544
Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
544 points (97.9% liked)
Technology
59626 readers
2884 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Seems like i have a complete different experience of self checkout here in Germany. But why? Are our devices newer?
No we just care less about theft. The German ones are build to maximace speed and therefore usability. This theoretically makes it rather easy to steal.
If this would become to much of a problem they would also reduce comfort to increase security
In Finland, we've been getting handheld scanners in a few shops where you scan and pack while you shop, and then pay everything at once. The "theft prevention" is very infrequent random checks where they ask to rescan three items to see if you paid for them.
It feels like stealing would become really common, but it's been a few years and they are just installing more of em, so I guess not.
We are talking about Earth, not about Finland. We are still lightyears apart.
The supermarket I use here in the UK has an app that uses my phone's camera to scan the barcodes on items. Same as the handset, but I don't have to pick up a handset that's been handled by another disgusting human.
As a rule, it'll only trigger a "Quality Check" if a couple of products don't scan first time. Then it'll trigger a check for the next couple of shopping trips. Assuming I didn't miss anything, after that it'll settle down and almost never require any verification unless I've bought age restricted items.
If I'm doing any weekly shopping, I will always use the app, because it's SO MUCH QUICKER.
The U.S. has these as well.
The experience in the US sounds entirely different than even in Canada.
I think it's an indication of the state of the US. People don't steal for fun. Maybe some do, but not in quantities that put an armoured security guard at checkout.
Is it really? I imagine, paying a Person for every checkout must be way more expensive than some higher theft rate.
Same Czech Republic and Slovakia. All the stores have now majority of sell checkout registers. People prefer them. No issues with them.
There is usually one person assigned to 6-8 of these that is watching and making the corrections.
It cut the waiting time significantly.
Some machines use scales to measure the weight of items, scan one item, put it in the "bagging area" (scale), repeat. Many stores have disabled scales because they're buggy and don't catch thieves, who learn that to steal, don't put items on the scale. Now, stores have employees watch and offer "technical support". "Oh, ma'am, I think this item may have been missed. Let's check. Do you need help with how to scan items?" I don't try to steal, so don't find the machines to be a problem.
No, in Germany sellers truly want SCOs, while Wal-mart just doesn't want to pay employees.