The company officially confirmed to Business Insider that transitions at the Cleveland Steelyard site and a Supercenter in the St. Louis area are underway, scheduled to be completed within approximately two weeks, with the process occurring after business hours.
Brian Little, a spokesperson for the company, elaborated that the decision stemmed from input received from both employees and customers, alongside an analysis of local shopping trends.
The recent developments might ring a bell, reminiscent of similar actions taken last year by three Walmart establishments in New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Dollar General and FiveBelow, discount retailers, have also signaled plans to reduce or eliminate self-checkout systems in their stores, attributing the decision to challenges related to inventory discrepancies.
Despite having a vast network of over 4,700 locations across the US, Walmart assured that there were no widespread plans to dismantle self-service kiosks from its stores.
Beyond outright removals, retailers, including Walmart, have adopted various strategies to tackle the complexities associated with self-checkout systems.
Earlier this year, Business Insider reported on Walmart locations restricting self-checkout lanes solely to users of the company’s Walmart+ or Spark delivery apps, while Target implemented a policy limiting item counts to ten or fewer in self-service lanes, resulting in a purported twofold acceleration in the checkout process compared to unrestricted access. Additionally, some stores adjusted the operational hours of self-checkout lanes.
Researchers have pointed out that self-checkout can contribute to “partial shrink,” a phenomenon where inventory discrepancies arise from customers inadvertently failing to properly scan and pay for all items during transactions.
