Checkout checking out

Just say no to the automated shopping experience

Automated check-out stands are the retail equivalent of hot desks — a work trend embraced by corporate swells who believed that eliminating personal desks and instead installing work spaces where staff could plop their laptops would increase productivity.

The Atlantic has a smart piece by Amanda Mull about the reality of automated checkout stands at retail outlets.

All is not rosy in the world of self-checkout, and some companies seem to realize it. Walmart has removed the kiosks entirely from a handful of stores, and is redesigning others to involve more employee help. Costco is stationing more staffers in its self-checkout areas. ShopRite is adding cashiers back into stores where it had trialed a self-checkout-only model, citing customer backlash. None of this is an indication that self-checkout is over, exactly. But several decades in, the kiosks as Americans have long known them are beginning to look like a failure.

No surprise: the idea didn’t quite work as promised. Stores are messier, Mull reports, and shelves go unstocked longer than before. Shoppers, of course, are shortchanged.

One other result: Shoplifting went up.

And we all know what can happen when shoplifting increases: Stores close.

I resisted automated checkout for the longest time, mostly I’m a bit of a technophobe. The scanners often require multiple passes. And really, I’d rather deal with a person.

Also, I’d rather see a checkout person earn a paycheck than do that person’s work — scanning and bagging my groceries — for free, and almost always, without getting in and out of a store faster.

So I’m going back to heading straight to the checkout stand staffed by actual human beings. I don’t want to contribute to a cost-cutting process that contributes to store closures.

Want more? Sign up for free notices.