Self-checkout has become a major part of grocery shopping, but adoption varies by country, retailer, basket size, and payment habits. U.S. supermarket self-checkout represented 33% of transactions in 2025, while 76% of Dutch supermarket respondents used self-scan checkout in 2024. In Japan, 72.8% of surveyed consumers had used self-checkout at a supermarket by early 2025. These figures measure different populations and should not be added together.
Table of contents
- U.S. supermarket adoption
- Why shoppers choose self-checkout
- Dutch self-scan behavior
- Loss prevention and store assistance
- Global equipment and market opportunity
- Retailer limits and deployment changes
- Japan adoption and payment mix
U.S. supermarket adoption
Self-checkout accounted for 33% of all U.S. supermarket transactions in 2025, according to FMI | Food Industry Facts. That was higher than the 30% share reported for 2021 in FMI’s “Why Self-Checkout is Here to Stay”. The comparison indicates a larger role for self-checkout in supermarket transactions over that period, although the two figures are industry benchmarks for different years rather than a measurement of every retailer.
Availability was already widespread in 2021. FMI reported that 96% of surveyed U.S. food retailers offered self-checkout that year. Availability, however, does not mean that every shopper uses it, that every store has the same equipment, or that self-checkout is suitable for every basket.
| U.S. supermarket measure | Result | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Share of supermarket transactions using self-checkout | 33% | 2025 |
| Share of supermarket transactions using self-checkout | 30% | 2021 |
| Surveyed food retailers offering self-checkout | 96% | 2021 |
For meal-planning trips, the practical distinction is important: a quick visit for a few ingredients may fit a self-checkout lane, while a large weekly shop can create more scanning, weighing, bagging, and age-verification steps.
Why shoppers choose self-checkout
The reasons shoppers prefer self-checkout are mainly about speed, control, and the physical handling of groceries. Among U.S. grocery shoppers who preferred self-checkout, 77% cited faster service, 36% cited shorter lines, and 43% preferred to bag their own items. These results came from 2024 survey data reported in 2025 by NCR Voyix.
Preference also differed by age. In the same survey, 63% of U.S. grocery shoppers aged 18–29 preferred self-checkout, compared with 45% of shoppers aged 30–44. The figures describe preferences within age groups, not the share of all shoppers represented by those groups.
Basket size remains a barrier. Among U.S. shoppers who did not frequently use self-checkout, 60% said easier checkout for baskets over 15 items would make them more inclined to use it. This is especially relevant to meal-planning errands, where a planned shop can involve a full basket rather than a few replacement items.
Technology is increasingly part of the checkout experience. In the NCR Voyix survey, 42% of surveyed U.S. grocery consumers had recently encountered a checkout camera that detects a skipped scan and prompts a retry. Another 32% had encountered produce-recognition scanners, 28% had encountered age or ID verification technology, and 12% had encountered smart carts or baskets using computer vision and weight sensors.
A separate 2023 consumer survey published in The 2024 Digital Commerce Index found that 84% of U.S. consumers preferred self-checkout when buying groceries in stores. Among consumers who used traditional staffed checkout, 43% said an incentive would make them more likely to use self-checkout. The survey timing was 2023, although the report was published in 2024.
Dutch self-scan behavior
Dutch supermarket data shows how availability and actual use can coexist with continued demand for staffed service. In Deloitte’s Consumer survey 2024 | Summary, 88% of 2,261 Dutch respondents aged 18 and over who regularly visit a supermarket said their supermarket offered self-scan checkout. Meanwhile, 81% used at least one self-scanning method, 76% used self-scan checkout, and 57% used a self-scanning device.
The two-year comparison is not uniform across methods. Self-scan checkout use rose from 69% in 2022 to 76% in 2024. Self-scanning-device use fell from 64% in 2022 to 57% in 2024. These results suggest that “self-scan” can cover more than one format, such as scanning at a fixed checkout or using a device while shopping.
| Dutch supermarket measure | 2022 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Self-scan checkout use | 69% | 76% |
| Self-scanning-device use | 64% | 57% |
| Supermarket offered self-scan checkout | — | 88% |
| Used at least one self-scanning method | — | 81% |
Among Dutch respondents who did not use self-scanning, 53% preferred contact with a cashier and 39% preferred to pay in cash. Self-checkout therefore competes with both a service preference and a payment preference, not only with concerns about scanning speed.
The same survey captured scanning mistakes and attitudes toward checks. Approximately 10% said they sometimes noticed at home that they had forgotten to scan products, while 2% admitted they sometimes deliberately failed to scan products. Respondents also suspected that other shoppers sometimes forgot to scan products at a rate of 59%, and suspected deliberate non-scanning at a rate of 64%.
Checks were broadly accepted: 90% were comfortable with grocery checks at self-scanning checkouts. The survey also reported that 18% found the checks annoying and 15% felt they were singled out for checks every time. These are separate survey responses and should not be interpreted as mutually exclusive categories.
Loss prevention and store assistance
Self-checkout can improve convenience while creating new requirements for supervision and loss prevention. In Zebra’s global 2024 study, 78% of shoppers said self-checkout options improve their shopping experience, but 68% said self-checkout lanes were lacking. The study covered more than 4,200 adult shoppers, retail decision-makers, and associates in an online global sample. Its results are not limited to supermarkets or to one country.
Retailers were also planning more technology. In the same study, 38% of retailers currently used AI-based prescriptive analytics for loss prevention, while 50% planned to use it within one to three years. Within three years, 45% planned to use self-checkout cameras and sensors for loss prevention, 46% planned to use computer vision, and 42% planned to use RFID tags and readers. These are planned adoption figures, not observed outcomes.
The availability of human help remains part of the customer experience. Zebra reported that 70% of consumers found it hard to find an associate while shopping in stores. Among shoppers who left a store without needed items, 20% attributed that outcome to an unavailable retail associate. Separately, 78% said locked or secured products were annoying, connecting loss-prevention procedures with possible friction during a shopping trip. These findings come from Zebra’s 2024 retail study.
Global equipment and market opportunity
The installed base is substantial, but global totals require careful boundaries. Diebold Nixdorf cited RBR Data Services data putting the global self-checkout installed base at approximately 110,000 units, excluding China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia. The figure refers to a 2023 installed base and was published in the company’s 2025 Investor Day Presentation.
The same cited 2024 RBR market data ranked Diebold Nixdorf first in Europe for self-checkout shipments and third in North America, where it held a 9% shipment share. In Diebold Nixdorf’s 2024 market assessment, North America had more than 100,000 retail locations in the self-checkout opportunity. More than 66% of those locations used mixed hardware, software, and service vendors, and approximately 70% of North American retailers had no explicit preference to stay with their current provider.
Diebold Nixdorf described the North American opportunity as approximately $1.1 billion. It estimated that doubling its North American self-checkout market share would represent approximately 5,000 new shipments. Its Smart Vision system was reported as capable of reducing self-checkout shrinkage by up to 73%; this is a stated product capability, not an independently observed result or a forecast of what every store will achieve.
Retailer limits and deployment changes
Retailer policy can change the number of transactions handled by self-checkout even when the equipment remains in a store. Dollar General reported 20,149 stores in 48 U.S. states and Mexico as of May 3, 2024. By that date, it had converted some or all self-checkout registers to assisted checkout options in approximately 12,000 stores.
The company’s revised strategy limited self-checkout transactions to five items or fewer. That policy is company-specific and should not be treated as a general supermarket standard. It illustrates why a national self-checkout availability figure does not reveal how a retailer manages a large meal-planning basket, whether an employee must approve the transaction, or when customers are directed to a staffed lane. The store count and policy details are from Dollar General’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, May 3, 2024.
Japan adoption and payment mix
Japan provides a different picture of self-checkout familiarity and payment behavior. In an SB Payment Service survey conducted from January 20 to February 7, 2025, 94.1% of Japanese consumers who had used cashless payment in a physical store within the prior year had experience using self-checkout. Across the Japanese consumers surveyed, 86.9% had used self-checkout within the prior year.
Among Japanese store operators surveyed, 55.5% had introduced self-checkout, including full, semi, or both types. Supermarkets were one of the business categories with adoption above 90% in the survey. On the consumer side, 72.8% had used self-checkout at a supermarket.
Preference was less absolute than experience. When both self-checkout and staffed checkout were available, 41.7% preferred self-checkout and 38.2% chose between the two depending on the situation. The latter result is a reminder that adoption does not eliminate context: basket size, time pressure, payment method, and the availability of assistance can all affect the lane a shopper chooses.
Payment choices at Japanese self-checkouts were mixed. Credit cards were the most-used method, cited by 47.2% of surveyed consumers. PayPay was used by 43.4%, while cash was used by 34.0%. These percentages come from the SB Payment Service survey and have different denominators from the adoption figures above; they are not a market-share total and should not be added together.
Across these markets, the measurable pattern is broad adoption alongside selective use. The U.S. transaction share reached 33% in 2025, Dutch self-scan checkout use reached 76% in 2024, and Japanese supermarket self-checkout use reached 72.8% in early 2025. At the same time, shoppers still value staffed assistance, retailers impose item-count limits, and stores continue investing in controls intended to reduce scanning errors and shrinkage.