OR Union Wants Voters to Limit Grocers to Two Self-Checkout Stations per Store

Re:OR Union Wants Voters to Limit Grocers to Two Self-Checko... by seiko988 on Friday September 06, 2019 @07:51PM (#20900881)

There's a few articles floating around that say shoplifting is greater at self checkouts[1], but apparently its not enough to keep these jobs around without regulatory distortion.

One way of thinking about it is that the store shifts responsibility to both the shopper and the police (in the case of shoplifting) but the police might not agree to the additional workload [2]

1 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/stealin...

2 https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/shoplifting-cal...

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Re:OR Union Wants Voters to Limit Grocers to Two Self-Checko... by derekp7 on Friday September 06, 2019 @08:13PM (#20900954)

A lot of shrinkage is also caused by store staff too. So the two may offset each other.

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Re:OR Union Wants Voters to Limit Grocers to Two Self-Checko... by defertoreptar on Saturday September 07, 2019 @06:52AM (#20903012)

The price of goods is a function of all of the costs associated with selling, so I think the cost in additional theft is ultimately put on the honest customers. That may not be such a terrible result though, since self checkout reduces cost in the first place. Since many customers prefer to save time / avoid human interaction by self checkout, it's probably a net gain either way you cut it.

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Re:OR Union Wants Voters to Limit Grocers to Two Self-Checko... by seiko988 on Sunday September 08, 2019 @01:03PM (#20911725)

>>additional theft is ultimately put on the honest customers.

That's true up until a certain point, but eventually the business is no longer profitable. I think this explains many 'food deserts' in low income areas

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