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What Is the Future of Self-Checkout Lanes at Target and Other Retailers?
Target has started testing 10-items-or-less checkout lanes at a handful of its stores. According to The Street, Target had generally not specified a limit to its self-checkout stations, unlike most grocery stores. Now, certain locations are “testing the limits” in an attempt to increase checkout speed by prompting customers to bring larger purchases to human cashiers.
Some may consider this to be controversial because “self-checkout, while polarizing, has its fans. Some customers like not having to interact with another human being. Others find self-checkout faster.” And yet a Target spokesperson told CNN that one of the test’s goals is to “better understand” customers’ preferences.
Target’s Chief Operating Officer John Mulligan stated during a recent earnings call that “our guests tell us they enjoy interacting with our team.” This led the retailer to refocus its checkout areas, and since then, it has seen “a 6% increase in customers using full-service cashier lanes across its stores.”
The change has so far faced some criticism from customers on social media platforms, as reported by The Street — many of whom point out that the retail giant typically only operates one to two traditional checkout lanes with personnel. Some Target enthusiasts have hypothesized that this shift could be a response to the retailer’s recent increase in complaints about theft.
Furthermore, The Parade explained how “before Target even implemented this change, people had their suspicions. Users on a Reddit post about the change from August guessed that the store might be trying to stop shoplifting at self-checkouts. However, a lot of the top comments didn’t believe it — either because their stores just added more self-checkout lanes, or they didn’t think that Target was willing to hire more cashiers to handle the new demand for regular checkout lanes.”
According to a study completed by the University of Leicester, “Self-checkout systems more than double the rate of theft in stores. However, as supermarkets still insist on using them, the savings being made from staff reductions must greatly outweigh the losses incurred from additional thefts.”
Many stores have attempted to limit losses at self-checkout lanes by adding more security features, like weight sensors. However, anti-theft measures like this can also lead to “more frustrating ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ errors, requiring employees to intervene,” CNN noted.
Target is not the only store changing up its self-checkout strategies. CNN reported that Walmart removed self-checkout kiosks from a handful of its stores, ShopRite added cashiers back into stores where it tested a self-checkout-only model after shoppers complained, and Wegmans ended a phone app that let customers scan, bag, and pay for their groceries while they completed their shopping. Additionally, Costco has started to add more employees to its self-checkout areas “after it found that non-members were sneaking in to use membership cards that didn’t belong to them at self-checkout.”
Discussion Questions
Do you believe the move by Target to limit self-checkout for larger purchases is an effective strategy to increase checkout speed? How can retailers strike the right balance between efficient self-checkout options and maintaining a high level of customer service through human cashiers? Looking ahead, do you foresee a continued shift toward more self-checkout options, or do you believe there will be a resurgence of traditional cashier lanes?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
DeAnn Campbell
Head of Retail Insights, AAG Consulting Group
Melissa Minkow
Director, Retail Strategy, CI&T
In our local Target a limit of 12 items was imposed in October. However, the signs were swiftly removed because too many people complained and a lot of people completely ignored the policy. This is probably because Target did not open more manned checkouts to help balance out the new limit. As I have said before, retailers will continue to offer both checkout options because of the polarization in views: some people love self-checkout, some hate it, many are neutral. This isn’t an either/or, it’s about offering both to satisfy shoppers.
Self-checkout is here to stay. When it works well, self-checkout is terrific and many consumers prefer it to interacting with cashiers. The adjustments and changes that Target and other retailers are making is understandable as they all continue to refine processes to try to find the right mix for their customers. This will vary by retailer and even by location. Notwithstanding the moves some retailers are making to remove self-checkout, I believe that we will see more, not less self-checkout as the technology becomes even more reliable and as retailers enhance their own internal security processes.
Target and other brands are still trying to find the right balance for self-checkout between customer satisfaction and LP. I think it is a numbers game. Retailers must weigh the theft vs. payroll savings to determine the mix in a store. Not all stores are created equal so you need to pick where your high density SCO should be. Grocery margins are already thin and a mistake in SCO could be deadly.
Now, shoppers respect the posted item limits about as well as the posted speed limits, so I wouldn’t expect the solution coming from there. At least not from SCO areas. That being said, maybe a true express lane with a cashier is worth testing alongside SCO. That might shorten the Disney lines a bit.
Of course you can probably guess what I’m going to suggest next: RFID. Since this is partly a CFO game and the price of RFID chips has made it viable at the SKU level, this would speed up SCO lines and reduce theft. And, by the way, provide additional data points and support serialized RFID for returns. Just saying.
RFID has great potential to reduce checkout friction in many, but not all retail environments. In general, the faster an item turns, the less appropriate it is. And of course it is useless on PLU (price lookup) items sold by weight. Coincidentally, PLU items present a bottleneck at supermarket self-checkouts too.
The check-out is the last experience a customer will have with that retailer before they leave the store. Making it a good one will do more for repeat business and increasing future basket size than any marketing campaign. It is never a good idea to have shoppers with full carts try to navigate the scanning, bagging and flagging down help when the inevitable “please wait for assistant” screen pops up. Limiting self checkout use to where it works best is always the right idea.
The economics of self checkout have not changed in over 25 years. One associate per four self checkouts. WalMart has contained areas with one associate “watching” / “supporting” more than that, but it is basically a savings of three cashiers. Limiting the number of items is needed, because the customer experience drops to “red alert” levels when you have to watch someone try to scan and bag a large basket of goods. Regarding traditional cashier lanes, there will be some brands (Trader Joes comes to mind) that effectively incorporate the cashier/checkout part of the shopping experience in a way that increases satisfaction. But Trader Joes is an outlier.
So. Target type limits-yes. More Self Checkout-yes.
At best, customers are split on self-checkout. Lots of us really hate using it and will avoid it if we can. The problem is, in many cases, and Target is a good example, we’re forced to use the self-checkout because there’s no one working the registers. I think retailers were willing to put up with that situation because of the benefit of reduced labor costs by having a smaller front-end team. However, as Wegmans and others realized, self-checkout exposed a significant issue with shrinkage. Lots of stuff was leaving the store through the self-checkout without being scanned, and at some point, the lower labor costs were offset by higher shrinkage.
The bottom line is that customer experience is paramount. In my opinion, the best solution is to offer self-checkout as an option, not as the default.
I’m with Mark – you can’t talk about SCO without also talking about the staffing ratio. At my Target, the staffing ratio is 1 employee for 10 SCO stands, which is too low. And in the meantime, a bank of 20 full service tills stand staffed with… 2 people. Theft is a people issue, even in SCO – if you have one customer that has a problem that requires the attention of that one employee, that’s 9 other people who could just skip the scan and walk out the door. Employees know it, consumers know it, and until retailers address it, the problem is only going to get worse as even more consumers become aware of the retailer’s exposure. With high prices, companies reporting record revenues and sometimes profits too, consumers are going to find it incredibly easy to rationalize “getting their share” by skipping the scan or ID’g a cheaper item in place of a more expensive one (like organic produce). This isn’t going to end until consumers feel like the risk of getting caught is too high, and we’re definitely not there yet.
From the customer’s perspective, the idea of self checkout was to avoid long lines if one only is buying few items. In other words, avoid the wait time. From the retailer’s perspective, the idea is to eliminate some labor ours, while providing the customer with a faster alternative. Those two ideas can, and will continue to coexist. RFID would definitely help to speed-up the self checkout process. There will always be times when stores are just very busy and no one will be elated with the experience.
Today’s self check model is trying to make the compromise of last generation technology with human assist “not awful”. imagine just unloading your cart onto a moving belt, where AI driven Camera’s (or for some stores rfid) recognizes all items, (with a very few retries/interventions), and a quick payment transaction. Intelligent Checkout is the way out of this mess. With or without cashiers.
Improving checkout speed and convenience will of course be the outcome of limiting the number of items allowed – at least in concept. As fellow panelists have mentioned, the flip side is to what degree with this be off-putting to other customers – and to what degree with customers actually abide by the policy. While there is a segment of customers who prefer full-service checkout lanes, in so many retailers today, there is often little choice but to use self-checkout, as the full service lanes are grossly understaffed. In local Meijer stores, it isn’t uncommon for 70% of full-service lanes to be unmanned at certain times in the day – leaving unnecessarily long lines at those few who are open, and driving everyone else to self-checkout – thereby creating a less than ideal experience and frustration for all.
I find Target to be one of the few places I actually prefer self checkout because of how easy they’ve made the experience. I’m always in favor of a retailer doing whatever allows the shopper to move through check out as seamlessly as possible. For so many retailers, checkout is *the* bottleneck.
I do think it’s a good idea to limit self checkout, but I think Target has it exactly backwards. If a retailer wants to make SCO convenient, do it for the express lanes, not big purchases. Whole Foods Market & Publix did that in my neighborhood and it’s kind of a no-brainer. The express lanes were always irritating.
But for big purchases, there’s a definite risk of consumer backlash. Why should they do the retailers’ jobs? You have no idea how often I hear that. There are people who refuse to use them at all for that reason. They perceive it as a job killer, and let’s face it kids, they’re right…..I’ve been pitched, haven’t you?.
Spotted a meme the other day that joked about shoppers now being required to unload the trucks at the back door of the store and stock the shelves. Extreme self-service. Next we’ll be growing our own grain and sewing our own garments, I guess…
Self-checkout is here to stay until a better option is available. As others have stated, customers either love or hate self-checkout so it makes sense for retailers to offer a mix of staffed stations and self-checkout so that customers can choose the option they prefer. Happy customers make happy retailers.
I am still hoping that customer self-scanning while shopping gains traction, as it seems to be efficient and not expensive for retailers to deploy, as there isn’t capital expenditures for expensive POS or self-checkout hardware.
As I’ve addressed in recent media contributions, Target has a “pretty little things” problem. Target’s emphasis on beauty, health and wellness, jewelry, and other profit-driving categories equates to a proliferation of small, pricey products that invite theft. Item quantity limitations and weight triggers are irrelevant under these circumstances. I usually find Target’s self-check lanes to be disproportionately full and chaotic. The people-powered part of the equation (navigation, quick response) just hasn’t been worked out.
As part of our ongoing research my business observes how shoppers interact with merchandise, associates, and technology in stores. I have spent some time watching shoppers at our local Target at the checkouts, so I am going to put on my consumer hat for this one.
The new 10 items or less rule at Target is a pain in the shorts. Perhaps it wouldn’t be if the store’s regular checkouts were open, but during the week I have not seen more than two open at the same time. When you have a cart full of merchandise and have to wait behind five other people to check out it’s not a whole lot of fun. If you are going to limit what’s happening at the self checkouts be mindful of what your customers are having to deal with.
To be fair, the people with full carts using the SCO are causing big lines and making the experience a pain for everyone behind them – especially when something in the cart needs a human intervention, which inevitably happens. I’ve seen plain old Saturday afternoon lines for the SCO extend all the way into Produce, when there were several staffed lanes wide open.
I agree, but Target needs to open more than one or two regular checkout lanes to help people who have more than 10 items. I have not had the same experience as you in the newly remodeled store I usually shop. It would be nice to have open staffed lanes!
An efficient Self Checkout process is driven by 3 factors; physical layout, staffing and ease of use. These all vary by retail segment. Retailers must continue to adopt. It took the grocery and club industry 20 years to get close to understanding and optimizing self checkouts. Other verticals are only midway (or less) through their journey of finding the right balance between size / layout, labor, and softwares ease of use with ability to produce alerts that can be viewed and reacted to with remote and mobile platforms. The worst customer experience is often while waiting in the line behind a person with an overflowing basket at a 5 foot long self checkout station with no space to place the items that have already scanned.
I see very long lines at the SCO in Target. The supposed customer advantage doesn’t seem alive and well to me. If I’m at my local Giant and the SCO line isn’t too long, I’m OK with the short wait and self check out. I finally gave up SCO at Costco. The support staff was wonderful but the convenience wasn’t obvious. So I’m mostly a “give it to the cashier” kind of gal. And I do it with the hope that more cashiers get work. It’s not a philanthropic hope, but rather one that looks forward to ease of the check out experience for shoppers and cashiers.
The premise that self-checkout is not maintaining high levels of customer service is wrong. I’m a customer, absolutely love SCO and consider the option to help myself a sign of great customer service. In fact, I went to Costco last night and self-checkout was busy, as always. They checked my membership card’s picture for the first time which was new but I happily showed it. If the goal is to improve the “customer experience” then a well implemented SCO strategy is part of the equation. There may be other reasons to abandon SCO but I don’t believe the desire to maintain high levels of customer service is one of those reasons.
Self-checkout technology is evolving and getting better all the time. Some of the new innovative solutions on the roadmap are very exciting (note: I work for NCR, the #1 leader in POS technology in retail in the US). As you might expect, we work closely with retailers to limit LP (with integrated and bolt-on new technologies) while increasing efficiencies in both attended stations and SCO’s. Every retail segment and format are different from big box to boutique luxury to grocery to convenience, and each requires best practice guidelines. For Target, a 10-item guideline is a smart move. Most large grocery retailers have similar practices, and they are generally accepted and work well with consumers and associates. The advances in SCO are exciting…stay tuned!
Self-checkout is a limited value — important but limited. It’s not clear that a limit on numbers of items is critical. But when our Kroger’s lifted that limit chaos in self-checkout made its use less effective. Nothing more frustrating than watching someone struggle with 3 bags of groceries in lines made for 10 or 12 items.
It seems to me that self-checkout was an instant valuable addition — and now retailers are hoping to use it to replace human costs. After all, there’s that management myth that anything which works small must be able to work big. Of course, that’s wrong — and one of the most common errors in business.
But rather than looking at costs — retailers need to look at what creates the environment which makes their general world satisfy customer’s best.
I’ve observed too many long queues at store self-checkouts, so I can’t endorse SCO as a method to reduce friction for shoppers. The situation at Target is typical – stores built with a dozen or more checkout lanes that are mostly un-personed, and a cluster of SCO stations where even experienced shoppers bumble through the transaction experience. Add in required age confirmation for sales of wine and beer, and I don’t see much benefit to the shopper on many transactions.
Beyond the shopper experience, I also wonder if the SCO labor savings to the retailer are sufficient to offset the additional shrink (theft). We hear tell about technology solutions that are purported to help with loss prevention, but I haven’t seen the math.
Self-checkout is one of those great ideas that have been way more difficult to implement than was originally envisioned. In reality it is very often more of a semi-assisted checkout, requiring store personnel intervention. And I have found that intervention to happen on 3 different levels. Pro-active, passive, and as required by flashing light.
Home Depot is pro-active. They assign one person per 4-6 registers and depending on how busy they are at the moment, I am warmly greeted and they give my cart a casual glance to see what they might be able to anticipate in terms of help needed. Never a problem. Always a breeze.
Target is passive. One person per 6-8 registers and they may or may not wave and point out open registers. I never have groceries at Target so it’s usually drama free.
Grocery store (Stop & Shop). As required by flashing light. One person per 8-10 registers. They are watchful and attentive, but stay at a distance until the cursing starts or the flashing light goes off. I try to completely avoid SCO when I have fresh produce, which is 95% of the time. But every now and then it happens. Honeycrisp apples are not on the menu, so I need to type it in. H O N E Y……grrrrrrr. Or when I buy cough medicine and have to be age verified. Really? That can’t be included in my points card somehow? Apparently not, so there goes the flashing light.
Bottom line, SCO is here to stay, but will take fine tuning retailer by retailer and product category by product category. And some retailers will decide that humans are the best answer after all. Between theft prevention and enhancing the shopping experience, it turns out that humans can add value beyond their cost.
While limiting self-checkout for larger purchases may speed up those transactions, it could potentially inconvenience customers with bigger shopping trips. The effectiveness depends on how well it aligns with customer preferences.
Finding the right balance means understanding customer preferences. Some like self-checkout for speed, while others prefer human interaction. Retailers must listen, adapt, and offer options that cater to both preferences.
Self-checkout offers speed, convenience, reduced wait times, and control loss prevention. It can also lower labor costs for retailers and provide a sense of independence for customers who prefer a quick, autonomous transaction.
I believe self-checkout options will likely continue growing for efficiency, but traditional cashier lanes may see a resurgence for those who value a personal touch. Balancing both seems key.
It is a good idea to test the limit on checkout lines in a few stores before broadening across the entire chain. In nearby grocery stores, it has been successful to limit the items at self-checkout as the people with a cart full of stuff, take a long time to check out making the wait times longer. However, the grocery stores have a number of clerk managed lines for any over flow which is what target will need to handle those that have more than 10 items yet do not have the patience to wait in a served line.
The article is quite confusing: are all the Target self-checks to be so limited ?? If so, then it seems rather silly not to just restrict a few (as is done with conventional checking); but if that’s already the case – i.e. it is just a fraction – then this is really a non-issue…even moe than might be expected from having brought up self checking…yet again.
The technology keeps getting better. Anti-theft technology is going to improve. Self-checkout is loved by some, disliked by some, and feared by a few. That said, it’s where we are headed. As I’ve written in the RetailWire Braintrust comments before, it’s about making it easy for the customer. If the experience is easy, efficient, and convenient, the customer is happy. Isn’t that what a retailer wants? (Rhetorical Question!)
Testing options to improve usage of self-checkout lanes is always a good thing. But most shoppers prefer cashiers over self-checkout terminals, which often have problems that require human intervention. Retailers love self-checkout lanes. We all know why.
For all the “hand-wringing” I witness about this topic on social media from non-retail types, self-checkout is optional in most stores and a way to check out quickly if you have just a few items. In my role as “shopper”, I really like it when I don’t want to wait behind others to just get in and out of a store quickly.
For stores that don’t offer a self-serve/full-serve option, I know as a lifelong retailer that you need to experiment and believe we should all “respect the process” as it unfolds at those retailers.
It still depends on having cashiers to staff those lines. I went into a Target the other night and while the SCO was humming along (with the prominently displayed 10 items or less signage) there were only two cashier lanes open with long lines. So now, Target will penalize shoppers with larger baskets by forcing them to wait in lines while letting the person buying next to nothing fly through the SCO. Still seems like a backwards process to me.
About 10 years ago, I recall talking to a former Tesco executive commenting on the failure of their US ‘Fresh and Easy’ chain. His point was that it seemed paradoxical that the stores were 100% self-scan yet consumers – and American consumers in particular – LOVE service. Self scan = much lower service.
While it has been a big push in many retail operations to address labour costs – things are getting tricky now. Theft-related ‘mis-scanning’ is a challenge and some stores have added barriers where you need to scan your receipt to leave the store (yet the machine still asks if you want a receipt…. go figure).
One small UK grocer (Booths) recently announced they were removing ALL self-scan – because customers wanted to have service back again.
It reminds me of off-shoring call centres – this was a huge trend for UK businesses 15-20 years ago (I believe it was also a US trend too) but there were significant issues with understanding and line quality – which frustrated callers. About 10 years ago some organisations started advertising ‘All UK based call-centres’ – as a point of differentiation.
The lesson here could be that what saves money in the short term can impact customer focused metrics like NPS and ultimately sales in the longer term.
It’s not about speed alone but more about being attentive to customers’ preferences. Some customers prefer the convenience of self-checkout, while others appreciate the personal interaction with human cashiers. When it comes to striking the right balance, providing adequate education to customers can reduce errors and increase efficiency, and having staff available to assist customers at self-checkout can enhance the overall experience. So too can investing in advanced technology, such as RFID, computer vision or AI, which can improve accuracy and speed, making the process more appealing to customers. Looking ahead, the trajectory of self-checkout versus traditional cashier lanes may vary across retail environments and customer demographics. Some factors to consider include the ongoing advancements in technology, evolving customer preferences, and the overall retail landscape. While self-checkout options are likely to continue evolving and growing in popularity, retailers need to remain adaptable and responsive to customer needs. Some customers may always prefer the human touch, and retailers should be prepared to offer a mix of options that cater to diverse preferences. The key is finding the right balance that optimizes efficiency and maintains a positive customer experience.