Target, grocery chains find self-checkout, retail theft answers
When self-checkout is a choice, some people just can't seem to help themselves when it comes to stealing.
While you can debate the overall impart of retail theft on America's retailers it's clear that small-time shoplifting has been on the rise. That's clearly related to the growth of self-checkout.
Not having a person handle their items seem to encourage consumers to miss scanning an item. In some cases, of course, that's an honest mistake or a machine error, but the theft numbers jump up when people use self-checkout.
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"While 95.9% of consumers have used self-checkout machines, statistics show theft increases by up to 65% at self-checkout compared to a traditional checker," according to a Capital One study. "Over 20 million Americans have stolen from a self-checkout kiosk. 15% of consumers admit to using self-checkout to steal; 44% of them plan to re-offend."
