Dollar General pulls self-checkout from 3,000 more stores

Shrink was a hot topic again during the Dollar General quarterly earnings call held May 30.

In fact, the word “shrink” came up 38 times during prepared remarks and the investor Q&A following the call, up from 37 times during the previous earnings call on March 14.

Last quarter, the company said self-checkout was a culprit for a significant enough amount of the shrink that the company decided to remove it from 9,000 stores.

This quarter, the company said it plans to remove it from an additional 3,000 bringing the total to 12,000.

“While this represents a significant change in our stores, we believe this is the right course of action to drive increased customer engagement while also better positioning us to begin reducing shrink the back half of ’24 with a more material positive impact expected in 2025,” said CEO Todd Vasos, during the call. “Moving forward, we plan to have self-checkout options available in a limited number of stores, most of which are higher volume and low-shrink operations.”