“Mark Ibbotson, executive VP for central operations at Walmart US said the current system is dated and error-prone, “we really want to pull our workforce onto the floor” - yes, or reduce headcount and labor costs, one of the two.”
Quick! Someone get a bucket of water, his pants are on fire!
...corporate BS aside, Wal-Mart had better be prepared for a rash of theft when they replace cashiers with automated checkout. I have fooled them on ACCIDENT and Wal-Mart suits are deliberately squashing employees trying to warn how laughably easy it is to walk out with unpaid stuff. Store managers are panicking at how liable they’re gonna be.
A local chain grocery store has hand held scanners so you can scan and bag your groceries in the aisles then pay. All without a cashier ever touching one item in theory. Of course they deny this causes massive amounts of thefts and blame the employees and store managers for the loss.
The last I heard Walmart won’t prosecute shoplifters.