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Walmart joins other big retailers in scaling back on self-checkout
Walmart is joining the ranks of retailers rethinking self-checkout, with the industry giant in the process of removing the self-service lanes at a store in Missouri.
The return to registers staffed by humans at the Walmart store in Shrewsbury, a suburb of St. Louis, comes a month after Target announced only those buying 10 items or less could use the self-checkout lane at its stores, and Dollar General reduced self-checkout at thousands of its locations. The latter removed the option entirely at 300 locations most-impacted by shoplifting.
Retailers are pulling back, but not abandoning self-checkout, according to Neil Saunders, managing director, retail, at GlobalData. “They are trying to see how does this play a role in the future, but it’s not going to be the same thing they’ve done for decades, where it’s a free-for-all, and anyone could use it,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. There is a lot more caution.”
Walmart cited customer feedback as among the factors in its decision to remove the self-checkout kiosks at its store in Shrewsbury.
“As part of our announced plans for additional investments and improvements to stores across the country, we’re converting the self-checkout lanes at our 7437 Watson Road store in Shrewsbury, MO., to traditional checkout lanes,” a Walmart spokesperson emailed CBS MoneyWatch. “We believe the change will improve the in-store shopping experience and give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service.”
Self-checkout increased in popularity among retailers and customers during the pandemic, allowing shoppers to limit their contact with others and helping to relieve a labor shortage that made staffing registers more difficult.
Still, as the pandemic wound down, many shoppers returned to their former habits, and the appeal of self-checkout lost some of its allure.
“It’s a very love-hate technology. A lot of customers see it as a deterioration of the service, and they have to do more of the work. So it’s not good for driving customer loyalty, ” Saunders noted.
Still, rising theft — part of what retailers call “shrink” — is the primary reason self-checkout is being ditched in some stores and restricted in others, according to Saunders.
“Self-checkout is an area of the store people can steal things,” said the analyst, who noted that shoppers also make genuine mistakes, such as not scanning items properly. “Retailers are very actively trying to reduce it, or in Target’s case put more restrictions around self-checkout to try to reduce the losses they incur from it.”
Costco in November added more staff in self-checkout areas after finding that non-members were sneaking in to use membership cards that didn’t belong to them at self-checkout. Costco said shrink had increased in 2023 “in part we believe due to the rollout of self-checkout.”
Another approach is adding a receipt-scanning gate at self-checkout areas, which Safeway has done at multiple locations in California, in addition to shutting down self-checkout entirely in some stores.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The U.S. Justice Department is demanding records related to the July shooting death of Sonya Massey — an Illinois woman who was killed in her home by a sheriff’s deputy — as it investigates how local authorities treat Black residents and people with behavioral disabilities.
The government made a list of demands in dozens of categories in a letter to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, dated Thursday.
“The Sheriff’s Office, along with involved county agencies, has engaged in discussions and pledged full cooperation with the Department of Justice in its review,” Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch said Friday.
Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, was killed July 6 when deputies responded to a call about a possible prowler at her home in Springfield, Illinois. She was shot three times during a confrontation with an officer.
The alleged shooter, Sean Grayson, who is White, was fired. He is charged with murder and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty.
“The Justice Department, among other requests, wants to know if the sheriff’s office has strategies for responding to people in “behavioral health crises,” the government’s letter read. “…The incident raises serious concerns about…interactions with Black people and people with behavioral health disabilities.”
Andy Van Meter, chairman of the Sangamon County Board, said the Justice Department’s review is an important step in strengthening the public’s trust in the sheriff’s office.
At the time of the fatal shooting, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office was led by then-Sheriff Jack Campbell, who retired in August and was replaced by Crouch.
Deputy Sean Grayson’s history of misconduct
Grayson has worked for six different law enforcement agencies in Illinois since 2020, CBS News learned. He was also discharged from the Army in February 2016 after serving for about 19 months. He was hired by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023.
In an interview with CBS News in early August, Campbell said that Grayson “had all the training he needed. He just didn’t use it.”
In a recording released by the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where Grayson worked from May 2022 to April 2023, a supervising officer is heard warning Grayson for what the senior officer said was his lack of integrity, for lying in his reports, and for what he called “official misconduct.”
Girard Police Chief Wayman Meredith recalled an alleged incident in 2023 when he said an enraged Grayson was pressuring him to call child protective services on a woman outside of Grayson’s mother’s home. He said Grayson was “acting like a bully.”
The recording and Meredith’s description of Grayson’s conduct showed how he quickly became angry and, according to documents, willing to abuse his power as an officer.
Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office history of accusations
According to a review of court records in 2007, Massey’s killing was the only criminal case in recent history against a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy for actions on duty. Local officials characterized her shooting as an aberration.
However, CBS News obtained thousands of pages of law enforcement files, medical and court records, as well as photo and video evidence that indicated the office had a history of misconduct allegations and accountability failures before Grayson. The records challenged the claim that Massey’s death was, as said by the then-sheriff, an isolated incident by one “rogue individual.”
Local families were confident that Massey’s death was the latest in a pattern of brazen abuse that has gone unchecked for years.
Attorneys for Massey’s family recommended an updated SAFE-T Act that would expand an existing database used to track officer misconduct to include infractions like DUIs and speeding during police chases.
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