Popular east coast grocer Wegmans has announced that it will end the self-checkout app it once tried citing a spike in shoplifting.

The app allowed customers to scan items while shopping and then bag and pay for the items, skipping a human cashier and bagger entirely.

The grocery store said in a statement, "Unfortunately, the losses we are experiencing prevent us from continuing to make it available in its current state."

The statement said, "We've made the decision to turn off the app until we can make improvements that will meet the needs of our customers and business."

Wegmans did not provide further details on the loss numbers or what changes the grocery store plans to make with the app.

Its "scan-and-go" app was made available to customers as online retail giant Amazon started to increase the prominence of its cashier-free Amazon Go stores in multiple locations.

The in-store shopping feature began to be adopted more by customers during the pandemic as shoppers looked for ways to have less contact with the public around them to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

The grocery store chain is found in select locations in the Washington, D.C.-area, New York, and in other areas on the eastern coast of the U.S.

It has what has been described as a cult-like following, with some high-profile names like U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer expressing their affinity for shopping there.

MORTON GROVE, IL — High-tech contactless shopping is now a reality in more places.

Amazon, which is pushing deeper into the grocery store business, has eliminated check-out lines with a handful of stores offering the cashier-less experience. The stores don't even require you to scan your items as you select them off the shelf, a model that could become the future of all smart shopping.

With a quick QR code scan, you’re checked in.

“A lot of the feedback we get is I feel like, 'I'm shoplifting. I'm stealing,'” said Carl Andersen, a store manager at Amazon Fresh in Morton Grove, Illinois.

The company had already used "Amazon Dash Carts" to record purchases. But this is different.

Look up at the ceiling and you’ll see a trellis of cameras. Numbering in the hundreds, they are covering every square inch of the store.

“The cameras pick up what item was placed and scanned and given to you,” explained Andersen.

Coupled with computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning, the technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves.

Whatever you leave with is charged to your credit card that is linked to your Amazon account when you scan out.

“You don't walk out of with a receipt directly, but you'll get a receipt within just a few hours of leaving the store,” said Andersen.

Instead of paper cards, produce prices are centrally updated and displayed electronically on mini-screens similar to a Kindle reader.

“They'll display the item itself, how much it is, if it's on sale and it also has a star rating on there just to show you, ‘Hey, this item has been reviewed 20,000 times on Amazon,” said Andersen.

There are a handful of Alexa stations where you can find out anything you need to know about where things are, recipe suggestions or what’s on sale that week.

Since September of 2020, the tech giant has opened 23 specialty Amazon Fresh grocery locations around the country. A half dozen stores are now using the “Just Walk Out technology” in California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C.

And it’s looking like this could be the future of in-store shopping.

One study found that the value of transactions processed by smart checkout technologies will reach $387 billion in 2025.

There are still employees in the store, stocking shelves, making fresh sushi, and preparing home deliveries. Cashiers are on hand in case you’re unnerved by all the cameras and want to shop without being tracked.

“We'll have the people that are a little nervous at the beginning to use it,” said Andersen. “So, the first time they come in, they might want to choose to do traditional shopping, or they might want to talk to the cashiers as they're walking out of the door.”

But the company says it encourages shoppers to use the technology, so they don’t have to wait in line or ever open their wallets.

“There's no line. There's no wait,” said Andersen. “You're truly just getting a quick shopping experience and you can make it as long or as quick as you want.”

Driven in part by the pandemic, the automated technology is already making its way to other retailers. Amazon says the “Just Walk Out technology” is now being used in retail, hospitality, and stadium settings with more to come.

First, everyone went there for hand sanitizer, and then, it was toilet paper. Since the start of the pandemic, grocery stores have not seen a decline in business, and it has made workers there some of the most susceptible to COVID-19 exposure.

“Just worried because I know what could happen,” said Bill Easton, a cashier at Safeway who has worked there for the last 28 years. “When [customers] come through the line, [they tell us they have COVID], and a couple times, there have been people that don’t have masks.”

Easton says during the pandemic, protocols at the grocery store have improved to keep them safe. Plastic barriers separate cashiers from customers, masks are required, and pumping hand sanitizer throughout the day becomes a normal activity. However, Easton still handles money that has exchanged who knows how many hands.

“Man, I got the hand wipes on my right [and I’m using them] as fast as I can possibly go,” Easton said, laughing.

The same goes for Pamela Gabbert, who has worked more hours in the last 10 months than she has in her last 15 years at Sam’s Meat Market in Denver.

“At the start of [the pandemic], it was really crazy,” said Gabbert. “We were working 80-hour weeks over the course of five days.”

“When March first came, I thought everybody got their tax money back early,” joked Gabbert’s mother, Debbie Sam, who owns the market. “That’s what I thought, honestly.”

Despite the economy, people still had to get food, and with little to do at home, more people took up cooking and it made life at grocery stores busy.

“Being busy has been a blessing in disguise, to be honest,” said Gabbert. “You know, we never lost our job. We had consistency with our customers, with our hours, and that’s never been a really big concern for us."

If anything, when you ask people how they are doing, the pandemic has made them take a second to reflect and realize that despite the drawbacks, there are reasons to be grateful.