Walmart Self Checkout Not Going Away

The Sky Really is Falling, but that is NCR Saying That…

It’s a popular subject for many “publications” to run a story about how Walmart is pulling all its self checkout units. Aka unverified speculative news intended to garner an audience and increase advertising revenue. Some read mainstreams like Forbes (I used to way back) but other read independent “number-based” publications like Reforming Retail.

What you see is often times very much different than what people say.

Walmart is supercharging self checkout. How is that for a headline you haven’t seen?

April 25th, 2024 John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S interviewed by ABC News

Furner acknowledged that the prevalence of shoplifting and organized retail crime across the country remains a challenge for retailers of all sizes. He says shrinkage – the industry term for merchandise loss due to theft – has increased at Walmart over the past two years. In response, the big-box retailer has been selectively removing self-checkout counters from some locations where there are more instances of shoplifting and mis-scanned items, but Furner told ABC News that self-checkout is not going away at Walmart.

“There are a few stores where we’ve made the decision that they’ll come out of, but we haven’t made that decision in every store,” he said. “Over the next few years, we’re really going to lean into new types of technology that can make the checkout process even better for customers.”

Walmart is Modifying Self Checkout

Walmart Self Checkout 2024 Bentonville Store One

Walmart has relied on NCR for many years for POS and self checkout, and still does. NCR has a very large service arm. Having been to NCR Bentonville headquarters for a couple of days, we can attest to that. The “writing on the wall” is that the cashcow known in Duluth as Walmart, is weaning itself from NCR. Not good news for a service department that is probably 90% funded by Walmart.

NCR has its own set of problems which continue to grow.

The legacy of Mike Hayford and Aloha Ransomware update
NCR “graduates” to reseller mode with GRUBBRR
And then there was the Aloha outages (datacenter in Dallas ransomware attack)

And so Walmart is changing. Walmart is now developing its own self checkouts. It spends a ton of money on self checkout with NCR currently (and on POS) but those big checks look like they will be smaller and smaller in the future. Walmart has new tests of “Just Walk Out” Amazon-like scanning systems to ease checkout. We have pictures of new lockers in Sam’s in Mexico. Worth noting Walmart has over 4700 stores in U.S. Here are some key Walmart news items.

More Resources

From our recent Walmart Self Checkout writeup

Update December 25th, 2023 – Latest test in downtown Bentonville Neighborhood market is RFID(?) cart. This example from a local Neighborhood Market store is an opportunity for rapid checkout with a cart full of tagged purchases. We will all be interested to see how this test unfolds in the year ahead. Meanwhile the troubles for Toshiba continue to grow.

What’s coming next? Optimization is moving from the counter to the upstream cart. Next stop is the shelf itself?

Thanks to Reforming Retail & Jordan for the tip. Recommended highly subscription (we do…). Forget the sponsor-advertiser led “news portals”.

More Perspective

Interesting comments on employees.

In an exclusive and far-reaching interview with ABC News, John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., talked about the retail giant’s push to hire more non-college degree workers for high-paying corporate jobs at the company.

Currently, 75% of Walmart’s salaried managers began as hourly associates. High-performing Walmart managers at the store’s Supercenters now have the ability to earn more than $400,000 a year, which includes a new stock grant rewards program. Some of those managers have college degrees, while others do not – it is not required for the job.

“While college is great for some, it’s not exactly the right answer for everyone,” Furner told ABC News.

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