PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — We’ve all experienced long lines at the store at one time or another, and self-checkout machines were one way to ease the congestion, but at one local Walmart, those machines have disappeared.
The Frederick Boulevard Walmart has officially done away with all the self-checkout registers. The word is it’s a result of a rise in crime. And the result has mixed reviews.
Walmart and other retailers like Target, Dollar General and Five Below have been scaling back on the machines over the last year.
Some of it is being blamed on customers only pretending to scan items, putting them in bags and walking out. A LendingTree survey states that 15% of self-checkout users admitted to stealing while they were using the machines. And while 41% of consumers say they almost always use self-checkout, 21% said they feel like they’re performing free labor. Pastor Aaron Lawrence of Celestial Baptist Church agrees.
“I talked to a manager one day and I told him, I said, ‘Hey, who’s going to check my stuff out?’ So he told me, he said, ‘Well, you can use the self-checkout. I told him, I said, I don’t work here,” Lawrence said.
“I personally prefer a human being to check me out,” shopper Jonathon Berkley told 10 On Your Side. “Also, the self-checkout areas tend to be too small. So I end up being like, awkwardly not being able to figure out what to do.”
And 14% of consumers also see it as taking a job away from another.
“I support people that work,” Lawrence said. “And every time I see a self-checkout, that’s somebody who has lost a job.”
Shopper Denise Bailey disagrees.
“I don’t look at it that way because they had a few others still left,” Bailey said. “And you still can stock and you could do other things, you clean the store, get the buggies or what have you.”
In the Frederick Boulevard Walmart parking lot, you can see portable surveillance cameras, a patrol car out front and an officer just inside the doors. Walmart has told news outlets that it’s to improve in-store shopping experience and give associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service. Bailey said she used the machines nearly all the time but now?
“I’m settled with it because it’s all we have,” Bailey said. “I mean, I have no choice.”
An employee also said this location is gearing up for a big renovation coming in April.