Walmart Accidently Proves A HATE FACT!

Walmart’s Self-Checkout U-Turn: A Stolen Solution to a Growing Problem?

Walmart is making a decisive move away from self-checkout kiosks, an emergency measure directly linked to dramatic reductions in theft and police incidents at locations where the kiosks have been removed.

One prominent example is the Walmart Supercenter located at 7437 Watson Road in Shrewsbury, Missouri. After removing self-checkouts last year, police observed significantly fewer calls related to stealing and made far fewer arrests at the store. Specifically, from January to May, the local police department responded to only 183 calls from Walmart, a striking decrease from 509 calls during the same period the previous year, indicating a crime reduction of over 50%. Arrests at the location also saw a substantial drop, from 108 last year to just 49 this year.

Police Chief Lisa Vargas confirmed that it was common for individuals to bag items without scanning or paying for them, and she expressed appreciation for Walmart’s initiative in removing the self-checkout machines.

The initial widespread adoption of self-checkout was a strategic decision by Walmart, intended to reduce labor costs. Company calculations reportedly anticipated saving $400 per day in staff wages, even with an expected $100 daily increase in theft—a metric known in retail as “shrink”. However, the actual level of external theft proved to be “way worse than they ever expected”.

This rollback of self-checkout is not isolated to Shrewsbury; Walmart is reportedly removing kiosks from more “select stores,” including locations in Cleveland, Ohio.

Regarding the future of shopping technology, Walmart’s wholesale division, Sam’s Club, is currently piloting “Scan and Go” technology. This system allows customers to tally purchases via a specific app using QR codes and AI as they shop through aisles, aiming to eliminate the need for employees to check receipts and ensure all items are accounted for. It is suggested that this advanced system could potentially utilize RFID tags embedded in products to prevent theft.

The challenges with self-checkout extend to the customer experience. While traditional checkout lanes are often seen as too slow, self-checkout itself is described as “the literal worst” for large grocery hauls with numerous items, though convenient for one or two items. Some consumers express a principled stance against checking out their own purchases, stating a clear distinction: “I don’t work for Walmart”. Christopher Andrews, author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkout, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy, previously noted that self-checkouts, once envisioned as the future of shopping to cut labor, have “underdelivered”.

The move to eliminate self-checkouts, and the future implementation of stricter technologies, has sparked discussion, with some viewing it as impacting the ability of certain demographic groups to steal. While shoplifting is acknowledged as occurring across all demographics, observations suggest that a significant portion of shoplifters are from inner-city areas. It has been noted that while “whites steal all the time,” no one has ever claimed a Walmart was “destroyed by whites” or deteriorated after “whites moved in”.

Concerns have been raised regarding the decline of suburban Walmart stores that become accessible via bus lines from inner cities, citing examples such as those in Germantown and Westbend, Wisconsin, located near Milwaukee. These stores, once clean and well-maintained, are described as becoming “total dumps” within a few years, with signs such as discarded diapers found in parking lots. It is observed that individuals from inner cities reportedly travel to suburban Walmarts, filling carts with items, with a perception that these purchases are often paid for by U.S. taxpayers. This starkly contrasts with the state of Walmarts within the city of Milwaukee, which are characterized as universally being “total dumps”.