Employees cheer after store captain Douglas Overholtz tried to cut the ribbon with a pair of large scissors but ended up using a box cutter as Trader Joe’s in Draper opens for business on Friday, March 3, 2023. Trader Joe’s says it will not be adding self-checkout kiosks to stores. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Trader Joe’s lack of self-checkout makes it stand out from other popular retailers like Walmart and Target. And that’s not changing anytime soon.

In a recent Trader Joe’s podcast, the retailer’s chief executive officer Bryan Palbaum and president and vice CEO Jon Basalone debunked the rumors that self-checkout would be coming to stores.

When asked by podcast co-host Tara Miller in a game of true or false if self-checkout was coming soon, Palbaum answered, “Oh, that’s a false. That’s a double false.”

Basalone added, “That’s as false as false can be because we believe in people, and we’re not trying to get rid of our crew members for efficiency sake, or whatever the, I don’t know what the reasons are people put self-checkout in.”

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Basalone recounted a time when he was using self-checkout at a store and had to receive assistance from an employee on something that wouldn’t scan: “I’m like, I do this for a living, and I can’t get this thing to work.”

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Basalone isn’t the only one who dislikes “supermarket contraptions.”

In an interview with NBC last April, New York grocery store owner Stew Leonard Jr. said generations have differing opinions on self-checkout.

“The younger people embrace it and love to use it more than older people,” he said. “I don’t see much gray hair in the self-checkout line.”

Leonard told NBC that 75% of his customers still prefer human cashiers over machines.

Some grocery stores have taken the concept of self-checkout kiosks to the extreme. A Kroger’s grocery store in Nashville, Tennessee, became a self-checkout-only location in July, per Insider.

For Trader Joe’s, Basalone said the company doesn’t need the latest technology to bring in customers and create “newness.”

“The newness comes from the new customers we’re going to be able to reach, the new products that we’re going to see on our shelves, the new opportunities for the crew members who get promoted and get to run those stores into the future,” he said.

“You know, that’s where the excitement comes from,” Basalone continued. “You know, it’s not crazy new ideas like the robot in the aisle that answers questions and helps to clean up spills. It’s simpler than that and actually more exciting than that because of that reason.”