1y ago

Self-checkout theft causing problems for retailers — and shoppers who despise receipt checks

www.cbc.ca /news/business/self-checkout-theft-receipt-retailers-1.6899677

I started using grocery self-checkouts during COVID, but I've kept using them because there's rarely a line (and I'm a misanthrope). I'd probably go back to using regular human checkouts if I had to dig through all my crap to prove what I bought.

Having said that, I've noticed myself making mistakes. I've accidentally failed to scan an item, and I've accidentally entered incorrect codes for produce. When I notice, I fix them, but I've probably missed a few.

I guess the easiest answer is for grocery chains to reinvest some of those windfall profits and hire more cashiers.

139 comments

Ha! Not that I steal, but I don't care about supermarkets losing money from people stealing.
If they want their customers to know how to use the self-checkout machines better, they ought to pay them for training.
- Always making a big deal out of theft for pennies or dollars from individual customers .... but seldom highlighting the theft of thousands and millions by corporate heads at the top
- Ya anyone with an ounce of brain cells predicted that theft would be an issue with self-checkputs but stores were blindsided by the savings they saw with getting rid of cashiers.
- Also sometimes the machines a super finicky. It hasn't happened very recently for me, but the amount of times you need an employee to reset the machine or enter a code is too damn high.
- I steal, it's very convenient. Great way to save no groceries.

Shift the cashier's work to the customer and then removed because the customer is bad at that job that they're not trained for?
How could they be bigger assholes? Get fucked, corporate assholes!
- Peach!
  Edit: that was supposed to say "preach" but autocorrect ducked me. Leaving the way it is because that's better.
  
  Apple!
  
  Peaches are code 4011, right?
  
  Autocorrect can be a real motherducker.

Corporations want it both ways ...
... docile workers that will work for little or no pay, which make them poor and more apt to want to steal in order to get cheap food
... honest customers that won't steal, even if they become desperate because corporations refused to pay them a living wage to afford food
Economically speaking ... it's a no brainer ... pay people a living wage and pay for more cashiers to work at the front .. the company makes more money by securing purchases and keeping everyone honest and you maintain a workforce of highly paid people who go to spend their money with your stores anyway
Instead, we want to maintain a system where money and wealth continually keep getting shoved to ever smaller groups of people and we wonder why those of us at the bottom keep trying steal and rob the system just to get by.
'If you give a man gun he can rob a bank; if you give man a bank he can rob the world.'
- It's not the job of corporations to treat people well, they're an entity designed to maximize profit within the framework they operate in.
  A democratic government is designed to represent the will of the citizens. If we aren't happy with the way corporations treat us, then we should vote in a government that will regulate corporations to force them to treat us well.
  The goal should be jobs that are boring to humans being automated completely AND not having theft because people don't need to do it in order to have a good life.
  
  It get harder and harder for government to regulate corporations as they get bigger and bigger and are multinationals. That's what happens with tax heavens.
  I understand corporations motives, but the parent commenter explains well that it doesn't work well if they are too greedy about it.
  
  When do you do when your choice in voting is carefully handpicked insiders from a group that has insulated themselves from outside forces over the past 50 odd years and the only choices with a real chance of winning are not going to work in their constituents best interest?
- I get the whole living wage thing, but a cashier's position was never a living wage, in the past it was a wage used to supplement a family's income, or to pay for post secondary tuition. What changed? My local Wallyworld supercentre was the first in the region to go self serve, the manager said he couldn't find staff, but in all honesty whether it was a living wage or not, I think he just didn't want the staff.
  
  The minimum wage was enacted to provide all citizens with a basic quality of life, including food and housing. Full stop. Everything after your incorrect statement is irrelevant as it is founded on an untrue principle.
  
  A friend of mine, her father was a bagging clerk at a grocery store for literally his entire life. He was able to support two kids and a spouse on that salary, and retired maybe ten years ago.
  
  How far in the past? I'm sure I remember unionized cashiers at, I think, Safeway getting paid comparable to me as a unionized welder in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I could be completely wrong about that, because I think it was the whole store on strike, not just the cashiers.

AND LET THE CASHIERS FUCKING SIT FOR FUCK SAKE!

I don't use self-checkouts in retail stores, and I hate that some stores, like Shoppers, will try so hard to direct me to one when I'm in the queue for the cashier. I have put down merch and walked out of stores over this stance, and I no longer visit some stores (like Shoppers).
I'm not entirely against automated purchase systems. A completely touchless system would get a pass from me. I am against retailers forcing their customers to manually scan and check-out their products though, all while treating them as untrustworthy by dictating where they can place their scanned merch, weighing the merch as it's scanned, and checking the receipts after doing so.
Obviously, none of this addresses the question of whether fully-automated retail spaces are actually good for the working class as a whole.
- My local No Frills has shut down their express lane and directs people to their newly built self checkout. It's basically the express lane except instead of the cashier scanning my items and taking the payment. I scan the items and give payment while a cashier hovers over my shoulder to make sure I'm not stealing anything
- Yeah I agree. It’s a tough question, are trains good for horse stable workers? Like they might lose their jobs if people stop using horses.
  What’s good for the working class as a whole is the end of bullshit work. You don’t argue to prop it up just because the system is shit, you argue to change the system.
  
  These don't end bullshit work though. They just mean that I am doing it myself, but still paying the same price for my groceries.
  If I got a discount for doing the self checkout, since the company isn't paying a cashier, maybe it would be another story, but what they're actually doing is saving money on labour and passing those savings onto themselves.
  
  What’s good for the working class as a whole is the end of bullshit work. You don’t argue to prop it up just because the system is shit, you argue to change the system.
  I don't disagree with automation, which is why I mentioned checkout-free systems. Still, you must recognize that this technology could eliminate hundreds of thousands (millions?) of jobs within a very short period of time and would have significant ramifications on society.

I never use the self-checkouts. That's bullshit. I don't work there.
I don't blame anyone that takes advantage of the system that corporations are building.
- I will happily use self checkouts if it gets me out of the store faster/ lets me interact with the least amount of people possible. I work retail, I need that energy for my job.
- I feel the same way, but sometimes I show up and the lines for actual cashiers is so long and there's no one at self checkout. I can wait for ten minutes or I can scan my twizzlers and gtfo.

At my grocery store, they added in a ton of self checkout, but they didn't give you enough room to bag your groceries. So you have a cart of food, but a mini-shelf to store them on. And yes, they are no limit. They typically now only have two manned lanes open during peak shopping times. I'm sure some theft is part of it, I'm also convinced most of the "theft" is from the stupid setup and the scales on the mini-shelves. Only place I stop for a receipt check is at membership places like Costco. Everywhere else is a firm, "No thank you," and I keep walking. Go ahead, call the cops. I have a receipt.
- Yeah I just walk by and say "no thanks!"
  Our interaction is done once I pay for my items. Don't like it? Call the cops I guess I'm done dealing with the store for the day. Don't trust me? Hire a cashier, not really my problem.
  I'm still pissed all these self-checkouts haven't lowered any prices. Seems like if you got rid of 30 cashiers the price of my bread should've gone down a little.
  
  @norbert I make sure I shove the receipt in the bottom of a bag. I will stop but they gotta hunt for it. I will remind them I do not work for them. That being said, I do not try antagonize the workers. It's not their fault or policy...
  @sbv @Banzai51
- Yep, Costco is fine we all knew the deal when we signed up. But the Walmart greeter stopping me? No way.
  You wanna see if I'm stealing? Check the damn cameras.
  
  Costco also has actual cashiers working, and an extra person to bag your groceries on top of that typically. And they pay better than the typical grocery store.
- This 1000%. You can't just be shaken down without probable cause in any random public place. If you want to do a check, make it a membership and put it in the contract. Otherwise, fuck you, I'm walking out the door with the stuff I paid for already.
  
  My buddy was chased into the parking lot when he said No Thanks. It was an exciting experience where cops were called on a ginger kid for ...
  Well, that's what the cop wanted to know.
  BestBuy Stalin was given a quick lesson on when you don't call the cops, and my buddy got to reassure the cop enthusiastically that he and his friends wouldn't be seen in the store ever again because this was hitting social media So Fast.

I was at Walmart the other day and there were four employees standing around the self checkout. They all said bye to me when I left. Weird shit.
At that point, why not just have them work the tills??
- Because cashiers are a different cost-centre, and thusly a different budget on the company's financial statements. The VP or senior director that controls the cashiers' services would end up looking bad if they had to retrench on that decision, and "looking bad" is death at that level.
  A lot of what happens inside a company makes more sense when you realize it's a power struggle between a bunch of narcissists and their lackeys, and that VPs and CEOs aren't really as powerful as you'd think. Companies can be as inefficient and cut-your-nose-off-to-spite-your-face as any non-profit or public sector employer is, but we often don't see it because we've been trained to assume that "private sector == well-oiled machine" and "public sector == clusterfuck".
- I was waiting to self checkout at a Walmart where there are 4 of around a dozen self-checkouts working. I asked about the ones that were not working and the employee told me that they can only open 4 units for every employee present. In order to have all 12 open they need 3 people there.

What I do is deliberately go to a cashier, even if the line is extremely long, and I see more and more people doing the same. This forces more lines to open. One time they asked if I could use the self-checkout to speed up the process. I replied that if the items were cheaper at the self-checkout, sure, otherwise I'd stay in line.
- This forces more lines to open.
  Does it really, though? I have yet to see a rollback on self-checkouts.
  
  I noticed this at my local Loblaws. At first they only had one to two lines open and they were extremely long. Now they have several lines open and it's very fluid.
- I do the same thing. Aside from a gas pump, I no longer will use self-checkout for any reason. I'm done working for Big Retail for no pay & no discount.

"I'm not stealing, I'm just poorly trained at this job you're now expecting me to do without compensation."

I prefer self-checkout because cashiers don't know shit about bagging groceries in a reasonable manner. I don't like dealing with people and I like my groceries bagged to my specifications. Self-checkout is a godsend.
That said...
I have made mistakes. I've accidently stolen from WalMart. I've been an employee of WalMart; I am not crying over this. WalMart is a shit employer and they have a ton of self-check so they can continue to refuse full time jobs to cashiers so they don't have to pay benefits. Fuck them.
- I haaaaaaaate packing my own bags. But it beats dealing with people.
  Having said that, it's bullshit that I'm doing unpaid labour for the grocery chains. I should get a discount on my bill.
  
  I agree. Self-check should come with a discount of some kind. For a lot of people it will absolutely feel/be unpaid labor. For me it's a way to keep control over things and I am willing for that to be the case, but a lot of people are getting shoved into self-check due to lack of paid employees and cutbacks on cashier hours. It's ridiculous.
- I like my groceries bagged to my specifications.
  This is 100% the reason I use self checkout. I really can't stand my groceries being bagged in a way that essentially guarantees that something is going to be smashed, ripped, or spilled. Or that the paper bag is going to rip itself to shreds as I try to carry it in.
  I most recently had a guy shove way more heavy shit into a paper bag than was even remotely reasonable and then tell me, "you gotta grab it from the bottom, the handles always rip off." And I'm just standing there thinking to myself that I almost never have handles rip off the bags when I bag it myself. Which means that this guy is consistently overloading the bags every single time, causing the handles to rip off.
  I don't particularly mind if you're going to stuff the bag full, but double bag it for fuck's sake. You're making minimum wage or near to it - you're not getting a goddamn bonus if you use fewer bags to help the store's bottom line.
  
  We have reusable nylon bags and those are nice and sturdy. My local grocer... I line up my groceries on the belt in little piles and put one bag with each pile. I would think the point was obvious. They grab the bags and just throw whatever they want into each bag. raw meats mixed with boxed goods. heavy items on my eggs. I dislike going to my local grocer because there's no self-check option. I was a cashier for a while and got a lot of compliments and praise from my customers because I bagged smartly. It's not that hard to say "oh this is a freezer item, maybe I should put it with other freezer items".
  
  Never had an issue here, but even in the regular checkout they haven't done bagging for years. It just goes down the belt and you still have/get to bag it yourself
- I never have a problem bagging my own groceries at the cashier. It's the best of both worlds: highly skilled checkout operator and a fairly skilled bagger.
  I think the dedicated baggers they used to have were better at it than I am, though. They somehow managed to Tetris everything into appropriate bags that were of similar weight and were almost as stable as using a box.
  I think the throughput of a cashier and a skilled bagger is much better than a bagging cashier and definitely better than self-checkouts.

How much is the loss really, in the grand scheme of things? Article says 23% of losses are self-checkout and theft, but what's the percentage of losses overall?
Because I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of people scan their items correctly. My local stores don't even bother enabling the scale on those machines.
IMO it's got to still end up cheaper than switching back to rows of cashiers, and self checkout is so much nicer and faster. I check my groceries out in less than a minute usually.
Or, if it's such a big problem, maybe they can license the tech Amazon uses for their physical stores. Literally grab what you want from the shelves and walk out and it knows what you took and bills you.
- Oh man I do not want to have to wait at the door, check and make sure they didn't double-bill me for something or charge the wrong price, then try and argue when this inevitably happens...
  
  Then tell them to check THEIR records for THEIR receipt. They 100% have a copy.
  
  if it was Amazon's method I don't think you would need to wait, iirc it adds it to your amazon cart and you can see pricing and quantity prior to leaving
- I just wanna add, I am super excited for a world with that last part. No waiting in line, No dealing with stupid miscans on barcodes that no company wants to standardize the location of, pricing would be super simple(it would just appear in my cart when the NFC reader noticed me taking it off the shelf), you wouldn't need to find someone that wants to have the brain numbingly boring job of just standing there.
  It's overall a win-win, the only downside is I can see heavy pushback from older generations because that will basically kill cash tender, so older folk who want to use checks or cash (or even the no digital folk) would have issues with the system
  an alternative system I could see that allows cash tender still, is an online shopping with a pay with cash option at checkout, then the clerk gets your goods, tenders it and then gives your change. Or maybe continue having the self-check area, but if you're paying cash when you enter the building you grab a tablet(more like an NFC/RFID identifier) and all the stuff you grab goes on to that identifier and then when you go to check out you just put your identifier on the machine and pay as you normally would
- Around 3% on average.
- Not sure I want to give away THAT much private data to shop in an Amazon style grocery store

Unless there's a barrier to entry (like a membership at Costco), they can't force you to show your receipt or check your items.
- You're kinda wrong.
  Even Costco can't "force" you. What they can do is ban you, which any store can do. It's harder to enforce without someone at the door checking, but totally possible.
  
  It's actually in the membership agreement. If you refuse to show, they can ban you. However, the fact you would have a Costco membership indicates that you signed an agreement that allows them to have you show the receipt.
  In my experiences, it has always been something flagged by the receipt checker at Costco confirming that I got something I paid for and had to collect for the secure area, or provided to me at check out like movie tickets.

Wait, are receipt checks why Shopper's Drug Mart no longer gives me the option of "e-mail only" for my receipt? The garbage bins full of them by self-check-out are disgusting; it's so wasteful.
Edit: Also self-checkouts are entirely on the companies not wanting to pay for cashiers, so I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. Want to make sure people are checking all their items? Stop trying to automate people out of jobs.
- I agree but I want to push back on the 'automation' of jobs. Self checkout isn't automation. They just made you do the work.
  
  That's true. Honestly, as someone who despises chit-chat and likes to be in and out as quickly as possible, I prefer self check-out, but I know the people pushing it aren't doing it for the same reason I would.
  
  Yup, the corporation's favourite hobby is externalizing of costs. This is just one more example.
  Automation would be some kind of robot that unloads my cart and packs my groceries into properly organized bags.
- I have a friend who works at a shoppers, and she was saying even at it's height, theft is like .001% of daily sales. You'd have to steal a bunch of electronics to even make a dent.
  
  This isn't true for everything across the board however, and the number of .001% is a bit of hyperbole. The driving force behind theft is multifaceted but the biggest ones are probably a mix of resell value, time to flip, and ease of access. Most items not from grocery stores are fenced through oh say Offer Up.
  I worked for a major retailer as a mix of boots on the ground and investigative loss prevention and I will say theft is far more common than people give it credit and that mostly stems from how damn easy it is. Pre-Covid theft only loss were probably about .8-1.5% depending on the location and during/after was around 2-4% these numbers are for my state only though.
  Now of course this is still a drop in bucket and corporation are still horribly, horrifically greedy which is why I had to get out and now get to relax working from home. I just wanted to frame the numbers a little better since I had to live and breathe this shit for years.
  
  There's a bunch of lemmings thinking "challenge accepted".

Theft is one thing and who knows what the numbers actually are for self checkout. Even with theft and us making a mistake or two, they don't have to pay cashiers, I'm sure they're coming out wayyyyy ahead.
- I doubt they're coming out way ahead considering these cashier's usually get paid minimum wage, £10 and hour to not have people steal is probably more profitable.

On a related note, it blows my mind into pieces when I'm standing behind people in line who clearly have no idea how to self checkout. I don't get it. Self checkout has been around for like 25 years. It's not new and it's not complicated.
- Even if they've been around for a while, everyone has a first time.
- I've shown my parents how to do some tech tasks many, many times. And they still don't get it.
  Maybe, similar to self checkouts, it's a combination of being so used to doing things a different way or not needing to do something at all, deeply believing they are "bad at tech" and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, and knowing it's easier to just ask for help than to actually become proficient on their own.
- Ever seen people going through security at an airport?
  People are fucking dumb.
- 25 years??
  
  Yeah, I grew up in AnySuburb, USA. I remember seeing the local Wal-mart install them in the late 90s.
- Around for twenty odd years and the experience hasn't noticeably improved in that time. I act like a neophyte on self checkout because I refuse to use it unless forced.

Then they should be delighted to hear that I refuse to use self-checkout. Problem solved, right?

All I can do is act with ethics and integrity. The rest is their god-damned problem. I can't say I have ever been harassed at the door though. Maybe this was just one security guard going overboard.

I know it varies by location, but I have been using self checkout for years.
There are always more self checkouts open than there ever where staffed lines. I don't get in the line that has someone argue over checks or coupons, when a spot opens up the next person gets to start. If I only have a few things I don't need to spend 25 to 20 minutes in line like I did before self checkout.
Other than a couple years of growing pains, self checkout has been a massive improvement for my general shopping experience. The fact that so many trips are for a few items probably impacts that, but even when picking up a week's groceries I prefer self checkout.

It does make it much easier to steal, it's very convenient.
- The design is very human

I don't feel bad from stealing from corporations. Not my fault they wanted to increase their profits by raising prices, lowering quality and firing people.

I've never seen anyone stealing food and neither did you......

FYI to anyone here, you don't have to show them your receipt or let them check your bag. Just refuse and leave.
Any before anyone says "they'll ban you from the store", they very likely won't. And even if you are added to the ban list, it's not really possible for them to enforce. I worked at a very high traffic Loblaws for a while as a self checkout attendant, and I would regularly have my friends in customer service point out people that had been banned checking out with no problems.

As non American with no self checkout available, what does the recipe check look like? Do you just show them recipe and they briefly look at it before waving you through or do they actually go through all of your groceries cross checking the items?
Because we still have to sometimes show the recipe to the security guards despite not having self checkout. But they don't cross check anything and the procedure takes 2-5 seconds as they sometimes sign the recipe.
- It's a box ticking exercise. They ask to see the receipt and glance at it. Then they ask to look in the bag, glance at that and say thankyou.
- LOL. They blindly look at the receipt then hand it back to you. Takes literally 2 seconds, no one is ever questioned because they employees don't care and just need to look like they are doing something. It's totally useless.
  I just walk past them. Zero obligation to actually comply
- Depends on where you go. For one store I can think of in my area (Sam's Club, run by the same company as Walmart), they've been doing it for as long as I can remember (before self-checkout was even a thing). They've upgraded their receipt-checking process over the years.
  Used to be that they'd just look at the receipt, look at what you got (the store didn't and still doesn't have paper or plastic bags for customers to use; customers can bring their own bags). They'd draw a line on the receipt and then draw a smiley face on it for the kids.
  Nowadays, they scan a barcode on the receipt and then scan a few items randomly selected by their handheld that are in your cart. I think it's up to three items per receipt.
- It's usually just a random employee who glances at the receipt for 3 seconds before telling you to have a nice day. It's basically security theater and I just ignore the requests anyway since there's nothing that will happen anyway.

Any time I’m buying more than 3 items, I typically just go straight to a human-operated register.
The grocery store near me has the most annoying security feature on their self-checkout machines. After you scan your item, it must be placed on the checkout shelf before you can do anything else. If the weight is “unexpected”, you’re stuck asking for help. If you have a full cart of items, you can’t parallelize tasks because of this deadlock; the machine refuses to scan the next item until your current purchase is on the checkout shelf and verified.
- After you scan your item, it must be placed on the checkout shelf before you can do anything else. If the weight is "unexpected", you're stuck asking for help.
  My grocery store had this when there were only a couple of self-checkout machines. When COVID got and they built a bunch more, the new machines didn't verify the weight.
  
  Removing the weight verification would make me reconsider self-checkout machines. There are other stores that I frequent where the weight verification is off, but my grocery store seems to be the only one to keep it enabled.
  The part that grinds my gears is if I don’t allow the machine to verify the weight and scan the next item, I have to sit through the entire TTS message that explains what I’m doing wrong before I can correct my mistake and move on.

Having said that, I’ve noticed myself making mistakes. I’ve accidentally failed to scan an item, and I’ve accidentally entered incorrect codes for produce. When I notice, I fix them, but I’ve probably missed a few.
Stores are 1000 percent alright with this. They don't want you to intentionally steal of course, but shit happens and people mess up, even trained cashiers.
The real problem occurs when people intentionally and maliciously steal, and these checks arent there to catch people like you.
- I feel like Galen Weston (or whoever his replacement is) just wants to suck every penny out of me and doesn't care why I screw up. He. Just. Wants. My. Money.

You don't legally have to stop and show your receipt (except Costco). I have a friend that pont blank tells them "nah" every time. Catch is, security can legally detain you if they really suspect something.
For me it's not worth the hassle and I just show them with an annoying look.
- Catch is, security can legally detain you if they really suspect something. For me it's not worth the hassle and I just show them with an annoying look.
  Eh. The security minion is doing their job. If I get roped into a search I'm not gonna take it out on them.

Am I the only one that hands my stuff to the staff member standing there and asks them for help? I really don't mind saying I don't understand how those things work, as I truly don't care enough to pay even the slightest bit of attention to them.... If there's a staff member just standing there watching, why can't they help me as a customer?
I'm always polite about it, except that one time at Dollarama where there was 4 people standing there acting like I was being rude for asking them to ring me thru a till rather than use a self checkout. That time, I just put my stuff down and walked out. If they don't want to help me, I'm not giving them my money.

I won't use them at all. I'm not seeing any cost benefit from doing their employees' task for them as prices have never come down. Big box stores can DIAF for all I care.

139 comments