Towards a planned end to automatic checkouts ? Most supermarkets regret their deployment

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The figures are clear. In Leclerc stores, barely 10 to 12% of customers use self-checkouts. This low adoption is only one aspect of the problem. Losses due to theft now represent up to 2% of supermarket turnover, a figure directly linked to the automation of checkouts. Michel-Édouard Leclerc himself admits: “We are not in favor of excessive automation“. A spectacular turnaround for someone who was one of the first to massively deploy this technology in France.

A dehumanization that encourages fraud

The phenomenon extends far beyond our borders. In the United States, the giants Target and Walmart have already started to remove their self-checkouts. In the United Kingdom, the Booths chain has completely abandoned this system to return to a traditional model. The reason? Customers feel no guilt about committing fraud in front of a machine.

Christophe Delay, national FO delegate for the Auchan group, has noted an explosion in “markdowns” – a prudish term for theft – since the deployment of self-checkouts. ” People don't feel like they're stealing from a machine ,” he explains. Fraud techniques have multiplied: stacking two identical products to scan only one, pretending to scan certain items, or leaving the checkout without paying by pretending there is a malfunction.

The return of humans or surveillance by AI ?

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Faced with this observation, two strategies emerge. The first, radical, consists of returning to traditional checkouts. ” At the checkout, we manage all customer relations, the decapping and the benefits. Going to the checkout means making sure that it is done properly », argues Michel-Édouard Leclerc. This approach also meets a demand from consumers, particularly the elderly, who prefer human interaction.

The second approach relies on technology to correct the faults of automatic checkouts. The Intermarché in La Farlède, in the Var, has been experimenting with the Vynamic Smart Vision system since March 2024. This solution, developed by Diebold Nixdorf, uses artificial intelligence to monitor suspicious behavior in real time. The results are impressive: the fraud rate has fallen from 3% to less than 1%.

A disappointing economic record

The initial dream of substantial savings through staff reduction has turned into a financial nightmare for many retailers. Hidden costs are piling up: machine maintenance, training of security personnel, losses due to theft, and even negative impact on brand image.

Self-checkout machines paradoxically require more staff than anticipated. Employees are needed to monitor multiple registers simultaneously, intervene in the event of a technical problem, check IDs for alcohol, and manage fraud attempts. Not to mention customer frustration with frequent outages and false positives of the anti-theft system.

The future therefore seems to be drawn between two extremes: the return to traditional checkouts or the adoption of AI surveillance systems. The latter option has already started to prove its effectiveness. However, it is not certain that the latter will really be popular among customers.

• Self-checkouts are causing an explosion in theft, accounting for up to 2% of supermarket turnover
• Major retailers such as Target, Walmart and Booths have already started to remove them
• Two solutions are needed: a return to traditional checkouts or the adoption of AI surveillance systems, as at Intermarché

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