Technology

I've had a problem at self check out recently when I was buying a birthday card. I scanned the card, and placed the card and envelope it comes with in the area where scanned items go.

The kiosk, correctly, thought I put an unscanned item in the area. It was just the envelope the card comes in, so no need to scan it. But an employee had to come over and verify themselves before I could continue.

I don't see the anti theft measures as being an issue, you need to protect your merchandise from theft to run a successful business. But, it should be made a little smarter, to know that if you scan a card, there is very likely an envelope that comes with it.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Retailers broadly are facing increasing theft and have responded by locking up merchandise, warning investors of major losses, and implementing new technology to help combat the issue.

In 2019, Walmart introduced computer-vision technology at its registers to reduce inventory shrink, a term retailers use to describe merchandise losses from theft, fraud, error, and other causes.

Employees overseeing the self-checkout stations can monitor the registers from mobile phones and, in the case of issues, pause the machines to prevent customers from checking out.

The employee, who has worked at Walmart locations for over two years, said the self-checkout technology caught many customers off guard — particularly when they saw that the registers flagged them and then played back a video on the machine's screen showing them scanning items.

"It was personally uncomfortable for me to notice somebody purposefully not scanning an item," said Dominick Haar, 20, a recent newly former Walmart employee who worked self-checkout in a store in Southern Illinois.

"I think it created a lot more stress for the employees, not to mention customers that just want one-on-one personal conversation when they go to the store," Leroy told Insider, referring to the self-checkout machines.

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