Dollar General is pulling back on self-checkout because it tries to curtail retail theft across its stores.
The corporate will remove self-checkout registers from 300 stores which have the largest issue with shrink – an industry term referring to lost or stolen merchandise – in the course of the first half of the 12 months, CEO Todd Vasos told analysts on a Thursday earnings call.
Currently, the corporate has self-checkout options available in greater than 14,000 stores. Nonetheless, it’s deploying three initiatives to alter its self-checkout strategy this 12 months because it tries to cut back the continuing headwind.
In its most up-to-date quarter, the corporate reported that “year-over-year shrink headwinds continued to construct in the course of the 12 months, increasing greater than 100 basis points for each the fourth quarter and full 12 months,” CFO Kelly Dilts said in the course of the earnings call.
In its latest quarter, gross profit as a percentage of sales fell 29.5%, a decrease of 138 basis points, which Dilts said was driven largely by shrink.
To assist, the corporate has already began converting self-checkout registers to assisted-checkout options in roughly 9,000 stores.
“This is meant to drive traffic first to our staffed registers, with assisted-checkout options available as second or third options to cut back lines during high-volume time,” Vasos said.
Dollar General is shutting down its self-checkout lanes in tons of of stores to combat growing theft. Spectrum News
The corporate can be limiting self-checkout to transactions consisting of 5 items or fewer.
Vasos said the corporate believes “these actions have the potential to have a cloth and positive impact on shrink” within the second half of the 12 months and into 2025.
