SW Florida Grocery Shopping Chronicles: Self-checkout scrutiny on the rise

Mark H. Bickel, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily NewsFri, October 30, 2026 at 9:02 AM UTC

0

Welcome back to the SW Florida Grocery Shopping Chronicles, a place where we talk about all things grocery shopping with our audience from Marco Island to Cape Coral.

This is a place where you can share your grocery shopping experiences − good and bad.

Have a tip? A money-saving hack? An idea for a grocery shopping poll question? Or, maybe, you just want to vent and tell us what is wrong with grocery shopping in 2026 and how it might be fixed. Any kind of random grocery shopping thoughts will do!

This week's Grocery Shopping Chronicle: Self-checkout legislation

Doing the work at the grocery store self-checkout and not receiving something in return has been a sore point of late with some grocery shoppers.

You push your grocery cart around the store, going from aisle to aisle for 30 or so minutes, dutifully checking off the long list you brought with you and hoping (praying) you don't forget something. During the whole process you are planning your exit strategy and intend to find the checkout lane with the shortest line so you can move along and get on with your life.

Easier said than done, right?

More often than not the longest lines are where there are cashiers who are paid to do the scanning and bagging for you.

But for several years now there's been the option of checking yourself out, which means doing more work before you push your cart to the parking lot and load your groceries into your car or truck.

There are plenty of days where it feels like there are more people grocery shopping than there are cashiers to check them out and you feel like your only and best option is self-checkout, even though you'd prefer not to. You don't want to wait in line? Then go over to self-checkout and do the job of a cashier − but not get compensated for it.

At least not yet.

A legislator in New York thinks grocery stores are getting away with something by having customers do the work of a cashier.

Her name is Nikki Lucas and in May she wrote New York State Assembly Bill A11501 proposing a mandatory 10% discount for shoppers who use self-checkout kiosks at food retail establishments.

The legislation argues that because customers are performing scanning, bagging, and payment processing tasks traditionally handled by paid employees, they should share in the labor and operational savings the store receives.

What to know: N.Y.'s self-checkout law proposal -

Any food retail establishment — ranging from supermarkets like Wegmans, Tops, and Aldi to mixed-merchandise giants like Walmart, Target, and Costco — would be required to slash 10% off the total bill for transactions processed through a self-service kiosk.

Stores failing to comply would face legal action from the New York Attorney General, including court injunctions and mandatory consumer restitution.

The bill is not law. It remained in the Assembly Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee when the legislative session ended. Because it failed to move out of committee, it would need to be formally reintroduced and passed by both the Assembly and Senate before ever reaching the governor's desk

Did you know: Grocery store cashier workforce

All grocery stores are required to have one manually staffed cashier lane for every three self-checkout stations. A worker assigned to self-checkout must not have any other duties, and one manual cashier lane must always be open in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And like most things in life, there are two sides to every story.

According to Forbes, grocery stores historically operate on thin net profit margins of roughly 2.1%. Retail experts warn that a mandatory 10% discount vastly exceeds these margins.

There's also a possibility if such a law exists, grocery stores would likely respond by raising baseline grocery prices across the board, enforcing rigid item limits, or removing self-checkout kiosks entirely to avoid taking a loss.

Grocery store self-checkout: What do you think?

We'd love to know your thoughts on this subject.

You can an email to mbickel@gannett.com with your thoughts about grocery story checkout lanes, the good, the bad and the ugly. We'd love to hear from you. Your input on this topic will be shared in a future SW Florida Grocery Shopping Chronicles.

Mark H. Bickel is the Audience Development Director for The News-Press & Naples Daily News. Reach him by emailing mbickel@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: SW Florida Grocery Shopping Chronicles: Self-checkout scrutiny on the rise

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Money”