While big businesses have had self-service checkouts for a long time, I’ve always wondered why other businesses haven’t also implemented them? Is this due to problems with theft, and if so, what is being done to crack down on this?
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The first mainstream self-service checkouts came on the market about 10 years ago, and after a relatively slow start they soon became popular in larger stores like supermarkets and Bunnings.
Unfortunately for those larger businesses, the public weren’t always keen on using them just because they were quicker, with some unscrupulous shoppers seeing them as an opportunity to get something for free (or at least at a lower price). Before too long, theft from these businesses had increased significantly with the most common methods through these checkouts including scanning items incorrectly (e.g. scanning an expensive fruit as a cheaper one), scanning a lower quantity of items or simply not scanning an item at all.
Over time plenty of innovative people have turned their minds to this problem, and it appears as if a solution is in sight in the form of “smart” self-service checkouts.
The “smart” checkouts have an automated recognition system that can automatically identify a product without the need for a barcode. This therefore takes away the opportunity for the customer to advise the checkout what is being purchased, meaning that they can no longer pass apples off as pears to save a few bucks.
A number of parties are developing variations of this technology, and it should be arriving in supermarkets before too long. Once the bugs are ironed out, the technology should then become available for other businesses.