New (but now old) checkout setup

One of the things I was excited to see on this visit was the checkout setup, which at the time was the brand-new standard design Walmart was using.  Yes, that phrasing does mean that Walmart has already abandoned this design, and yes, I did visit this store just two months ago. 

So a few months back, Walmart made a big deal about moving towards all-self-checkout stores. I don't believe they ever did that in full-size stores, but Neighborhood Markets (and maybe also some Sams Clubs) did have all of their normal checkouts removed, leaving just self checkouts and the customer service counter. In larger stores, Walmart removed most -- but not all -- regular checkouts, but rather than increasing the number of self checkouts to compensate, Walmart simply... spaced them out more. (Sure, there are a few more self checkouts than there used to be, but nowhere near as many as the number of normal checkouts that were removed.)  I still have no clue how anyone thought that would be a good idea. Sure, having more space to check out is nice, especially if you have a lot of stuff that you're buying, but in most stores, it resulted in somewhere around a quarter to half of the total checkouts being removed, while shifting from more time-efficient (though less space-efficient, in a normal setup) normal checkouts to less time-efficient self checkouts. This whole rant probably sounds out of character for me, as an outspoken proponent of self checkouts, but while I love the idea of shifting from normal to self checkouts as the primary way to check out, the way Walmart did it was a horrible idea -- especially in stores with even a moderately high volume, like this one, which ended up with crazy lines even with every single normal and self checkout in operation, something that really shouldn't happen except in special circumstances such as Black Friday. 

So if this style is gone, what's Walmart doing now? Well, from what I've seen, they're more or less going back to the old style. I've seen plans from several stores where this layout is getting ripped out already, and they're basically keeping the same number of self checkouts as in the old-new design, but consolidating them down into a smaller space (as in the old-old layout), and bringing the number of normal checkouts back up to nearly the old-old design level. However, it appears that part of the reason Walmart wanted to do this was to steal some space that had been used for checkouts for other purposes (such as the money services desk and promotional displays by the entrances), and the re-remodels aren't changing that, so stores aren't truly going back to their original amount of checkouts even after the re-remodels. Which is a bit weird, but I suppose it probably doesn't matter much except in special circumstances, since it's not like all of the regular checkouts are normally in use at the same time.