Walmart alters course: Drops self-checkout expansion amidst customer concerns

The advance of technology helps facilitate our lives a great deal, but do we pay a high price when it comes to relying on the machines way more than we should?

In order to speed up the process of running errands and shopping for groceries, Walmart introduced self-checkouts. What they didn’t expect, however, is to face backlash because of this decision that many of the customers consider controversial.

The self-service machines aren’t something new. In fact, they were first introduced in the 1980s to lower labor expenses.

But this service faced plenty of obstacles and customers complain to the added responsibilities.

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For example, certain items may have multiple barcodes, whereas the produce, including the meat, fruit, and vegetable, typically needs to be weighed and manually entered into the system using a code, which might be time consuming for the ordinary shoppers. Other times shoppers won’t hear the “beep” confirming an item has been scanned properly.

Another issue is the increase of theft. Walmart announced that thefts at its stores has reached an all-time high.

The machines not only fall short at their purpose of making shopping easier at times, but they also make it harder for the employees they were meant to help.

Christopher Andrews, a sociologist and author of The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy, says the system “doesn’t work well for anyone.”

He continued: “Everyone feels like they have to have it. Companies are thinking: ‘If we can just get more people on this, maybe we can start reducing some overheads.’”

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What’s most, most of the customers have reported that they miss the human interaction while shopping.

Randy Parraz from Making Change at Walmart perfectly summed up customer sentiments by saying, “You can’t convince customers to do the job of a cashier just because you don’t want to pay for the work.”

Walmart decided to listen to what their customers had to say and instead of further expanding automation, the retail giant will hire additional cashiers to provide their customers with a pleasant shopping experience and service.

What Walmart and the rest of the retailers, among which Costco and Wegmans, learned is that efficiency is important but maintaining a balance with positive experiences remains crucial.

Heartbreaking Decision: Parents Forced to Pull the Plug on 13-Year-Old Daughter After Sleepover Nightmare!

Australia’s Ally Langdon couldn’t hide her sadness when she talked to a mom and dad who had to make the heartbreaking decision to end the life of their 13-year-old daughter.

Their daughter died because of a dangerous social media trend called chroming, and Langdon, who is also a mom, struggled to keep her tears in.

On A Current Affair, Ally Langdon spoke with Andrea and Paul Haynes about their daughter Esra’s tragic death. Esra died after trying a dangerous trend called chroming, where people inhale toxic chemicals to get high.

Esra was remembered as “determined, fun, cheeky, and talented” by the Montrose Football Netball Club, where she was co-captain. She was a young athlete who raced BMX bikes with her brothers and helped her team win a national aerobics championship in Queensland.

Heartbreaking Decision: Parents Forced to Pull the Plug on 13-Year-Old Daughter After Sleepover Nightmare!

Australia’s Ally Langdon couldn’t hide her sadness when she talked to a mom and dad who had to make the heartbreaking decision to end the life of their 13-year-old daughter.

Their daughter died because of a dangerous social media trend called chroming, and Langdon, who is also a mom, struggled to keep her tears in.

On A Current Affair, Ally Langdon spoke with Andrea and Paul Haynes about their daughter Esra’s tragic death. Esra died after trying a dangerous trend called chroming, where people inhale toxic chemicals to get high.

Esra was remembered as “determined, fun, cheeky, and talented” by the Montrose Football Netball Club, where she was co-captain. She was a young athlete who raced BMX bikes with her brothers and helped her team win a national aerobics championship in Queensland.

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On March 31, Esra went to a friend’s house for a sleepover. Sadly, she tried a dangerous activity called chroming, where she sniffed a can of aerosol deodorant. This caused her to go into cardiac arrest and suffer serious brain damage.

“It was just a normal night for her, hanging out with friends,” Esra’s mom Andrea told Langdon in the interview. Her dad Paul added, “We always knew where she was and who she was with. It wasn’t anything unusual… But that night, we got a call no parent ever wants to get: ‘Come and get your daughter.’”

Langdon explains that Esra’s friends thought she was having a panic attack, but after inhaling the deodorant, her body started to shut down and she went into cardiac arrest. None of the friends knew what to do for a cardiac arrest.

When Andrea got to Esra, paramedics were trying to save her and told her that Esra had been chroming, which Andrea had never heard of before.

Esra was taken to the hospital, and her parents hoped she would recover since her heart and lungs were still strong.

After eight days on life support, Paul and Andrea were told that Esra’s brain was too damaged to be fixed, and they had to make the heart-wrenching decision to turn off the machines.

Struggling to find the words, her parents talked about how painful it was to end their daughter’s life.

Esra’s siblings and friends are now on a mission to warn others about the dangers of chroming, a dangerous trend that led to Esra’s death. Chroming involves inhaling things like deodorant to get high, and it caused Esra to go into cardiac arrest.

Esra’s dad said it was incredibly hard to bring family and friends to the hospital for their final goodbyes. “It was so hard to say goodbye to her,” he said. “We laid with her and hugged her until the end.”

Seeing the parents’ pain, Ally Langdon, who has two young kids of her own, couldn’t hold back her tears.

Since Esra’s death in early April, Paul says the family is completely “broken” and Esra’s siblings, Imogen, Seth, and Charlie, are all devastated. Paul said, “It’s been the hardest, most traumatic time for us. We haven’t been sleeping, eating, or smiling. It’s not just affected us, but the whole community.”

Paul and Andrea didn’t know about chroming before it took their daughter, but now they want to raise awareness about this dangerous trend. Chroming uses everyday products like deodorant, paint, or hairspray to get high, and it can cause serious health problems or death.

Paul wishes he had known about chroming so he could have warned Esra. “If we had known about it, we would have talked to her about it,” he said.

Paul plans to help other parents learn about chroming so they can talk to their kids about it and keep them safe. “Parents need to talk to their children about these dangers,” he said.

Since 2009, chroming has caused many deaths in Australia and around the world. It can lead to seizures, heart attacks, suffocation, and more.

Paul said, “We will always remember what we saw. It broke our hearts.”

Please share this story to help other parents learn about the dangers of chroming and protect their children.

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