American retailers face a crisis they rarely discuss publicly. In 2023, the National Retail Federation documented $112.1 billion in total shrinkage losses from theft, employee dishonesty, errors, and damage.
Projections suggest U.S. retailers could lose between $115 billion and $140 billion annually by 2025. Here’s the shocking part: stores catch only 2% of shoplifters. The other 98% remain undetected, using the same checkout system that retailers have relied on for decades.
The Self-Checkout Paradox
Retailers introduced self-checkout to cut costs and speed service. Instead, they created their biggest shrink problem. Grabango research shows self-checkout generates a 3.5% shrink rate—16 times higher than traditional cashiers at 0.21%.
Customers scan three sodas but ring up two. Self-checkout now accounts for 30% of all transactions in the $1 trillion food retail market. This technology costs grocery chains over $10 billion annually in lost profits. The irony stings: their cost-cutting solution became their biggest leak.
A Problem as Old as Retail
Retail theft has plagued stores for over 100 years. But recent acceleration is unprecedented. In 2023, the United States reported 1.15 million shoplifting cases—the highest rate since 2019. Organized retail crime syndicates now target luxury goods and everyday items across multiple states.
Every day, shoplifters still account for the majority of losses. This crisis now forces store closures, locks merchandise behind glass, and reshapes retail operations across the nation. The problem isn’t new. Its scale is.
Rising Urgency, Limited Options
Capital One estimates U.S. retail theft losses will hit $47.8 billion in 2025—a sharp jump from previous years. Projections indicate that losses could exceed $55 billion by 2028 without any changes. Retailers respond by investing heavily in security.
Roughly 30% of stores plan to increase their loss prevention budgets in 2025, with a focus on implementing measures such as locked shelves and AI surveillance. Yet traditional approaches treat symptoms, not root causes. Retailers now recognize shoplifting as a technology problem requiring a technology solution.
Enter Amazon’s Automated Answer
Since March 2020, Amazon has offered retailers Just Walk Out (JWO) technology. This system eliminates the need for checkout by utilizing AI, cameras, weight sensors, and RFID tags to automatically track purchases. Customers enter by registering a payment method, then shop freely.
The system monitors every item and charges automatically at exit. Amazon claims that tracking products in real-time makes theft “really vanish.” Andrew Radlow from competitor Grabango agreed before the company shut down in October 2024. Amazon now operates over 300 JWO deployments globally.
Where the Technology Already Works
Just Walk Out thrives in venues with natural checkout-free advantages, such as sports stadiums, airports, hospitals, and college campuses. Lumen Field in Seattle operates 15 JWO kiosks, generating a 112% sales increase last season and an 85% rise in game-day transactions.
The Washington Commanders launch with the technology. Amazon reports over 70 deployments in sports and entertainment venues. These successes demonstrate that the technology works reliably in controlled settings with high traffic and limited product selection. Scaling to traditional grocery stores with 50,000-plus items presents far greater challenges.
The Cost Barrier
Amazon recently cut deployment costs by over 50%, with some measures showing a 96% reduction from 2017 to 2021. Despite this progress, the technology remains too expensive for most retailers. Amazon Web Services Business Development Lead Anthony Leggett stated in December 2025: “Cost to deploy and maintain the technology is prohibitive for most retailers.”
Large grocery stores require a “mind-boggling” number of cameras, sensors, and AI infrastructure. A typical 10,000-square-foot store requires 1,500 to 3,000 sensors and millions of dollars in annual maintenance. The math works for airports. Not for neighborhood groceries.
Walmart’s Different Path
Walmart, America’s largest retailer, pursues a different strategy than Just Walk Out. In 2025, Walmart invested in AI surveillance and predictive analytics through ArcadianAI, introducing smart surveillance zones and real-time theft detection capabilities.
By mid-2025, Walmart replaced 60% of live security guards with AI-powered alerting systems. The company tied shrink reduction to executive pay and ESG goals. Walmart chose to automate loss prevention—catching crime as it happens—rather than eliminating checkout entirely. Walmart invests in catching theft, not removing checkout.
Target and Kroger’s Cautious Approach
Target faces organized retail crime losses. Rather than removing checkout, Target locked up high-theft items and tested faster shelf-unlocking technology. In June 2025, Target began testing technology that allows employees to quickly unlock shelves—addressing customer complaints about long wait times.
Target deployed Express Self-Checkout (10-item limit) to 2,000 stores in 2024—an alternative to fully automated systems. Kroger announced plans to enhance AI at self-checkout to detect theft in real time. Neither company announced plans to implement the Just Walk Out technology. Major grocery chains remain cautious about fully autonomous checkout.
The Amazon Fresh Paradox
Amazon developed Just Walk Out technology but removed it from its own Amazon Fresh grocery stores in 2024. The company closed over 30 Fresh locations in 2025—four in Southern California, as well as stores in New York, Virginia, and Washington, plus all 14 U.K. stores. As of November 2025, approximately 60 Amazon Fresh stores are operational across nine U.S. states.
CEO Andy Jassy explained that customers “prefer” Amazon Dash Cart technology for larger shopping trips. If Amazon’s own innovation can’t sustain its supermarket chain, what does that suggest about wider retail adoption? Amazon licenses the technology to others but doubts the viability of its own store.
A Question of Consumer Acceptance
Technology adoption needs customer buy-in, not just capability. Surveys show many shoppers resist fully autonomous checkout. Customers worry that they won’t know the final totals until they leave. They fear overcharges or undercharges from system errors. Older shoppers resist digital-only payments. Some retailers report that fully cashier-less experiences reduce foot traffic in certain groups.
Jon Jenkins, the former president of Amazon’s Just Walk Out, claimed the technology is “extremely capable” in late 2024. Yet capability alone doesn’t drive adoption. Consumer data suggests that hybrid models—blending automation with human checkout—will prevail over purely autonomous systems.
The Momentum Builds Cautiously
In December 2025, Amazon reported growth, with 150 of its 300-plus JWO deployments added in 2024 alone. This shows accelerating momentum. The company projects adding over 100 locations by the end of 2026 and sets itself up for “much bigger expansion in 2026 and beyond,” according to Anthony Leggett.
Installation time dropped from months to just 1-5 days. AI improvements let the system work with ceiling heights as low as 7 feet and adapt to sloped floors. Current growth suggests that the technology is moving from the pilot phase toward practical viability in select markets.
Evaluating the Supplier Opportunity
Just Walk Out represents a significant business opportunity for Amazon Web Services and equipment suppliers, even if it never fully dominates the retail sector. Licensing fees, software maintenance, and hardware upgrades create recurring revenue. Several retailers without the capital to build proprietary systems are now piloting the technology in smaller formats.
Stadium and airport deployments generate strong economics—high transaction volume, simple product selection, and strong customer approval where speed matters most. Amazon’s growth projections may fall short of the headline’s “5,000 stores” claim. Yet the trajectory suggests a viable market segment even if mainstream groceries don’t fully convert.
The Skeptical Case
Industry analysts and retail experts disagree over whether checkout-free technology will ever dominate traditional grocery retail. Three questions persist: Will consumers feel comfortable with fully automated transactions? Will ROI justify installation costs for margin-squeezed retailers? If major chains don’t adopt, does the technology remain niche?
One retail analyst noted the “main barrier to consumer adoption was not verifying the basket before leaving the store—customers felt uneasy about this.” Amazon Fresh closures—despite Amazon’s massive resources—suggest even vertically integrated companies struggle with economics. Skeptics argue that traditional loss prevention, AI surveillance at checkouts, and supervised self-checkout are more cost-effective and scalable.
The Unresolved Question
As U.S. retailers project $55 billion in annual shoplifting losses by 2028, one central question remains unanswered: Will Amazon’s Just Walk Out become the dominant solution—or remain a specialized tool for airports and stadiums?
As of December 2025, the answer remains uncertain. Amazon achieved significant progress, including over 300 deployments, cost reductions of more than 50%, shortened installation timelines from months to days, and early success in niche markets.
Yet major grocery chains haven’t announced large-scale adoption plans. Amazon’s removal of the technology from Fresh stores raises uncomfortable questions about real-world viability. The retail theft crisis is urgent and escalating. Whether Amazon truly “cracked” the problem remains a question to answer in 2026.
Sources
Retail TouchPoints, Amazon’s Just Walk Out Tech Poised to Break into a Run, December 8, 2025
CNBC, Amazon bets on selling cashierless technology to retailers, October 5, 2024
Capital One, Retail theft loss analysis (research data), December 5, 2024
Retail Dive, Shrink cost retailers $100B last year, May 28, 2018
Freedom For All Americans, Shoplifting in 2025 – Data, Trends, and Analysis, April 13, 2025
AWS (Amazon Web Services), Just Walk Out Technology, December 8, 2025