Walmart and Target face new self-checkout retail theft problems

Self-checkout takes work once done by retail employees and makes consumers do it.

That’s something many retail chains try to sell as a positive, rather than a spending cut.

“Self-checkout technology is typically positioned by retailers as a consumer service at the front end of stores that enables associates to be deployed in other areas more valuable to shoppers,” according to RetailWire.

Retail experts disagree as to whether consumers actually want self-checkout.

“A lot of shoppers don’t like self-checkout because they see it as a job killer. Then there’s the matter of feeling resentful over doing a retailer’s work for them,” a managing partner at RSR Research posted on RetailWire.

Her Brain Trust colleague, Ken Morris, the former CEO of LakeWest Group, disagrees.

“Self-checkout will be an essential response to the labor shift,” he wrote.

Retailers, especially supermarkets and large department stores, including Walmart and Target, have faced theft issues with self-checkout. Now, new research from LendingTree shows that who is stealing and how consumers feel about theft is creating a new problem for stores.

Higher-income earners are stealing more

Self-checkout makes it somewhat easier for people to steal because it offers the plausible deniability of the missed item being a mistake.

“Many self-checkout users admit to theft, whether intentionally or unintentionally. 27% have purposefully taken an item without scanning — a massive 12 percentage point increase from 15% in 2023. Additionally, 36% of users admit they’ve accidentally left with an unscanned item, including 22% in the past year. 61% who’ve accidentally taken something say they kept it the last time,” LendingTree reported.

The data, which came from an online survey of 2,050 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79 from Oct. 9 to 13, 2025, showed that “sticker shock is driving theft.”

Self-checkout users who’ve purposefully stolen an item are often motivated by the current financial climate, making essentials unaffordable (47%), price increases tied to tariffs (46%), and prices feeling unfair or too high (39%). Those who think they’ll steal again say they’re most likely to take essentials like food, water, and health care products (60%). Remorse is mixed, but repeat intent is real. 46% of self-checkout users who’ve purposefully taken an item say they’ve been caught, yet 31% don’t feel remorseful. In fact, 55% of those who’ve deliberately stolen at self-checkout say they think they’ll do it again.

LendingTree chief Consumer Finance Analyst Matt Schultz thinks that people steal because they see an opportunity.

“Largely unattended self-checkouts provide a potential opportunity for folks to help themselves,” he says. “Even though people know that stealing is wrong and most understand the risk they’re taking, tough times require tough choices, and lots of people are clearly willing to take a risk.”

Higher-income consumers are stealing more

Forty percent of six-figure earners admitted to deliberately not scanning an item at a store, according to the LendingTree report. That’s more than double the 17% of people making $30,000 and under who say they have done the same thing.

About a third (31%) of those who’ve stolen intentionally don’t feel remorseful. In fact, 55% say they think they’ll do it again.

Schulz said that may boil down to ongoing frustration with how expensive life is today, and how little hope people have that things will dramatically improve. 

“People have watched prices rise for years, and often see retailers’ profits continue to rise, too,” he says. “They feel like if they walk out of a store without paying for a loaf of bread or a pint of ice cream that it won’t even amount to a rounding error for that company, but it could help make their life a little easier.” 

How big a problem is retail theft?

The National Retail Federation’s 2025 Impact of Retail Theft & Violence Report shared some key details on how retailers feel about retail theft.

“Retailers report increases across various methods of external theft (cargo/supply chain
theft, shoplifting, and walkout/pushout theft) as well as digital and online fraud (phone
scams, ecommerce fraud, and repeat offender theft,” according to the NRF.

The survey showed a combined 19% increase in external shoplifting and merchandise theft incidents from 2023 to 2024. Retailers say they’re most concerned about organized retail crime, shoplifting, repeat
offenders, phone scams, return fraud, and credit card-related theft.

Dollar General took the extreme step of pulling self-checkout from all of its stores beginning in late 2024.

“Year-over-year shrink headings continued to build during the year, increasing more than 100 basis points for both the fourth quarter and full year,” DollarGeneral CFO Kelly Dilts said during the chain’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

Target has added item limits at some self-checkouts.

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Walmart and Target try different ways to reduce shoplifting

Neither Walmart nor Target comments on the enforcement methods used to prevent shoplifting and retail theft.

Former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, who stepped down at the end of January 2026, talked about rising theft and its consequences.

“It’s higher than what it has historically been,” he told CNBC.

He was clear about the potential impact of rising theft.

“Prices will be higher and/or stores will close if authorities not being strict about prosecuting theft isn’t “corrected over time,” he said.

Target CEO Michael Fiddelke, who was CFO at the time, put a number on the chain’s theft problem during its first-quarter 2023 earnings call.

“If current trends continue, shrink will reduce our full-year profitability by more than $500 million compared with last year,” he said,

Related: Target quietly expands controversial items, winning back customers

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