7 ms·

Target sets a limit on self-checkout items

24 points by AlgoRitmo 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ok_dad 3y ago
Anytime corpos blame theft there’s always another reason. I wonder what the real reason they’re doing this is; are the automated checkout companies increasing prices or perhaps they’re charging a percentage of the items that go through their machines? It’s never theft, just like a failing economy isn’t on the millennials, and you can’t personally save the environment through recycling and using less gas in your car. The real problems are only covered up by blaming individuals, specifically it ends up being something like “our stores are costing because of downtown theft” then you find out it’s because downtown stores are doing half the business as before the pandemic and it was never theft. Edit: this comment has some links showing I’m correct, theft is a scapegoat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39740436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39740436
- 3D39739091 3y ago
  Bro, it really is that simple. Literally everyone (except apparently you) is stealing from these retailers. The shrink rate is an order of magnitude higher on self checkout compared to a cashier lane with a human.
  - erkt 3y ago
    Some people feel a moral imperative to try to steal from these stores.
  - maximus-decimus 3y ago
    > Literally everyone (except apparently you) is stealing from these retailers I guess that's why I can't have nice things. What really bothers me is people who scam insurance and then boast to me about it as if I'm gonna tap them on the back for "sticking it to the man" when they're stealing money away from me by causing my insurance primes to increase but are too stupid to realize it.
    - Sayrus 3y ago
      While I don't support that, that argument only works if your insurance is truly a nonprofit. If profit is involved, they can increase your primes even without people stealing simply for the sake of profit.
      - maximus-decimus 3y ago
        They'll increase it even further when people ask for pay outs.
        willcipriano 3y ago
        The investors are always asking for pay outs.
  - diymaker 3y ago
    The data does not back up this claim, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data...
    - 3D39739091 3y ago
      https://progressivegrocer.com/shrink-self-checkout-lanes-worse-grocers-think#:~:text=According%20to%20research%20from%20Grabango,loss%20than%20traditional%20cashier%20lanes https://progressivegrocer.com/shrink-self-checkout-lanes-wor.... > That analysis showed that self-checkout led to a shrink rate more than 16 times higher than traditional cashier lines. Nearly 7% of self-checkout transactions had at least some amount of partial shrink, compared to 0.32% with cashiers. The analysis also suggested a shrink rate of 3.5% for self-checkout machines, while conventional cashiers only saw a 0.21% shrink rate.
      - ok_dad 3y ago
        > For its study, the company used computer vision to analyze nearly 5,000 retail transactions, comparing items the shoppers picked up during their shopping trip with transaction data to see what was actually purchased Then > According to Grabango, checkout-free technology powered by computer vision can help eliminate self-checkout shrink by tracking what shoppers pick up and charging them exactly what they owe. The company also stressed that average supermarkets could increase bottom-line profits by more than 50% per year by eliminating partial shrink from self-checkout alone. First, I don’t trust a company selling something to say they did a study, literally using that product, and the result of the study was to sell you something new. Not only that, but everyone knows computer vision isn’t always perfect, it’s similar to LLM AI in that when it works it’s amazing but it’s hard to get working. For this study it seems like they trusted their CV product to be perfect and compared it to the human scanned item list and assumed that was inaccurate. This article is literally just an ad, not a reliable source!
  - ok_dad 3y ago
    What’s the evidence other than from corpo press releases? They haven’t shown numbers or evidence that’s the real reason, and you can’t trust a corpo to tell the whole truth.
- gruez 3y ago
  >are the automated checkout companies increasing prices How would this work? The items have price tags on shelves. You can't arbitrarily jack up prices without attracting consumer outrage and/or regulatory scrutiny. >perhaps they’re charging a percentage of the items that go through their machines That wouldn't affect the raw sales data, which is how "shrink" is determined (ie. goods you've bought - goods you've sold) >It’s never theft What makes you so sure of this? Theft is a real phenomenon, so it's at least somewhat plausible that it's affecting stuff. You'd have to have pretty good exculpatory evidence to assert it's "never theft". >specifically it ends up being something like “our stores are costing because of downtown theft” then you find out it’s because downtown stores are doing half the business as before the pandemic and it was never theft. Source?
  - ok_dad 3y ago
    https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not-the-reason-for-closure-of-target-at-folsom-and-13th-streets/ https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not... Edit: this one from further down the thread too: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data... For the first point, I usually assume the checkouts are run by third party vendors and charge a fee for the automated systems. I was saying that perhaps those third parties have started to raise prices for the operation of the checkout machines because it’s harder to find cheap labor, so now that corpos have gone all in on automated jobs they’re in a hard place. Maybe not, but I wasn’t saying the checked out item prices were being changed, that’d be stupid.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >Edit: this one from further down the thread too: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data... Your own source admits it's real, albeit limited to certain cities "But the increase in shoplifting appears to be limited to a few cities, rather than being truly national. In most of the country, retail theft has been lower this year than it was a few years ago, according to police data. There are some exceptions, particularly New York City, where shoplifting has spiked. But outside New York, shoplifting incidents in major cities have fallen 7 percent since 2019, before the Covid pandemic." That's hardly enough to support the claim it's "never shoplifting". >https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not... The CNBC investigation this story was based on uses official crime statistics. Seems reasonable, until you realize that if officials aren't responding to crime reports (eg. lenient DAs), stores might not bother reporting, which makes it seem like crime is going down when it really isn't. You can see this in the nytimes article, which has both reported crime data as well as retailers' inventory ("shrink") data. The latter is obviously less susceptible to this effect, and we see that even though the reported crime rates were down 14% (45.1 -> 38.6), shrink was only down 3% (1.62 -> 1.57). The two above combined makes the exculpatory evidence for "it's never theft" to be pretty weak.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jimmaswell 3y ago
Wal Mart by me has a large amount of efficient self checkout lanes. I love it.
themadturk 3y ago
I just noticed today my local Walmart super center has signs limiting self-checkout to 15 items. They're not enforcing it -- I had that many yogurts, plus a dozen other things. But maybe, like when they eliminated providing any grocery bags at all in Washington, they'll give it a little time to sink in.
test6554 3y ago
I think this is a positive step. Most of the time when online discussion about self-checkout theft would come up, there would be an uncomfortably larg number of people justifying their theft as "payment for doing a cashier's job". Basically "if you don't want me to steal, then hire someone to watch me". Also it was inconvenient when I had about 30 items and a kid in the cart to do self-checkout.
- gruez 3y ago
  >there would be an uncomfortably larg number of people justifying their theft as "payment for doing a cashier's job". I realize you probably don't hold this position, but legality aside, that argument falls flat on its face when you consider the value of your time vs the value of items you're stealing. Self-checking out groceries takes maybe 3 minutes for a full cart? Suppose the store would have otherwise needed to hire a cashier earning $20/hr. Let's double that to account for other expenses like payroll taxes and insurance. $40/hr for 3 minutes works out to $2. That entitles you to a free candy bar, not ringing up a pack of steaks as bananas. >Basically "if you don't want me to steal, then hire someone to watch me". At the risk of being called a "corpo bootlicker" or whatever, this is basically along the same lines as "if you don't want me to grope you, don't dress provocatively".
  - vdqtp3 3y ago
    You're absolutely right, the excuse is unacceptable. Also unacceptable is requiring customers to do the job of an employee. The two are not mutually exclusive.
    - edgineer 3y ago
      I've never seen a Target store require people to self checkout.
      - sickofparadox 3y ago
        Most I've been to in the past few years staff so sparsely that they have one maybe two staffed checkouts, even at peak "grab stuff on the way home from work" times. So your choice is to wait in that line for the single checkout, or the self checkout line for the 6-10 self checkout stations.
porkbeer 3y ago
I don't use self checkout, because I prefer human interaction to menial labor, even if it costs more. The number of edge cases handled by 'skilled human is present' is staggering.
- ozim 3y ago
  Over the time I buy the same groceries at the same store. I am usually done and out 10x quicker than waiting in line. I’d rather spend my time interacting with my family and dog than random person at the counter.
MichaelRo 3y ago
I perceive the checkout kiosks as "the fast lane". Which gets invalidated if people with a full cart block them. Plus, the probability of something going wrong and them needing assistance is about 25% per item, with many items it's a sure thing they will need assistance and block the queue for a long time.
megan_ 3y ago
[flagged]
megan_ 3y ago
[flagged]
Monalisa12 3y ago
[dead]
peter4151 3y ago
Get back to me at spyrecovery36 at gm ail co m if you want to proceed so i can explain in full details, that is if you want me to hack remotely and install bugs on your spouses Email, social account, phone and other means to get contact of someone without him/her knowing,

24 points by AlgoRitmo 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Anytime corpos blame theft there’s always another reason. I wonder what the real reason they’re doing this is; are the automated checkout companies increasing prices or perhaps they’re charging a percentage of the items that go through their machines? It’s never theft, just like a failing economy isn’t on the millennials, and you can’t personally save the environment through recycling and using less gas in your car. The real problems are only covered up by blaming individuals, specifically it ends up being something like “our stores are costing because of downtown theft” then you find out it’s because downtown stores are doing half the business as before the pandemic and it was never theft. Edit: this comment has some links showing I’m correct, theft is a scapegoat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39740436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39740436

3D39739091 3y ago
Bro, it really is that simple. Literally everyone (except apparently you) is stealing from these retailers. The shrink rate is an order of magnitude higher on self checkout compared to a cashier lane with a human.
- erkt 3y ago
  Some people feel a moral imperative to try to steal from these stores.
- maximus-decimus 3y ago
  > Literally everyone (except apparently you) is stealing from these retailers I guess that's why I can't have nice things. What really bothers me is people who scam insurance and then boast to me about it as if I'm gonna tap them on the back for "sticking it to the man" when they're stealing money away from me by causing my insurance primes to increase but are too stupid to realize it.
  - Sayrus 3y ago
    While I don't support that, that argument only works if your insurance is truly a nonprofit. If profit is involved, they can increase your primes even without people stealing simply for the sake of profit.
    - maximus-decimus 3y ago
      They'll increase it even further when people ask for pay outs.
      - willcipriano 3y ago
        The investors are always asking for pay outs.
- diymaker 3y ago
  The data does not back up this claim, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data...
  - 3D39739091 3y ago
    https://progressivegrocer.com/shrink-self-checkout-lanes-worse-grocers-think#:~:text=According%20to%20research%20from%20Grabango,loss%20than%20traditional%20cashier%20lanes https://progressivegrocer.com/shrink-self-checkout-lanes-wor.... > That analysis showed that self-checkout led to a shrink rate more than 16 times higher than traditional cashier lines. Nearly 7% of self-checkout transactions had at least some amount of partial shrink, compared to 0.32% with cashiers. The analysis also suggested a shrink rate of 3.5% for self-checkout machines, while conventional cashiers only saw a 0.21% shrink rate.
    - ok_dad 3y ago
      > For its study, the company used computer vision to analyze nearly 5,000 retail transactions, comparing items the shoppers picked up during their shopping trip with transaction data to see what was actually purchased Then > According to Grabango, checkout-free technology powered by computer vision can help eliminate self-checkout shrink by tracking what shoppers pick up and charging them exactly what they owe. The company also stressed that average supermarkets could increase bottom-line profits by more than 50% per year by eliminating partial shrink from self-checkout alone. First, I don’t trust a company selling something to say they did a study, literally using that product, and the result of the study was to sell you something new. Not only that, but everyone knows computer vision isn’t always perfect, it’s similar to LLM AI in that when it works it’s amazing but it’s hard to get working. For this study it seems like they trusted their CV product to be perfect and compared it to the human scanned item list and assumed that was inaccurate. This article is literally just an ad, not a reliable source!
- ok_dad 3y ago
  What’s the evidence other than from corpo press releases? They haven’t shown numbers or evidence that’s the real reason, and you can’t trust a corpo to tell the whole truth.
gruez 3y ago
>are the automated checkout companies increasing prices How would this work? The items have price tags on shelves. You can't arbitrarily jack up prices without attracting consumer outrage and/or regulatory scrutiny. >perhaps they’re charging a percentage of the items that go through their machines That wouldn't affect the raw sales data, which is how "shrink" is determined (ie. goods you've bought - goods you've sold) >It’s never theft What makes you so sure of this? Theft is a real phenomenon, so it's at least somewhat plausible that it's affecting stuff. You'd have to have pretty good exculpatory evidence to assert it's "never theft". >specifically it ends up being something like “our stores are costing because of downtown theft” then you find out it’s because downtown stores are doing half the business as before the pandemic and it was never theft. Source?
- ok_dad 3y ago
  https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not-the-reason-for-closure-of-target-at-folsom-and-13th-streets/ https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not... Edit: this one from further down the thread too: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data... For the first point, I usually assume the checkouts are run by third party vendors and charge a fee for the automated systems. I was saying that perhaps those third parties have started to raise prices for the operation of the checkout machines because it’s harder to find cheap labor, so now that corpos have gone all in on automated jobs they’re in a hard place. Maybe not, but I wasn’t saying the checked out item prices were being changed, that’d be stupid.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >Edit: this one from further down the thread too: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data... Your own source admits it's real, albeit limited to certain cities "But the increase in shoplifting appears to be limited to a few cities, rather than being truly national. In most of the country, retail theft has been lower this year than it was a few years ago, according to police data. There are some exceptions, particularly New York City, where shoplifting has spiked. But outside New York, shoplifting incidents in major cities have fallen 7 percent since 2019, before the Covid pandemic." That's hardly enough to support the claim it's "never shoplifting". >https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not https://sfist.com/2023/12/22/sure-enough-shoplifting-was-not... The CNBC investigation this story was based on uses official crime statistics. Seems reasonable, until you realize that if officials aren't responding to crime reports (eg. lenient DAs), stores might not bother reporting, which makes it seem like crime is going down when it really isn't. You can see this in the nytimes article, which has both reported crime data as well as retailers' inventory ("shrink") data. The latter is obviously less susceptible to this effect, and we see that even though the reported crime rates were down 14% (45.1 -> 38.6), shrink was only down 3% (1.62 -> 1.57). The two above combined makes the exculpatory evidence for "it's never theft" to be pretty weak.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jimmaswell 3y ago

Wal Mart by me has a large amount of efficient self checkout lanes. I love it.

themadturk 3y ago

I just noticed today my local Walmart super center has signs limiting self-checkout to 15 items. They're not enforcing it -- I had that many yogurts, plus a dozen other things. But maybe, like when they eliminated providing any grocery bags at all in Washington, they'll give it a little time to sink in.

test6554 3y ago

I think this is a positive step. Most of the time when online discussion about self-checkout theft would come up, there would be an uncomfortably larg number of people justifying their theft as "payment for doing a cashier's job". Basically "if you don't want me to steal, then hire someone to watch me". Also it was inconvenient when I had about 30 items and a kid in the cart to do self-checkout.

gruez 3y ago
>there would be an uncomfortably larg number of people justifying their theft as "payment for doing a cashier's job". I realize you probably don't hold this position, but legality aside, that argument falls flat on its face when you consider the value of your time vs the value of items you're stealing. Self-checking out groceries takes maybe 3 minutes for a full cart? Suppose the store would have otherwise needed to hire a cashier earning $20/hr. Let's double that to account for other expenses like payroll taxes and insurance. $40/hr for 3 minutes works out to $2. That entitles you to a free candy bar, not ringing up a pack of steaks as bananas. >Basically "if you don't want me to steal, then hire someone to watch me". At the risk of being called a "corpo bootlicker" or whatever, this is basically along the same lines as "if you don't want me to grope you, don't dress provocatively".
- vdqtp3 3y ago
  You're absolutely right, the excuse is unacceptable. Also unacceptable is requiring customers to do the job of an employee. The two are not mutually exclusive.
  - edgineer 3y ago
    I've never seen a Target store require people to self checkout.
    - sickofparadox 3y ago
      Most I've been to in the past few years staff so sparsely that they have one maybe two staffed checkouts, even at peak "grab stuff on the way home from work" times. So your choice is to wait in that line for the single checkout, or the self checkout line for the 6-10 self checkout stations.

porkbeer 3y ago

I don't use self checkout, because I prefer human interaction to menial labor, even if it costs more. The number of edge cases handled by 'skilled human is present' is staggering.

ozim 3y ago
Over the time I buy the same groceries at the same store. I am usually done and out 10x quicker than waiting in line. I’d rather spend my time interacting with my family and dog than random person at the counter.

MichaelRo 3y ago

I perceive the checkout kiosks as "the fast lane". Which gets invalidated if people with a full cart block them. Plus, the probability of something going wrong and them needing assistance is about 25% per item, with many items it's a sure thing they will need assistance and block the queue for a long time.

megan_ 3y ago

[flagged]

megan_ 3y ago

[flagged]

Monalisa12 3y ago

[dead]

peter4151 3y ago

Get back to me at spyrecovery36 at gm ail co m if you want to proceed so i can explain in full details, that is if you want me to hack remotely and install bugs on your spouses Email, social account, phone and other means to get contact of someone without him/her knowing,