How Long Will Self-Checkouts Last In Washington?

We first heard about this in December, and it looks to be hitting more stores nationwide.

Walmart is rolling back this practice! Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

What is the practice being rolled back? If you couldn’t tell by the pictures, it is closing their self-checkouts.

Pictures, courtesy of Bobby Mendoza Jr., show self-checkouts at one of our local Walmart stores, closed down.

With many stores now having more self-checkout lanes than manned lanes, closing them down it gets confusing and annoying.

A company first puts up the self-checkouts, whether because they don’t have staffing or so they can eliminate staffing (that’s a whole other topic), but then they close down the self-checkouts, so you’re still waiting in line! Wha-the-WHAT?

The main reason for these changes… the old five-finger-discount, i.e. theft!

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Commenters on Bobby’s pictures in the Facebook Group WTF Yakima, didn’t seem surprised at all.

“When I asked about that, I was told that people were stealing like crazy!” – Judy Larsen.

TheStreet.com reported that retailers with self-checkouts have a higher loss rate, which is not surprising. But is the theft problem just at Walmart stores?

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With the cost of everything in life going up, things are getting harder. And the more often someone steals, the more often they become emboldened.

“I went to the Dollar Tree by Target the other day and asked why their shelves were so empty, and that lady told me it was because the homeless that live on the Greenway steal everything and just walk out the door with a cart load of items. They said their security couldn’t do anything about it, so they stopped stocking the shelves.” – Linda Holcomb.

I doubt crime will go down any time soon, so is closing the self-checkouts the best thing to do?

Reports are emerging that WinCo stores in Oregon have started shutting down their self-checkouts, so will this come to Washington next?

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What about just not stocking the shelves? How about bringing back the cashier? Tap the App and share your thoughts.

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