Grocers Report 22% Higher Losses After Installing Self-Checkout

Grocery stores saw merchandise losses rise by an average 22% in the year after installing self-checkout lanes, according to a report from ECR Retail Loss. The figure includes both theft and accidental errors — missed scans and wrong product selections — and it's reshaping how retailers spend on store technology.

The pullback is already measurable. An April survey from Toast, a point-of-sale and restaurant management platform, found that roughly 36% of 340 small and midsize retail operators used self-checkout lanes this year, down from 43% in 2025. That's a seven-point drop in twelve months — a fast reversal for a technology that retailers adopted largely to shift labor onto customers.

What does this change for retailers?

The economics of self-checkout look worse than the sticker price suggested. ECR Retail Loss found product losses at grocery stores with self-checkout lanes ran 33% higher than at retailers without them. Per store, that gap compounds quickly: a grocer losing, say, a baseline share of inventory to shrink now bleeds roughly a third more than its kiosk-free competitor.

Sylvain Charlebois, professor of food distribution at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, told Inc. that self-checkout kiosks gave some stores relief by shifting work to customers — but that retailers still face significant risk. "For someone buying a few items, self-checkout can be convenient. For a full grocery cart, repeated alerts and requests for assistance can make it frustrating. My interpretation is that some retailers expanded the technology beyond the transactions it handles best," he said.

The big chains moved first. Dollar General removed self-checkout lanes from about 12,000 stores in 2024, The Independent reported. Five Below also reduced its use of the technology that same year. For smaller operators now following suit, the message is that kiosks suit small baskets, not full carts.

Where the technology money is going instead

Retreat from self-checkout doesn't mean retreat from technology spending. Toast's survey found 75% of retail operators plan to increase technology spending over the next 12 months, up significantly from 64% last year.

The money is flowing into different tools. Electronic shelf label adoption rose 11 percentage points year-over-year, the survey reported. And AI has become nearly universal: 90% of retailers said they would use more AI in the future, up 6 percentage points year-over-year.

The experimentation splits three ways:

• 42% of those surveyed are actively experimenting with AI through external vendors;
• 28% are experimenting with both internal and external partners;
• 20% reported experimenting exclusively through internal partners.

Conviction runs high. Of those surveyed, 88% believe AI will boost the efficiency of their businesses.

The checkout of 2030

For operators deciding what to do with their lanes, Charlebois offers a concrete forecast rather than a verdict on the technology. "Looking five years ahead, I expect a hybrid checkout experience: self-service for smaller baskets, staffed lanes for larger or more complicated purchases, and more technology helping employees identify errors and assist customers," he said.

His bottom line applies to any retailer weighing the trade-off between labor savings and shrink. "The winning checkout will give customers speed, choice, and help when they need it," he added.

The practical takeaway for store operators: the era of blanket self-checkout deployment is over, but the checkout wars aren't. Budgets are growing — they're just being redirected toward AI-assisted tools and shelf-level tech that cut errors instead of shifting them onto customers.