Love it or hate it, self-checkout is here to stay. But it’s going through a reckoning

NEW YORK — The promise of self-checkout was alluring: Customers could avoid long lines by scanning and bagging their own items, workers could be freed of doing those monotonous tasks themselves and retailers could save on labor costs. A year ago, grocery chain Wegmans, citing “losses,” discontinued its self-checkout app that lets shoppers scan and bag items while they shop. “We are at an inflection point where if Americans are willing to do this and show an interest, then stores will probably expand it because they want to slash that labor cost,” said Christopher Andrews, associate professor and chair of sociology at Drew University and author of “The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets and the Do-It-Yourself Economy.” “But right now they’re just seeing downside. There’s a certain satisfaction to it.” For Robin Wissmann Doherty of South Salem, New York, who has a progressive neurodegenerative disease and uses a walker, self-checkout makes her shopping experience easier. Stew Leonard Jr., president and CEO of Stew Leonard’s, a supermarket chain that operates stores in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, said 25% of its customers use self-service.