Walmart, Kroger and Dollar General all use the same feature to stop self-checkout theft — and it’s not a camera

STORES across the country — including Walmart, Kroger, and Dollar General — have implemented self-checkout kiosks to improve the customer experience.

These kiosks even have a feature to prevent theft, but it’s not a camera.

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Self-checkout stations were developed to reduce store labor costs.

A 1988 Miami Herald article found that the system reduced teller costs by about 66%.

But stores still pay a price as shoppers using self-checkout lanes steal items — even if they don’t mean to.

For this reason, many stores have equipped their self-checkout stations with weight sensors.

Installing these sensors helps increase security around the kiosks — but they also come with increased customer frustration.

The sensors often make an error believing that there is an “unexpected object in the packaging area”.

This requires the assistance of a staff member to fix the issue, resulting in a delayed checkout experience.

Even when stores try to increase security at self-checkouts, some theft can’t be stopped.

Some customers make honest mistakes at the self-checkout, resulting in accidental theft.

They may think they’ve scanned an item when they haven’t, or they may even scan the wrong barcode.

In some cases, e.g. For example, when weighing items such as fruit and vegetables, shoppers can easily inadvertently enter incorrect codes, resulting in financial loss for the store.

But others steal purposefully and end up losing the company’s money.

There are even hacks for stealing from shared self-checkout kiosks.

Some shoppers take an expensive item and swap it out for a cheaper one at a checkout weigh-in.

Other shoppers may even call their entire cart and then leave without actually paying.

Despite its shortcomings, self-checkout is gaining popularity.

Walmart, Kroger, and Dollar General are among companies trying self-checkout stores.

Other companies like Amazon have checkout-free stores.

And some companies that had ditched self-checkout kiosks are bringing them back to try to keep up with the competition.