New Self-Check Tech at Walmart in South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota

With shoplifting on the rise at self-checkout machines nationwide, America's biggest retail giant is using new technology to fight back.

According to The Street, Walmart is launching an upgraded checkout system that will make it easier and faster for shoppers to scan their items and also will help to curb theft.

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The new $3 million technology comes from Beaverton, Oregon-based Digimarc, which utilizes a system that embeds invisible barcodes into product packaging, making it easier to be detected by self-checkout machines. That also means less time spent by shoppers hunting for those barcodes.

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Walmart is also hoping the new technology will greatly reduce the number of items being shoplifted at self-checkout machines, where according to a survey by LendingTree, 15% of consumers have purposely stolen an item at self-checkout, while 21% said they’ve accidentally taken an item while using self-checkout.

That theft has become a major expense for Walmart, which loses about $3 billion per year due to theft, according to a recent report for Gitnux.