The Right Thing: Who polices the 15 items or less line?

Who is responsible for enforcing the rules at the super store?

Recently, a large retailer that owns thousands of super stores worldwide that sell discounted items implemented a change to its checkout policy. It allowed individual stores to decide if it would place a limit on how many items shoppers could buy using the self checkout kiosks at some of its stores. Many stores opted to impose a 15 item or less policy when using the self checkout.

According to an article in the The US Sun, the online edition of Britain’s Sun newspaper, the policy was met with disdain by some shoppers, especially when only a handful of the regular non-self-checkout registers were open. But others have noticed an inconsistency in how well the 15 items or less policy is policed, leaving shoppers to wonder if it is up to them to try to re-direct shoppers who run afoul of the policy.

There are a few issues raised here. First, is there anything unethical about limiting the number of items shoppers can purchase as a self checkout register or, for that matter, in an express line at a regular register? There is nothing wrong with instituting such policies, particularly if they are intended to speed up the overall wait times for shoppers to checkout.

For such policies to work fairly, however, the right thing is for any store implementing them to make sure they don’t have the opposite result than intended. It should be up to individual customers with 15 items or less to decide if they want to use the self checkout or to wait on one of the lines with no limitations. But if the stores don’t hire enough cashiers to keep as many of the traditional lines as possible open, the end result could be long waits at both the traditional lines and at the self checkout lines that are supposed to allow for a speedier shopping experience.

It is also up to...