Hy-Vee is Making a Significant Change at Their Stores

Hy-Vee is making some significant changes to their stores, specifically the checkout process, as confirmed by the supermarket on Monday, per multiple outlets.

In recent months, Hy-Vee has been reducing the presence of self-checkout stations at various stores. Some stores have eliminated them entirely. Some have converted the stations to express lanes with a limit of a dozen items or less. From the way Hy-Vee spokesperson Tina Potthoff spoke, it sounds like this could become a dominant trend amongst all Hy-Vee locations in due time.

Potthoff stated that this move is one tied to prioritizing a better "customer experience:"

We just want to provide a better customer experience in several of our stores by bringing back the face-to-face interaction with our employees that we had pre-COVID - Tina Potthoff, per The Des Moines Register

While it wasn't revealed which stores already made the change, The Des Moines Register confirmed that one of them is in Urbandale (8701 Douglas Avenue), one of the largest metropolitans in which Hy-Vee is present. No self-checkout lanes exist at that location.

Get our free mobile app

Hy-Vee's move to pivot away from self-checkouts is in line with many major retailers. Target recently limited self-checkout lanes to 10 items or less; Walmart has removed the lanes at some of their stores too. Concerns are mounting amongst retailers that self-checkout lanes have led to the rise in theft, with customers either ringing up items with similar barcodes in order to pay less, or purposefully neglecting to scan all the items in their carts.

The Des Moines Register included findings from a 2018 report by Adrian Beck, emeritus professor at the University of Leicester's Department of Criminology and academic adviser to the ECR Retail Loss Group, who found that stores with an average lot of self-checkout machines could see losses 31% higher than the average. Stores relying on an excess of self-checkout machines could see rates as high as 60%.

Technology is a funny thing sometimes. Stores got customers used to a swifter shopping experience with self-checkout machines, and now seem to be pulling the plug on the operation entirely. Personally, I tend to use self-checkout machines if I merely have a few items I'm willing to purchase. Self-checkouts can be quite cumbersome if you're looking to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of groceries.

This move isn't terribly surprising. In 2023, Hy-Vee ended its Scan & Go cashier-less checkout app. Now, we'll have to keep our eyes peeled at our three Dubuque locations to see if self-checkout machines begin to gradually disappear.

Read the full story on The Des Moines Register's website.