Make wishtv.com your home page

Study: Stores losing money from self-checkout lines

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)- A new study shows that the self-checkout lines aren’t so great. The stores are actually losing money from them.

Love them or hate them. We’ve all dealt with those self-checkout lines. And the stores are losing profits because of them.

Criminologists at the United Kingdom’s University of Leicester looked over data from nearly 12 million shopping trips from four major British retailers, as well others in the U.S., Belgium, and Holland between 2013 and 2015.

The report states they can’t figure out if people are stealing or they’re just making honest mistakes. Either way, using those self-checkouts resulted in much higher losses for the store.

In fact, the rate of loss was 122 percent higher than if a cashier was there. The study also found the technology gives a customer an excuse to steal. If it doesn’t work, they can feel justified walking away with that jar of pickles. And they say retailers are aware of it, putting more safeguards in place.

And because of all of this, you may have to pay for these losses. Because the retailer may increase the price of food to make up for them. So if you do have sticky fingers it may save you a buck now, but we will all pay for it later.