Dollar General (DG) will immediately remove self-checkout stations in 300 of its stores that have recorded a high level of shoplifting and “shrinkage”. In 9,000 other stores self-checkout will be phased to conventional cashier-operated lines. In the interim use of self-checkout will be restricted to five items.

Self-checkout was introduced to reduce even further the staffing level of stores that are operated at a bare minimum to conserve cost.

Tom Vasos, CEO of Dollar General noted in an investor call that the company used AI (artificial intelligence) to analyze purchases and determine that a critical number of stores were mostly affected by either deliberate theft, by inadvertent failure to scan items or errors in scanning.  Perhaps just NI (natural intelligence) should have been applied to predict that installing self-checkout to reduce store personnel would not necessarily benefit the bottom line.  Perhaps that is why Tom Vasos was brought back from retirement as CEO to restructure and rejuvenate the company.