California Bill Could Limit Retailers’ Use of Self-Checkout
A new California bill could force some retailers to give up self-checkout services to drive down retail crime and protect employees from losing valuable jobs to automation.
Senate Bill 1446, introduced by State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, would prohibit grocery stores and pharmacies from providing self-checkout options for shoppers unless certain conditions are satisfied. Firstly, there may only be two self-checkout lanes monitored by any single employee, and secondly, any retailer that implements the technology must complete an assessment illuminating how many jobs would be eliminated due to its use.
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Shoppers would also be prohibited from purchasing more than 10 items at a time in self-checkout lanes, and they wouldn’t be able to buy certain products, like alcohol, tobacco, items in locked cabinets or items with electronic article surveillance tags without the help of a real-life employee.
“We must protect jobs and ensure worker safety,” Smallwood-Cuevas said. “[SB] 1446 is essential to making sure that we are addressing all of the complexity of this issue of retail theft and most importantly, putting workers and consumers first.”
At a virtual news conference on Monday morning, advocates for the bill spoke to what they believe will be its benefits to retailers and employees.
A retail worker at a California supermarket chain described her experience manning self-checkout lanes amid a retail crime wave, saying she was attacked after reporting an incident of retail theft. The experience rendered her “terrified” to intervene in the future.
“The hope is that we can reduce the amount of theft that happens. That’s a much better solution than punishing theft after it occurs,” executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance of California Cristine Soto DeBerry said. “There’s data on this that shows there is stuff that happens at self-checkouts. One of the main deterrents from theft is that there are staff paying attention in the store to your activities.”
The proposal has proven polarizing, with some retail advocacy groups saying it goes too far in limiting stores from managing their own business practices.
“Customers love self-checkout for its convenience, but SB 1446 would add barriers to make it anything but—restricting what shoppers can purchase through self-checkout and forcing grocers to overstaff the area,” the California Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.
The group’s senior policy advocate, Ashley Hoffman, told a local news outlet that the law would be limiting to retailers. “In part it’s codifying some requirements that I think, from our perspective, are a little heavy-handed, as far as getting down into the granularity of how business or a store needs to operate,” she said. “For example, the grocery space, where they’re operating on pretty thin margins. You know, when you’re having to make these drastic adjustments or adjust staffing ratios, that can be a big cost impact.”
Rachel Michelin, president and CEO of the California Retailers Association, also said that stores should have the ability to choose whether to limit self-checkout as a means of deterring shoplifters. “I don’t know that the state needs to mandate that,” she said. Michelin believes legislators should instead address the issue of escalating retail crime head on by advocating for Prop. 47 reform, driving down the felony threshold for retail theft.
In recent months, though, retailers across the country have been pulling back on self-checkout of their own accord. Last week, Walmart announced plans to axe self-checkout at several locations in Missouri and Ohio, citing the desire to “improve the in-store shopping experience and give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service.”
Competitor Target isn’t pulling the plug on self-checkout, but it’s limiting cart size to 10 items or less—and it’s also opening up more conventional checkout lanes staffed by employees. More to the point, Dollar General indicated in a Q4 earnings call earlier this spring that retail shrink has prompted it to reevaluate its relationship with self-checkout and convert some stations to employee-manned registers.
According to a fall survey by LendingTree, most Americans (96 percent) have used self-checkout at some point, and most believe it boosts convenience. However, 69 percent of those surveyed also believe it contributes to shoplifting, and 15 percent copped to purposely stealing when using a self-checkout lane.
