California businesses could take a profits hit with self-checkout elimination

Steven Greenhut, western region director of R Street Institute, doesn’t believe removing self checkout helps stores prevent theft at all. He argued that the “state and local governments could help by actually prosecuting people who steal stuff, but stores are perfectly capable of reducing their own shrinkage problem.” 

However, a growing number of companies have been removing self-checkout aisles in recent months as a means to thwart theft.  

Earlier this year, Dollar General began employing new measures to crack down on rampant retail theft that it says has been the most problematic problem for the business. Some of its measures included converting 12,000 stores away from self-checkout since the beginning of the fiscal year.