial loss, there are repercussions. Retail expert Bryan Gildenberg told the Daily Mail: ‘Walmart regularly reviews stores based on theft and customer experience and takes self-checkout out of their highest theft stores. I would not read much more into it than that.’
Retail expert Neil Saunders told the Daily Mail that self-checkouts have led to high theft rates because of both deliberate actions and ‘accidental mistakes.’ For example, a person may forget to scan one of their items or accidentally scan a product twice. ‘Forcing more customers to use manned checkouts resolves a lot of these issues and saves retailers money,’ Saunders said.
Other major retailers are feeling similar repercussions, including Dollar General, which decided to remove self-checkouts from 12,000 stores nationwide in 2024. Only a handful of the self-serve kiosks remain. Last year, Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart, announced it would remove all self-checkout machines and roll out AI-powered ‘Scan & Go’ technology to reduce checkout wait times.
‘This is one of the fastest, most scalable transformations happening in retail today,’ Sam’s Club President and CEO Chris Nicholas said. ‘We’re investing with intention — in our fleet, our associates and the member experience — to become the world’s best club retailer.’ Meanwhile, Costco, one of Sam’s Club’s biggest rivals, began rolling out the same technology but is not planning on axing self-checkout from all locations.
