Dive Brief:

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is working on bringing back its once-ubiquitous door greeters, the retailer says.

• The retailer had phased out its policy of having greeters at the door, who appeared in the 1980s to guide customers and to help prevent theft, a tradition begun by founder Sam Walton.

• The reintroduction of the greeters for now is just a pilot in just a few hundred of its 4,500 stores.

Dive Insight:

Wal-Mart Stores earlier this month said that it was making a concerted effort to cut down on theft, and this reintroduction of the Wal-Mart door greeter is part of that effort. The retailer may also have greeters check customer receipts as they leave, a spokesperson told ABC news.

Greeters were once simply a part of the Wal-Mart shopping experience, but the retailer has slowly phased that out in most stores, moving employees to other areas of the store to ease congestion at checkout counters and for other tasks.

The retailer is likely eager to recoup dollars lost to theft after boosting its wages earlier this year.