How supermarkets know if items have been stolen?

[Libertyscribbles]

I am writing an essay on compulsive behaviours specialising in non typical low level shoplifting so have been reading lots about how we are a nation of shoplifters and how a staggering amount is stolen from uk supermarkets on a daily basis. However, aside from those they catch in the supermarket, how do these supermarkets actually know exactly which groceries and items have been stolen? I worked in asda over the summer and don't recall inventories being taken?! Does anyone know how for example they know if 1 yoghurt was stolen in a day? I am trying to link this with the idea of people viewing this as an undetectable crime and looking at the impact of this on triggering compulsive anti social behaviours. Any heads up appreciated! I am writing this as part of my degree but struggling as never written one before and I'm not good at this side of things! Thank you!

So many people lose their purse etc and want cctv checked, it would take hours and half the time they dropped it somewhere else. Even if they had it on cctv they couldn't show you, you would need to get police or solicitor to request it (in Ireland anyway but presume data protection laws are similar)

Semi related question - if I change my mind about a yoghurt and decide to put it back, will it still get recorded as wasted stock if I left it in a different fridge department instead? I always think it's probably fine as long as its at the right temperature but obviously it would be better to run an the way back to the yoghurt section and put it back there. If it's really bad though I'll stop doing it

Where I used to work we used to do a gap check every morning before the shop opened and a scan of low stock items in the evening which we then printed out. The print outs showed how many we should have in, the last delivery date, the last date one was sold, how many we sold the previous week etc.

We also had specific items to count every day which were loaded onto the scanner by head office.

@BertieBotts - in our shop it would be fine, as long as it was in a fridge with a similar temp to the yoghurt fridge (most are the same basic temperature, so any fridge would do). One of us will usually just put it back in the 'yoghurt department' when we notice it.

I am wondering at what kind of anti social behaviours you think it will trigger?

If it is the type of person scanning carrots when they are buying celeriac I hardly think they are going to escalate to hanging out on street corners drinking.

You want to go any secondary school. I am staggered by the kids who nick stuff and the adults that think it’s just what teenagers do.

I work in retail. We scan gaps every day and we also do checks on any items where stock seems unusually low. Obviously if the system shows more stock than we actually have, the chances are it has been stolen.

Sounds a good idea to talk to local retailers but you need to be able to reassure them that you are not trying to learn tactics to scam them. Would you be able to get something from your tutor/college explaining it's part of your degree?

Totally doesn't answer your post but my very naice MIL* steals magazines from Sainsburys, and now my DH does too

They get a magazine they want and put it in the trolley flat at the bottom and then do the 'shop and scan' so that the magazine ends up beneath all the bags of shopping in the trolley IYSWIM.

I was

Even if they were caught they'd just brush it off as an accident and would definitely be believed because they are so middle class.

*Upper middle class, retired professional and quite wealthy

I manage a charity shop and the amount of shoplifting is unreal - way more than standard retail imo

I have seen people weighing a bag of fruit or veg on the scales that print the barcode out, then adding more of that item into the bag after the barcode sticker has come out and they've scanned it! It's the little things that must really mess up the totals of what's been sold/stolen or broken.

Mojo that is disgusting
Do they think they are entitled in other areas of life too? Or is it some sort of thrill thing? Do they seem in any way mortified that you've found this out?

So if there is such a huge amount of shoplifting, why have self checkouts at all?

Supermarkets take a pragmatic approach to ‘shrinkage’. They introduced self-service checkouts, which are an open invitation to shoplifters, because they knew that the cost of the tills and the additional shrinkage they facilitate would be less than the cost of employing the cashiers who were replaced.

CCTV is to protect themselves, not you unfortunately

Say you have a brand new shop - there is one case of everything delivered and whatever stock system the store uses have record to say there is one case of everything. When item is sold and the barcode scanned then the system will register this so they no what stock the have and when they need more ( just in time ordering)

Shop will do gap scans daily so they scan any gap in the shelf - this could either be a confirmed gap as it’s expected or it thinks there should be stock which either could be in the back room - a missing delivery or been stolen. I’d its the latter 2 then the store will need to wipe of the stock. Stores will action counts on a weekly basis aswell to ensure that book stocks are correct and different areas will be done with different frequencies.

Unknown loss is known as shrinkage but it’s not always easy to point and say it’s shop lifting it can be a number of things. External theft, interval theft, delivery issues, not recording waste correctly.

Hope this is what you want and helps

When I worked in a corner shop we didn't have automatic reordering so it was just done by sight.
We would have to keep an eye on washing powders , deodorants and any joints. We would only have 4/5 of those items on the shelf at any one time so if we were down but nobody had sold any we would look back on CCTV to see who took it.

I worked in asda over the summer and don't recall inventories being taken?!

Stock will be recorded as it comes in, the tills record it going out, it's a matter of subtracting one from the other. If the company thinks it's getting short orders systems will be in place (I worked in a company, not ASDA, once, where they suspected the supplier was giving short orders; they then made all the input staff record stock as it came in, and made us, head office staff, chase any discrepancies between what the supplier said they'd provided and what the staff inputted they'd received). Surely any company does this as good practice? The incredulous OP makes it sound like it would be impossible.

re cctv. i once paid for an extension cord along with a big shop at a big box store. came home and couldn't find the cord. returned and requested another. it took an hour but they reviewed the cctv and saw that the cord was placed in it's own plastic bag, left behind, but taken home by the customer behind us. we had the receipt with the till number and time.
bulk shopping for items that look similar but are different price you can write up different codes (so peanuts are generally cheaper than cashews) go through self check out and pay the lesser amount.
same with the codes on apples, pick up braeburns but pay for spartans.

realistically by the time a yoghurt is discovered missing they aren't going to trawl back through weeks of cctv to find the person who pocketed it. Or maybe they do?

No, they really don’t. I worked 15 years in Tesco and did overtime each Sunday night(after they closed) to do a fresh stock count. It entailed going through a list of items in every chiller/freezer/bread/produce dept and manually counting each yogurt/buttermilk/pack of potatoes/carrots (loose or bagged) pack of crumpets-whatever.... we had to count each item ON the shelves on the shop floor AND every such item in the chiller/freezer/shelf in the warehouse so they could tally because of automatic ordering system ie - one sold/one ordered.

That said, I worked on customer service during the day. When I had to refuse a refund for a customers for utterly butterly-I will never forget- because she brought her receipt and 2 weeks ago when she bought it it was in date, when she came to finally use it the day before it had gone out of date. She went off in to store and STOLE a brand new utterly buterly because she was annoyed we had refused.

Store security came over to question whether I had said she could take one, I confirmed I hadn’t- they let her walk out with it anyway.....so, what’s the point of store security and security cameras? People like her are the reasons, due to the ordering systems. to have stock counted weekly. If it wasn’t counted physically there wouldn’t be enough ordered.

Thank you very much, I feel much better equipped and informed to go direct now and to hone my questions. I am worried I have taken such a wide subject matter that it's going to be difficult to come to any conclusions at all so i am going to revisit my hypothesis etc. I can't thank everyone enough for the useful information.

Already being trialled is a total cover CCTV that watches everyone and can tell when you put things in the trolley. If the computer total and your actual bill is different by over a target percentage then you get an extra check.

Don't know if this'll help you at all OP, but your post has reminded me of a horrible time during secondary school where a sudden 'craze' broke out amongst the girls in my year for shoplifting. Even the uber-good kids were at it. There was a shop next to the school which sold all sorts, so some would steal makeup from there. A close friend (from a well off family) grew obsessed with stealing, to the point when she'd stolen all types of makeup they sold, moved onto stealing things like batteries and vitamins, things she didn't need. She then grew more daring and began to swop pricetags round to get a ludacris discount (I.e. swooped a £5.99 price tag to 20p!), taking things on display at the counter whilst distracting the assistant. Again, stuff she didn't need. A few of us had a paper round at this time and the room they provided for us to sort our papers was the same room where they kept their stocks of sweets and cigarettes - one girl in particular must have stole £1000s worth of cigarettes during our time (small newsagents, always thought they must have been slow on the uptake!). Another girl decided to carry on the shoplifting during a school trip in Germany. She swiped a pack of cigarettes (they were displayed in baskets at the front of the store at the time) - the manager spotted her and physically carted her off to the office and got.out school involved, though she was lucky the police weren't called. Urgh, it was a horrible time and I was mocked incessantly for being 'too chicken' to even enter shops with them.

Shops will have inventory of the orders they have placed. Let's say they ordered 3 ten packs of milk. The system is supposed to automatically reorder when the current stock finishes but it hasn't despite the fact stock finished. Also they will have sale records, say they sold 25 bottles on milk, so 5 are unaccounted for, which are either damaged or stolen.

I work in stock control currently for a retailer OP, if you want to give me a message, i may be able to help