Last year, Sam’s Club bowed to pressure and increased their minimum wage to $16 per hour. Proving that the minimum wage is actually zero, the company announced this week that they will be eliminating all cashier and cash register positions.
The system will have customers scan items as they put them in their shopping cart, with the charges going to the customer’s credit card as they exit the store. An employee spot checks the cart of each customer as they exit. The system was rolled out in 2016, and it has been relatively popular with customers.
Other positions to be automated are automated forklifts and a pizza robot in the café.
Unskilled labor is pricing itself out of the market.
7 Comments
It's just Boris · April 26, 2025 at 6:43 am
I’m a little surprised we don’t have full-auto Starbucks by now.
But yes, automation is becoming cheaper than humans, and definitely complains less. When it does complain, it usually does so quietly, so, bonus there too.
@HomeInSC · April 26, 2025 at 6:58 am
If we were able to deport ALL of the illegals in this country there would be some major shocks to the system that would take some time to manage. The result, and I think it would be a good one, would be that we could go back to the days when high schoolers got part time jobs and actually learned how to work instead of staring at their phones.
SiG · April 26, 2025 at 6:59 am
I’ve always wondered if that cart checking position is useful for anything. Sam’s, BJ’s, and I think Costco do that (only been in one once), and no other store does it. I can’t see how they can inspect carts the way I’ve always seen it done. They don’t inspect everything, just give it the most cursory look.
Is it just a psyop?
Divemedic · April 26, 2025 at 7:46 am
When you are leaving, they scan your receipt, then scan several items that are in your cart. The software makes sure that the items scanned are on the receipt. I am guessing that there is a deterrent effect there as well.
oldvet50 · April 26, 2025 at 8:04 am
It always amazed me that if I had turned in a business plan like this in my marketing class in college, I would have failed. Let’s start a retail outlet but restrict the customer base by making them pay a yearly fee for the privelege of shopping here. Give them a slight discount on items, but just enough to cover the annual fee. Lastly, let’s assume they are all thieves and inspect their cart upon leaving, even though our employees have already inventoried it at checkout.
Elrod · April 26, 2025 at 8:18 am
I suspect Costco, and maybe BJ’s, have some customers that would try to beat the system, and that Walmart – aks Sam’s Club – will discover they have a much higher percentage of those customers.
But, weighed against the cost of “people” – and that “cost” is composed of many, many factors (some of which is employee incompetence and employee theft) whatever the loss rate will turn out to be may be lower than the cost of “people.” Paying one uniformed, armed and somewhat threatening-looking “security guard” at the exit will be a pittance compared to 8-10 cashiers.
And, the next step will be changing packaging; it doesn’t cost much to print the box, so adding bar codes to all 4 sides in a nit, and packaging changes can assist in automated shelf stocking (there are a LOT of warehouses running “in the dark” with automated forklifts). And the cost of RFIDs is coming down, at which point they can do away with the “register scanning stations” altogether and hit your card for the money as you go through the exit door.
It will be interesting to watch what happens on this front. I’d wager once the bugs get worked out and cost gets tightly controlled it will spread like seasonal flu.
TRX · April 26, 2025 at 8:38 am
There’s a Home Depot a couple of towns over. They went all self-checkout, and credit card only. I had a big cart full of stuff, and cash. I looked at the checkout thingie, determined it didn’t take cash, and started to walk out of the store. A hovering employee ran over and unlocked the register to take my money, but I’ve never been back.
The Lowes in my town had replaced all but one of the registers with self-checkout. I don’t know if they’re credit-only or not. Yesterday I bought some stuff, walked to the registers, and they were all self-checkout. I walked to the other end of the store to the “contractor” register and got checked out there.
Some self-checkouts *do* take cash. However, I’ve been burned by that before. Took most of an hour, with various managers, to get it unstuck at a Wal-Mart. So, not doing that again.
I’ve seen some articles about various McDonalds’ going “app-only”; if you don’t have a compatible smartphone and download their malware “app” – McD’s app has been caught spying before – you can’t place an order.
I realize customers are pretty far down the list of things most corporations care about, but the “getting paid” thing ought to be a priority. Apparently they’re willing to forego sales rather than deal with the public.