- Schnucks customers soon won't be able to buy more than 10 items at its self-checkout.
- "We do expect there to be some benefits to stopping theft," the Midwest retailer said.
Midwest grocery store chain Schnucks is putting a cap on how many items customers can buy at its self-checkout.
From Thursday, self-checkout lanes in all Schnucks stores will be limited to customers buying 10 items or fewer, the retailer confirmed to Business Insider. Customers with more than 10 items will be redirected to its staffed checkout lanes, it said.
"While the primary intention is to improve customer service and checkout efficiency, we do expect there to be some benefits to stopping theft," Schnucks said in a statement. "Because self-checkouts are more susceptible to theft, this item limit will help us maintain our costs while keeping the prices lower for our customers."
Schnucks operates 115 stores in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. It told BI that all its stores had self-checkouts, with between four and eight on average at each location.
"When self-checkouts were first introduced, they were intended for smaller orders," Schnucks continued in its statement. "Over time, larger orders began moving through self-checkouts, and we are hoping to address that concern."
Retailers across the US are rethinking their self-checkout strategies as companies fear that they're facilitating theft.
In some cases the shrink, as it's known in the industry, is intentional — customers deliberately don't scan some items or put them through as lower-cost products — while sometimes it happens by accident.
Walmart is trying to combat theft at self-checkouts by using technology that alerts staff if it detects a problem, such as an unscanned item, but current and former workers told BI that this led to uncomfortable confrontations when they had to approach customers.
And Costco is cracking down on membership card-sharing at self-checkouts by getting staff to check people's cards.
Research also shows that some customers find self-checkouts alienating, too.
Dollar General said it's beefing up staffing in its checkout areas to provide more customer service.
"We started to rely too much this year on self-checkout," CEO Todd Vasos said in December, noting that it should only be used "as a secondary checkout vehicle."