Dollar General Latest Chain to Reassess Self-Checkout Approach

Add another store to the growing list of retailers planning to overhaul their self-checkout practices.

Dollar General says it look to add more people to the checkout area in its stores creating less responsibility for customers to ring up their own items.

Why Dollar General Has Decided To Change Checkout Area

If you’ve been to a Dollar General, you may have noticed a fairly small staff available to assist customers. That’s by design.

“To keep prices down, the chain has very few people working in its stores because labor adds to overhead costs which forces prices higher,” The Street reports.

Less workers means a greater reliance on self-checkouts in Dollar General stores. But it also has brought an increase in theft according to The Street.

Dollar General, like many stores, reports the theft as “shrink.” In addition to theft from customers, shrink also includes losses due to missing items from internal theft and non-theft reasons.

Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos is confident the chain, which has more than 17,000 locations across the U.S., will be able to decrease theft in its stores relying less on self-checkouts.

“And it helps on the sales line because we’ve got somebody to meet, greet and ring up the customer, ” The Street reported from Vasos recent address on an earnings call with investors. “It also helps on the shrink line because you’ve got somebody at the front end of the store that is always there to monitor the front end of the store.”

Which Stores Have Cutback On Self-Checkouts?

Dollar General is the latest store to pare down self-checkout reliance without fully stepping away from the practice.

CNN reported last month that Costco was adding more employees in the front of its stores using a similar strategy as Dollar General.

While Walmart experimented with removing some of its self-checkout stations in a handful of stores, Target rolled out a new policy for the lanes. Some Target stores are only allowing customers with 10 items or fewer to use self-checkouts.

“Self-checkout was designed to help companies save on labor costs and speed up checkout for shoppers,” CNN said in its report about the Target policy change. “But the promise of self-checkout hasn’t always played out.”