Walmart moves two Albuquerque stores back to cashiers, one other store in the works

You may have walked into one of two Albuquerque Walmart stores and noticed they look a bit different.

That’s because the company earlier this month redesigned the front end of the stores at 400 Eubank NE and 2701 Carlisle NE back to cashier lanes, a move away from the company’s shift in recent years to self-checkout lanes.

Josh Havens, a Walmart spokesman, told the Journal at least one other Albuquerque store — at 2266 Wyoming NE — will revert to staffed cashier lanes next month. The company did not provide a reason for the changes at the Albuquerque stores, only saying, “While there is no single reason for the decisions, we are always looking at ways to provide customers with the best shopping experience possible,” Havens said.

The changes come on the heels of the company closing the store at 301 San Mateo SE in March. At the time, Walmart did not provide a reason for the closure, other than the location did not meet financial expectations.

Whether the change back to staffed cashier lanes is something Walmart is doing across the country is unknown. The company didn’t provide information on other stores in the U.S.

At least one Walmart in Canada is testing a “full-serve experience,” according to CTV News, where workers are “available to scan all items, including those being processed in the area known as our self-checkout.”

The move, meanwhile, sparked mixed reactions from some customers shopping at the Carlisle location on Tuesday.

Joseph Martinez, who has shopped at the Carlisle Walmart since it first opened, said he enjoys speaking to cashiers at the store rather than checking out his own items without any interaction.

“There’s no excitement in the machine when you can’t talk to it,” Martinez said. “It’s a lot better and more convenient to talk to somebody. ... Why need a machine when you can have a person and that person is making money? Maybe a cashier might have something important to say that might just change your whole life and the outlook of life. That’s what it’s all about: relationships.”

Cindy Bain, who was in town from Phoenix visiting family and shopping at the Carlisle Walmart, said she also likes the move back to cashiers. She said the Walmart stores she’s visited in Phoenix are still self-checkout registers.

“It’s really different here,” she said.

Jonathan McKinney, who doesn’t frequent Walmart much, had to pick up some bins from the Carlisle store on Tuesday. He said he appreciates “people having jobs” but that the time it took to get out of the store because of the change took longer than if it used self-checkout lanes.

“I probably would have been out of here 15 minutes sooner,” he said. “It’s just a busy Walmart.”

But McKinney offered up more on the state of retail in Albuquerque — and the country.

“I think, as a society, we dug a big hole for ourselves,” he said. “Walmart’s the only place to go shopping for stuff. There’s no good alternatives anymore, because they put everyone out of business.”