To think that shoplifting is not my f#%*ing problem

[ShoveItUpYourArseMargaret]

I can't he the only one. I've never stolen a thing in my life.

I have had it up to here with the extra security measures in shops lately.

Today in Sainsburys, I went back to the aisles with my PAID FOR shopping, to check the price on the shelf l as I'd been overcharged SO actually Sainsbury's were stealing from me. As I went back through self-checkout area where I'd paid, my trolley wheels then locked 🙄

....Also, not long ago, I did some shopping in TK Maxx and boots and the alarm went off when leaving TK Maxx because the person on the till hadn't deactivated the security thing. We went back to the till and the security person WHO HAD BEEN STANDING THERE WATCHING US, came over and rifled through my bag. I told him some of the stuff was from boots and he said, no, he had to check that too. In the process, one of the items from boots costing £10 went missing. So TK Maxx actually stole from us.

I used to love TK Maxx but wont go there anymore now.

Shoplifting is NOT my problem, I don't do it and never have. I'm not a criminal and expect not to he treated like one. Shops who are happy to take your money but treat genuine customers like shit are in danger of scaring off people who are there to spend money, they'll just end up full of shoplifters. 🤷‍♀️

One time when i was in our local Tesco a few years back i was in the chocolate/sweets aisle chatting to the staff member unloading a Cadburys box. She pulled out a half eaten large bar of Bournville. I said "whats happened there" She said. "its the drivers. We cant really do anything about it!

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/mum-mortified-after-b-m-mistakes-her-for-a-shoplifter/ar-AA1JWfdp?fbclid=IwY2xjawMryHZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHvRfbZS1ByescKwSHzn2oGw_NdPPR0DgxkT0KW2n-96N9Rck_-JQ920_Cax3_aem_LQwuNfT3_JELRWyxJCI12Q

Stop expecting us to go paperless with receipts then.

IMO thats the idea Then the shops can be converted into v. expensive housing.

Well that's not up to me is it?

When you watch Romanian/Albanian women stealing it’s a sight to behold. I’ve never ever seen skirts like they have that can hold so much, they have pockets underneath and because they are long and very full you’d be amazed at what they can fit there and it’s definitely not a case of stealing to survive because it’s always multiples of the same expensive stuff that is easily sold on. They definitely have it down to a fine art and I’d be interested to know how much they actually steal on a daily basis.

I recently went into a shop and was instantly approached by an employee who asked what I was looking for. The employee walked me over to the shelf, picked up the product, and walked me over to the till where she scanned it for me to pay. I thought she was patronising me because I had my toddler with me, but when I mentioned it to my DH, he said it's probably shoplifting prevention. It feels weird as I wouldn't dream of shoplifting but I guess they have to do it and have probably been told to by a senior colleague. I don't like shopping and only went to the shops because I needed the product on the same day.

You can choose substitutes, sizes and brands. As for charging for delivery, i guess it depends how much your time is worth, and cars, taxis and buses are not free.

Awwww

Profits going through the floor

@Lilactimes apologies I have been at work so only just seen this.
There are definite increased and ongoing costs in retail due to Brexit. I have worked in retail buying / sourcing for 20+ years

1. Increased admin. EVERYTHING that is imported and exported has more admin around it for retailers / exporters. This means extra time &/or people to carry out this task. We are less productive & more expensive to do the same tasks vs 5 years ago
2. Anything that goes through Dover (or any other busy port) takes longer and therefore higher wastage either at the transport hubs or in the depots / retailers
3. We are a much less attractive market than the rest of the land mass of Europe as everything is such a ball ache to get stuff to us. Pasta from Italy, tomatoes from Spain - if there's a failed crop, so less is available, it's just easier to sell it to your nearest neighbours who are also easier to deal with. If the UK really want it, they can pay a premium - Brexit tax if you will
4. There have been studies on this - here's a link

I now always get a receipt. Just to be on the safe side if I’m stopped. Usually my vodka will set off the alarm but my store know me (!) and wave me out.

I'm kind of with you OP - the real problems the supermarkets face are to do with looting, and things like requiring receipts to be scanned does not stop that. They moved everything to self serve and got rid of loads of staff and are now moaning. Their measures aren't effective for the actual threat, they just pick on easy targets.

Not a supermarket, but Argos had the right idea and should come back to the High St! Order in advance and collect after payment. No thefts (unless their own staff were at it - they did have a few things on display but not much).

Exactly - a bit of receipt scanning won't stop that will it?

As for shopping elsewhere you can't if they all do the same thing. It's a bit like telling people to frequent dog-friendly cafes (or vice versa). If everywhere is the same, you don't have a choice.

Which country was that?

So shops lose around £2.2 billion a year through shoplifting.

The living wage is around £25k a year (still not enough to really live on, but that’s what it roughly is).

Taking their employer costs into account, shops could employ roughly 50,000 employees / security staff on the living wage, to patrol the floors, doing 37.5 hours a week and it would still be cost neutral to them vs their loses from shoplifting.

The shops just don’t want to.

But then you're going to have the complainers who believe that they should be automatically trusted because they say they should be kicking up a fuss if someone in those roles so much as glanced in their direction, telling anyone who will listen about how hard done by they are and how it's such poor customer service.

I genuinely believe the shops and staff can't actually win in this situation, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

It’s never gonna be like this in Western countries again unless serious steps towards stiff justice is taken.

I think it is poor customer service to routinely accuse innocent people of being thieves. Primarily because any time it’s happened to me it’s been due to electronic tags not being deactivated at purchase. That is a failure in the stores systems which they should rectify.

The door alarms are forever going off so no one pays any attention to them, unless you stop and wait politely and then somebody will come and harangue you. I no longer stop tbh.

@Toetouchingtitties Grocery retail works on extremely low margins, there are redundancies and restructures all the time.
The new Rachel Reeves tax on employees has caused multiple culls across many retailers.
Google has just told me there are circa 1.1m food retail workers in the UK. The sector is a huge employer.

Just click the button to ask for a paper receipt. It's not difficult!

There are approx 32,000 stores, so each store could afford just one extra security guard on average as you have forgotten employment costs such as employers NIC, employers workplace pension costs, uniform, training, etc. They wouldn't be able to cover all opening hours with just one guard, who'd only be working say 35 hours per week, and of course, the guard would also be off on holiday entitlement days, training days, sick days, etc. It's not a good use of money as there'd still be shoplifting during the majority of opening hours when your guard wasn't there!

I don't know about you, but I take notice when going through checkouts to look for security tags and ensure they're removed. I've never caused the alarm to activate and never been called back by security.

Argos moved into Sainsburys as they couldn't afford High Street rents and their sales were suffering from online competitors such as Amazon. The High Street will never return as it once was. Supermarkets need better security, but also the police and judicial system need to get their heads out of their arses and start enforcing existing laws properly and lock up repeat offenders - we're far too soft. Police actually turning up to arrest shoplifters would be a start and they need to scrap the stupid £200 threshold they've applied without any public/political agreement!

I think it's more likely that more retailers will go online/delivery only and we'll see more and more shop closures, even large supermarket sites. We're already seeing retail parks with empty large retail warehouses. Maybe they'll go "customer free" and be used instead for picking by staff for deliveries.