I have heard from people who work with these self checkout systems that the subscription to the software costs about as much each month as a worker does. No idea if this is true but I use some expensive software myself and it seems plausible.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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Retailers Are Rethinking...
This Changes EVERYTHING...
Self-Checkout is DYING...
Self-Checkout is OVER...
Y'all got any more clickbait of looking at a cherry-picked tiny percentage of something with a magnifying glass?
Unexpected item? Yeah im quite the connoisseur, thank you for noticing.
I never stole anything, but i imagine its pretty easy.. I legitimately have the damn thing freak out on me at least 80% of the time, and the person that comes over doesnt look at my bags or cart, just swipes their badge to cancel the alert and walks away without even acknowledging my existence.
Oce i stole a camping madrass by mistake. It was a bit big so i worre it over my sholder. By the refister i forgot it and the cashier didn't notice it either. Svaed me 30 bucks 🤣
The problem is a lot of stores don't react, but document via camera, so you might think you could get away with it again.. and they keep track, until you pass a felony amount, when they finally stop you and call the cops.
now imagine how easy it is commit shoplifting accidentantly and how that happening to normal people could ruin their lives
yep, I asked them one time don't you want to check my bags or anything? Cause I dont want to get my arm broken being tackled by surprise in the parking lot by a cop.
they stared at me for a moment, presumably over my comment about police abuse, then said "You're good" and walked away.
You mean you can’t just fire all of your checkout staff and replace them with shitty machines and then make me do extra work while you pocket the difference?
Shocked, I’m shocked.
It’s taken them like two decades to figure this out? Same thing goes with AI, but the damage will be a lot worse.
So a few years ago Kohls fired most of their LP staff. Their thinking was "We still have theft, so let's save money by firing all LP and it will pay the difference of theft" SUPRISE! Theft went up 5x and now they can't hire the people back because they got new jobs. I'm sure they have the CEO a raise for that brilliant idea.
I feel like being a CEO is the easiest job on the planet. You can fail and make the dumbest decisions possible yet still be grossly overpaid with little to no consequences
You might think the decision is dumb. But for them the decision to reduce staff headcount probably improved the company's bottom line at a crucial moment when their performance-related bonus was being calculated. And it also opens the door to sideways promotion.
e.g. Twatty McBallbag Ltd:
profit with loss prevention staff = 10 million
profit the first month after all loss prevention staff were fired = 12 million
profit the sixth month after all loss prevention staff were fired = 6 million
After the first month, they claim responsibility for the increased profit of 2 million (as a result of reducing staff costs) and get their performance related bonus. They also get to write "While CEO at Twatty McBallbag Ltd, I increased profit by 20%", on their CV/resume and move on to a new, bigger company with profits in the 100s of millions.
In a true buisness sense its stupid because they stress short term make stock number go up instead of long term sustainable growth. That being said it seems we both agree that CEOs operate on fuck everyone but me
I've worked with some of these guys and it's absolutely all about them, their targets, their bonuses.
One of the Goldman Sachs bosses once came up with the term 'long term greedy', and had his staff apply it as a principle. Basically it means 'do the right thing by your clients and don't screw them over'. Better to have a 20 million dollar a year client for 10 years than to screw them out of 50 million in the first year and lose them. That sounds great, but then he could afford to think that way because he knew he'd still be there, with his stock/share options, in 10 years, profiting from that long term greed.
The younger guys are absolutely, 100% motivated to make as much as possible on day one and not give a shit about the long term view. How else are they going to afford the Porsche, Rolex, summer house in the Hamptons, etc. So they're much more interested in screwing a client over for a fast buck, or shitting on the company's long term well-being for this year's bonus.
I've been thinking about this for quite some time. Short-term thinking is the one big bad effect of modern turbo capitalism. Since we cannot have nice things, and are stuck with the current shitty system, could we at least come up with a way to make people in positions of power interested in the long term? Like, monthly payment in stocks that they are forced to hold for ten years or so? You can get a credit against those stocks, but at the end of the day, you would need to care that the company still exists and has worth in ten years.
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You're assuming new companies don't do due diligence and still hire these CEOs who hollow out their companies; but the reality is “line go up” is all anyone cares about in late stage capitalism.
"Oh this is a PS5? I thought it was bananas."
His mistake was doing it twice at the same place in a short time.
Don't be greedy.
Playnana
The home depot near me has only self checkout .... I guess it was such a problem that they now have a team of workers standing next to each station to 'assist' with checkout.
The Lowes near me does the same. Their only job seems to be trying to sell a shitty credit card, and I guess making sure nobody steals shit?
But yeah, it feels like they put in self checkout to save money on labor, then lost money to theft, so now they pay people to just watch you do self checkout instead of having them do the checkout like they were doing in the first place.
Capitalism breeds innovation
Well I get one freebie as a little treat every time I do self checkout and nobody has ever caused a fuss over it.
They sometimes track, record, log evidence, and wait for the losses to accrue enough to prosecute at a higher level.
The theft will continue until service improves.
I've shoplifted at a self-checkout once, because the bag of chips i was trying to scan kept bugging out the machine
Organic bananas are just bananas in my book
“Aren’t all bananas organic, officer? I have never seen a synthetic one”
I never have but damn have I thought about it a few times
I occasionally "steal" a bag because I forget about it up until the point I have to start bagging, but I can no longer add new items
Yet another way for the wealthy to steal productivity.
I get some of you like it and that’s fine but I hate it on principle.
I once shoplifted pepper once. Purely accidentally.
Yeah that one's on the store's fault
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I like the self-checkout because it feels like I'm wasting less time at the checkout. I scan everything while walking through the store so when I get to the self-checkout I just have to pay and I'm out.
The only store where I like the regular checkout is Aldi because those cashiers are fast and the belt is long.
The worst checkout system we have is in a store called Colruyt. The cashiers have to load everything from your cart to an empty cart while they scan it. It was already a slow system and it got worse since they installed 'smart' cameras above the checkout to scan the codes instead of using the handscanner.
How do you scam things as you walk through the store? I’ve never seen that before
Kroger had a system for a while where you could bring your own bags and they would have a bunch of hand held scanners for you to use. You just grabbed one at the front and could scan and bag right into your cart. They would spot check you when you were done. I only ever got checked once while using the system, and I had a couple of missed items. That system was a shoplifter's dream.
that's crazy, here everyone is installing them and they seem to be paying for themselves many times over.
In theory they can save a bunch on labor costs by having 1 person look over the lot and being ready for help vs having an army of clerks.
NGL I dig self checkout
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Here we call them the "inflation compensation check-out"
i mean... alls soda cans weight the same.. why buy the expensive monsters wen you can pass a cheap one instead
How do you do that though.. you have to scan every barcode and if you get chosen for a random check the shop employee will scan all codes again and you face the risk of being reported to the police for shoplifting.
Or does the US have some different system?
I have, in the US, never seen a person "randomly selected" for a grocery rescan. I imagine the first store to try it would get sued for discrimination within short order. I have seen many kinds of shoplifting done multiple times though:
- scan a different UPC
- lie about which kind of fruit it is
- scan one, bag 2 (for light items)
- scan one cheap thing multiple times while bagging other stuff
- just straight up "forget" to scan a big item and walk out with it
- walk in with old receipt, skip checkout entirely
Some stores do a receipt check but they almost always just do a count and don't have time for detailed looks. Supposedly several US stores (Amazon-owned Whole Foods is notorious for it) will save up security footage of chronic shoplifters to wait until they've stolen enough to bring federal charges.
There are cameras all over self-checkout but it's easy enough to palm things or slip expensive items into your bags without it being obvious. Maybe with AI they can start scanning every video for signals but it seems to me that only the really bold and overt thieves get caught.
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Please don't make me go to the checker who can't stop sharing about their super boring life! The machines only beep.
I like learning about other people
It helps distract me from my boring life lol
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