BILLIONAIRE Mark Cuban has addressed the increasing amount of self-checkout cameras popping up at various retailers.
The business mogul said the controversial self-service option could tempt some shoppers to steal, but will ideally bring savings to the consumer by cutting costs.
Cuban was asked about self-checkout while he was quizzed on his business opinions in an interview with RealLyfe Production.
When the interviewer first brought up the topic, the software salesman immediately said it was weird as the shopper is being asked to do the scanning.
“It’s weird but it’s smart,” he said in the video, adding that you’ve “always gotta put yourself in the shoes of kids.”
Cuban explained that someone who is older and unaware of the technology could just walk out with items and feel there would be no repercussions.
“We look at it like somebody’s gonna be stealing that s**t, right,” he said.
However, he noted that his teenage children understand that cameras are always watching and that stealing oftentimes gets caught by surveillance.
Cuban also mentioned how retailers are hiring employees to check receipts at the door, and hinted that someone with his bank account probably wouldn’t walk out without paying.
“But yeah, it’s gonna save money, and hopefully save some costs for us,” he said.
The billionaire ended his answer by saying that in 10 or 20 years, stores will likely have something completely different that will also shock shoppers.
Self-checkout has been at the center of a huge conversation to address shoplifting, which has now become an almost $100billion issue, according to a bombshell study done by the National Retail Federation in 2021.
Major retailers like Walmart and Target have stirred controversy with extreme anti-theft measures like locking cheap items behind plexiglass as they fight to save products from flying off shelves.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon informed consumers that closures would be imminent if retail crime is not addressed.
“Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been,” McMillon told CNBC in December.
He warned that “prices will be higher, and/or stores will close,” if the situation doesn’t improve.
Shoplifting has devastated stores fighting to stay open amid a “retail apocalypse,” causing officials to introduce increasingly unpopular measures.
With the influx in self-checkout systems, Walmart employees are now responsible for preventing theft on top of running the registers.
A head cashier named James told The Guardian he felt like a predator when monitoring for theft at his store in Washington state.
He is required to surveil an uninterrupted stream of up to four customers at once.
The stream shows them struggling to use the scanner and the touchscreen – and even trying to shoplift.
Target, another major retailer, has implemented similar measures.
For example, video game displays at Target use tethers to let shoppers view titles but require staff assistance to obtain a copy for purchase.
Certain personal care items are available on the shelves, but Plan B emergency contraceptive pills are placed in security boxes.
Target also uses a cart retrieval system made by Gatekeeper Systems to protect its shopping carts, as an estimated two million shopping carts are stolen each year at a cost of $800million to retailers.
