Another Missouri Retailer is Axing Self-Checkout from All Stores

It was supposed to be the wave of the future, but now it's fast becoming a thing of the past. Yet another major Missouri retailer is reportedly axing self-checkout aisles from all of its stores.

A few weeks ago, I shared the news that a Missouri Walmart store had decided to remove its self-checkout. Now, another retailer has decided that it will return to a more traditional checkout method where actual humans man the registers.

CFO Brew is reporting that Dollar General will be eliminating self-checkout from its Missouri stores and also hundreds of locations in other states also.

This is quite a change in approach as there was an estimate last year that many retail stores might be fully-automated in as little as 3 years. Why the big change from technology to humans?

Why did Dollar General decide to ditch self-checkout at their Missouri stores?

I haven't seen a statement directly from Dollar General as of this writing, but publicly I've seen reports that Walmart and other retailers have found there is too much theft by those using self-checkout lanes. What's interesting is all of the theft isn't intentional as many just don't scan their items correctly or miss products.

I haven't seen a timeline for how long it will take for Dollar General to remove self-checkout from their Missouri stores, but some locations reportedly might take weeks or even months as they make the transition.

This is the one development I did not see coming. Now, we'll see how customers respond to having other humans to interact with now when they pay for their stuff instead of the robots.