One North Dakota Retail Store Says Enough Is Enough

If you frequent a Dollar General Store in North Dakota you are going to see a new business model.

Theft in retail stores, grocery stores, convenience stores, and any other kind of store you can think of are at all-time highs.  It seems like shoplifting has become en-vogue since right after the start of the pandemic.

It's become apparent that one strategy that many retail stores have gone to has backfired.

I'm talking about self-checkout centers.  You see them at grocery stores, retail, and even gas stations.  It's been a double whammy for many store owners because finding people willing to work in these businesses is still difficult.  This in turn has forced many retailers to implement self-checkout areas where it only takes one employee to watch as many as a dozen or more stations.  The problem?  Too many dishonest customers.

In some cases, it is just a situation where inexperienced customers make mistakes with a scanner they are not used to using.  In other cases, customers are intentionally forgetting to scan an item and sticking it into a bag.  Oftentimes, expensive items.  Like expensive meat cuts at a grocery store, or smaller expensive electronic items.

Just how bad has theft become at retail stores?

According to CNN Business, shoplifting has become an epidemic.  This is forcing retailers to backpedal and go back to employees scanning your purchases.

A business in North Dakota has just jumped back on that bandwagon.  I'm talking about Dollar General.

Self-checkout tills were the norm at most stores for Dollar General, but not anymore.  Management has made the decision to close all self-checkout tills TFN.  This goes for all of Dollar General Stores across the country.

I spoke with a Dollar General employee in Lincoln, North Dakota recently and asked her about the "closed" self-checkout till.  She said Dollar General management made the decision nationwide because theft has become so common.

She also added that the Lincoln store was sometimes losing a significant amount of money each day.

This brings me back to the question, will Dollar General and other stores be able to find enough employees willing to work to manage the check-out stations?