Dollar General becomes latest to cut self-checkout lanes
A self-checkout station inside a Dollar General Market store in Saddlebrook, New Jersey, on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Dollar General is making new changes to some of its stores.
The Tennessee-based store chain is cutting self-checkout lanes at 300 stores. Dollar General’s CEO Todd Vasos told Business Insider that the stores cutting this service are where there's a lot of theft and inventory loss.
Approximately 14,000 of Dollar General’s 20,000 stores offer the self-checkout option to consumers. Store locations continuing to offer self-checkout will be limited to purchasing five items at a time.
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Business Insider reported that Dollar General is altering the checkout spaces into a hybrid model featuring an assisted-checkout option at 9,000 locations to help with cutting down on long lines when the stores are busy.
Vasos also told the online media outlet that limiting self-checkouts allows workers to serve customers at checkout while reducing theft.
The dollar store chain is the latest retailer to scale back on self-checkout in stores. Earlier this month, Walmart and Target announced some of its stores are modifying how they operate self-checkouts, including limiting the scan-yourself registers to paid app subscribers and delivery drivers – depending on the time of day and how busy the store is.
Target said they are closing some self-checkouts as one of "a number of tests" the company is trying, while Walmart says its strategy of opening self-checkouts based on staffing and customer demand is nothing new.
This story was reported from Washington, D.C.