One frustrated Kroger customer shared his shameful self-checkout experience, while others agreed that the store and other chains should keep their cashiers.
Thomas Cherryhomes went to
“This week on dystopian nightmares: don't use more than one hand through the self-checkout or the internal camera will flag you for shoplifting and have the self-checkout babysitter check your cart,” he says. wrote Tuesday.
'PS: @kroger. YOU SUCK.”
Cherryhomes' message seemed to resonate with fellow shoppers who are also fed up with camera-dependent checkouts.
'Some things really have to be human. Seems like we forgot about that,” commented X user Greg Gauthier.
'The presence of the shop assistant is not *just* because there is no sufficient technological alternative to counting the goods in a basket.'
“I am a SELF CHECKOUT ABOLITIONIST,” JFK's grandson Jack Schlossberg wrote on X in December 2024.
Thomas Cherryhomes went to X to voice his grievances about Kroger's self-checkout
'Away with it. DISCOVER IT. remove self-checkout NOW!!”
A Kroger shopper wrote on Saturday: “The machine at the Kroger near us likes to scream about stupid, non-existent problems.
“I was a cashier for a few years in high school, I know how to operate these things. There's no problem! I scanned everything and put it in bags, no, I don't steal anything. F**k self-control!'
“Hey @Kroger! “If you're going to treat us like thieves for using your self-checkout, make sure your AI algorithm is smart enough not to flag the ad attached to the cart,” another user shared on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Erik Falcoon, a Kroger shopper from Coppell, Texas, posted: “The @kroger in Coppell, Texas has closed half of its self-checkout lanes, no checkouts and a line a mile long. Terrible!'
The supermarket chain actually responded to Falcoon's complaint, apologizing for the experience and asking for more details so the store can handle the situation.
Kroger, which has more than 2,720 locations in the U.S., has not publicly responded to Cherryhomes' message.
Kroger tried a full self-checkout concept, but after customers complained about long waits to buy their groceries, it scaled back the model.
Kroger has more than 2,720 store locations nationwide
A Kroger in Dallas, Texas went completely self-checkout in 2021. But after three years, the chain announced they would return to the old ways.
“We listened carefully to customer feedback and have made the decision to transition back to hosting staffed checkouts at this store,” Kroger spokesman John Votava told the Dallas Morning News last year.
The Dallas store was the first location to pilot the cashier-less experience. The grocery chain said it never intended to convert all of its locations to self-checkout only.
In 2023, a Kroger from Franklin, Tennessee eliminated all of their cashiers and left it entirely up to customers to scan their products.
A spokesperson for the store told WKRN that they made this decision because most people at that location were already choosing to self-checkout.
The store said in 2023 that no employees were laid off when it eliminated cashiers.
Last year, police issued an urgent warning after discovering a worrying scam at Kroger self-checkouts in Atlanta, Georgia.
In June 2024, Crooks had placed a card skimming device – disguised as a bulletin board – in the self-serve aisle of a Kroger supermarket.
Card skimmers, often hidden by fraudsters at ATMs and ticket machines, steal information such as card numbers and pins from credit and debit cards.
With that information, they can create counterfeit cards or use the information for online purchases without the owner's permission.
Self-checkouts have generally proven to be a controversial topic, with some retailers choosing to do away with them.
Supermarket chain Hy-Vee, which has about 300 stores mainly in the Midwest and South, has completely replaced self-checkout lanes with staffed lanes in some locations. Others have created express lanes, imposing a twelve-item limit at the kiosks.
Bosses said they want to 'deliver a better customer experience in several of our stores by bringing back face-to-face interaction with our staff.'
In reality, the retailer – like its rivals – is ditching self-checkout kiosks because they are particularly vulnerable to theft.
“The rollback of self-checkouts is largely due to retailers' concerns about theft,” retail expert Neil Saunders of Global Data told DailyMail.com.
Self-checkouts can also be problematic for stores, with a significant portion of thefts occurring while customers are ringing up their own items.
In 2021, Kroger attempted to implement a full self-checkout model at a Dallas store, but ultimately decided to bring back cashiers
According to 2024 data from Capital One Shopping, more than 20 million Americans have stolen from a self-checkout kiosk.
The report found that the risk of theft at self-checkout increased by as much as 65 percent compared to regular checkouts.
Despite fierce online critics, this data also showed that 73 percent of U.S. consumers preferred checkout without a cashier.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Kroger for comment.
