Self-scan shoplifting at local tesco

[justcurious4]

Checked instore stock at local tesco for DDs soya milk and it said they had some. Went in and they didn't. Asked and the member of staff said 'its showing 25 in stock but theres none here and none in the back so these have been shoplifted during self scan'

aibu to think that self scan is causing more problems than fixing them?!

It seems pretty unlikely that someone stole 25 cartons of soya milk by scanning other things but not these. Or that 25 people each did it with one carton. So I suspect the assistant is telling little porkies to try to save their embarrassment here at not being able to find it... Not to mention, that seems like an odd item for 25 people to need but not be able to afford - a relatively small proportion of people drink soy milk.

Shoplifting happened long before self-scan was introduced, the only way to prevent it would be to go back to old-fashioned grocery shops where the goods are behind the counter and an assistant fetches what you want. They would definitely have known where to find the soy milk.

There's a good chance that the delivery was 3 packs short and someone had the remaining one in their trolley while you were there.

This is why supermarkets want online and click and collect only.

Shoplifters are going to shoplift but I think self scanners makes it easier, 25 tubs of soya milk seems over the top though.
I was in Superdrug yesterday buying hair dye and they had an offer 2 for £8 but only one of the colour I wanted on the shelf, an assistant checked stock and said it's showing two in store, we checked the shelves then she went to look out back, came back and said someone has probably stolen it.
I think shoplifting is definitely getting worse.

We all pay for theft. Any losses or shrinkage as it's called in retail is covered by price increases.

It's much more likely that it was missing from a delivery, than it was all shoplifted. It sounds like 2 or 3 cases, depending on how many is in a car. Plus one, which could have been shifted but equally could be damaged and waiting to be put through as waste.

Deliveries are wrong all the time. Things get sent to the wrong shop. We got sent 20 crates of corn on the cob once. We were supposed to get 4.

I went to Asda yesterday, haven’t been there for some time. Lots of tills replaced with self scanning, I’d estimate they had 30 self scanning tills. It’s bad news for employees as jobs will go. There will be more theft. As others have said the supermarkets know this but feel it’s worth it financially.
People will steal anything. They steal from charity shops. I have friends who work on warehouses and stealing is rife even though the employee knows it’s instant dismissal if caught.

I worked as a stock controller at Tesco and there's 3 possible reasons for this.

Incorrect stock records-happens a lot because people don't read the label on the product and just see a tin of SMA and count it in and as we all know there's lots of variations of one brand of baby milk.

Shortage on delivery.

Theft.

Realistically it's probably a combination of all 3 but highly unlikely that it's all due to theft.

No they don't.

It's much cheaper to have one person on a till scanning through 12, 15, 20 people's shopping in an hour, than to pay a picker, a delivery driver and incur all the costs of running a van to do 4 deliveries an hour. The delivery cost in no way covers all that.

At our local Sainsbury you can't leave the self scan area without running through the barcode on your receipt on an "gate", it is supposed to stop shoplifting but if you were determined!
They do check your bag if the alarm goes off though.

Nah, it’s often not out of desperation to feed their baby, they nick it and then sell it on. Same with laundry detergent, dishwasher tablets, cheese, steak and coffee. Where I live, thieves have their own targets. One does baby formula, another one has meat and so on. Trying to prevent them from stealing is like a game of whack a mole. As soon as you’ve chased one of them out of your shop another of their skanky brethren show up to clear the shelves in the next aisle. The police don’t give a single fuck. Probably because they don’t have the time to in fairness.

Are you sure, I thought that online shopping didn't make them much money which makes sense if you think about the manpower involved in picking and delivering.

It is one of the products that is easy to sell online which is why it is shoplifted so frequently by addicts and serial shop lifters. Apparently it is rare for people to turn to shoplifting due to poverty.

All I can think about is it's gone very Charles Dickens hasn't it, if people are having to shoplift baby milk which is very sad.

What @ProtestantsHateAbba said. I work in a related field and a lot of supermarket thefts are of higher value items, for re-sale.

I was in my local Tesco a few months ago and saw a guy acting v odd. He had a trolley full of four packs of tins of tuna

He then loaded up a bag for life and walked out fast. One woman employee made an attempt to question him but he just walked past her

Usually there's security but not that day

I've noticed there's no longer a barrier that lets you exit in the way he did, it must have made things too easy for shoplifters

There's a large Sainsbury's in a deprived part of the city I live near, and one near my home in a more affluent area. To exit the self scan area in the former you have to scan your receipt at a barrier. I realise people could still be failing to scan the odd item but clearly they've experienced total basket theft to need to do this

It's most likely a inventory blip, 25 sounds like 2 cases plus 1 missing which could quite likely be in someone's basket/trolly.
Sometimes what's expected to be on a delivery isn't there but once that cage/delivery it's meant to be on is scanned in the items are added to the stores inventory.

But the staff say it's shoplifting. They deal with it every day so I guess the op does know.

Hi I work in retail. Self scan tills are a lot cheaper to run and smaller than a manned till so you can get more in.

Yes there's loads of theft that goes on but it's not enough to negate the cost savings of having unmanned tills.

There are high theft areas e.g. booze, razors, baby milk, batteries etc so usually extra steps are put in place for these categories e.g security tags

@justcurious4 Are Tesco now showing customers how much stock they have in on their items? Is it online? I haven't seen this before

@Pipsquiggle they have an app that scans the barcode and tells them the stock amounts. We used to scan the label before wasting time out the warehouse looking for something that might not be there.

Staff that have only worked on tills don't necessarily understand how stock works. I didn't when I worked on tills. It's just not something that you pick up on, in that job.

Having worked in several roles in my store, I (now) do.

People still stole stuff from the shop I worked in before we had self checkouts..

It's far harder to steal high value through self checkouts than just walking out the shop with your item in a bag tbh.

Or as it wasin my shop, get a job there and steal that way. I wonder if having fewer staff means less opportunities to steal from the back door...

Of course it’s “due to poverty”. Shoplifters aren’t well off are they? Regardless of whether they have addiction/mental health issues and are selling the items for cash, it’s still driven by poverty.

Shoplifting is hardly a lucrative business to get into.

@Hecate01
Yes I am aware of stock check kit, however, I wasn't aware that customers now had access to it.

What's the app called?

I have a friend who puts everything through as onions. Steak? Nah just an onion. The self scans can't tell the weight of an onion so you can basically put anything through.

But then my ex lodger found a blind spot in the local big Tesco (no CCTV) and would happily pack a rucksack with stuff before just walking out. So it's not all about the self scans!