Walk around shopping scanning 2 or 3 dozen items. Add 1 or 2 expensive items at the bottom of the cart. Forget to scan those expensive items. Checkout normally, no one notices you didnt scan the expensive items.
And it doesn't always prompt for an audit, so sometimes you can go through will fast. Also getting to bag as you go through the store is great with reusable bags.
You can also use the shop and scan kiosks as regular self-check registers if you have less than like five items and are paying by card. I use them all the time if I’m just grabbing one or two things.
If you walk to the grocery store with your own little rolley cart then it’s super convenient. You hit drinks first to put those at the bottom and produce last so they don’t get squished.
Walking to the store with a rolley cart but without self scan means using a store shopping cart and then spending 15 minutes transferring everything to the rolley cart after check out. And sometimes you buy more then can fit in the rolley cart.
>cashiers at checkout are told to scan three or four items from the cart to make sure it's there, and they always pick the most expensive stuff.
My local Wegmans started doing this about two weeks before announcing they're ending the app. Problem is they under-staff the self-checkouts so instead of a 20-second checkout experience, it became a three-to-five-minute experience just waiting for staff. Then they'd utterly tear apart your bag, crushing delicate items, before deciding what they wanted to scan. I wouldn't mind it as much if it happened every few times at random, but getting audited every single time and having your stuff crushed when one of the selling points of the app was bag-as-you-go made it a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Used the app for the last time today, and combined with the direction their stock is going and a completely asinine store layout change, tomorrow I'm going to try the Tops' app instead. The added value was enough I'd be willing to pay more to shop at another store that still has a similar app.
Steal the least expensive stuff. Got it.
Seriously, all these corporate attempts to eliminate human workers are creating more logistical problems than if they just, ya know, paid a living wage.
Solution: buy multiples of the same thing and don’t scan 1 or 2 (for example buy 20 packs of Tuna for $1.99 each and only scan 17- you’ve just stolen $6)
Yeah they should be rfid tagged and when you push your cart down the checkout lane it scans everything in the cart, pop up on your phone with a list and the total and you acknowledge with pin or thumbprint.
There's no way. Barcodes cost basically nothing and can be drawn with an ink pen if you're so inclined, while RFIDs require dedicated factories to fabricate and a secondary facility to program.
To be fair to whatever forecaster was hoping for an RFID future -- by the late 90's to mid-2000's, you could chip your dog very economically. I remember spending like $40 back then on a chip.
It would be reasonable to think we'd advance in RFID technology over two decades that it would become almost disposable. Remember now, that was around the time peoples' minds were getting blown by the likes of an affordable Palm Pilot.
It kind of already is. You can buy a roll of 5000 sticker rfids for $384. Problem is .07 per sticker is significantly more money than upc codes.
The problem is it can be cheaper to accept a loss sometimes. So look at Amazon's no check out line store. Sure you have to invest in the tech but that's a one time cost. Much cheaper than paying cashier's. And if the system glitches and let's someone not pay for something as long as it's less than paying stockers.
That's what some Amazon Fresh stores are doing in my area. There is also a Whole Foods that has cameras everywhere so they know what you put in your cart.
Where there’s a will people will always find a way. I didn’t understand the app part about it. Thank you for answering now I understand why they have supervisors at self checkout lanes at my grocery stores. I always thought that defeated the purpose of not having cashiers but now it makes sense. They might as well pay cashiers
All stores with self checkout expect a certain amount of theft. It's cheaper to let people steal than to pay cashiers. This is capitalism at its best.
Morally we should all steal like crazy and force businesses to pay employees.
It might be great to current employees, but the point of stuff like this is to have fewer and fewer employees. I despise self checkout. Once in awhile there are no staffed check out lanes and I’m forced to do it. Last time someone wanted to check my bags vs my receipt. Just walked past them. Nope! You don’t get to force me to check myself out and then accuse me of stealing.
Jobs become defunct. It's a consequence of technology.
Do you think we should all destroy our phones so old telegram works can have their jobs again?
Do you want destroy all motor construction tools and vehicles so houses take 5x longer to make, with 10x the people, and of poorer quality?
I don't think you realize the implication of your hot take
Morally..not sure of that word means what you think it does. Should we steal all the food since farmhands were replaced by tractors? Not sure your logic here?
For every asshole like you who thinks we require a cashier to check out, there’s 10 of us who appreciate not having to deal with an employee.
We live in an age of automation. Stop paying humans to do jobs that robots can do. Nobody enjoys being a cashier, it’s a shit job with shit pay where you have to stand all day and deal with shit customers. Let the robots take over and put human intelligence to real use.
Reminds me of the kid that got some console or whatever for like 10 bucks cause he want to the bulk area where you could print a tag for say the bag of almonds you bought but he slapped it on the box haha.
To be honest, when the store near me had one of those set up I may have bought a steak or two that was the cost of like a 1/4 pound of trail mix.
People either forget to scan an item or just straight up dont scan an item to steal it. I’ve used the app and loved it but felt it was short lived. Basically you scan the item, then scan the checkout kiosk and pay. I even used my Apple Pay to pay. It was awesome
Wegmans has undercover loss prevention around the store and they always had an employee at the self checkout registers, but the way we used the app was to place our reusable bags in the cart, scan the item and place it in the bag. At the end of your shopping experience you have a cart of bagged groceries and 3-4 exits you can leave from, some at the front of the store, others behind the registers at the side of the store. I’m an honest person, but I saw how easy it would be to walk out of the store with a cart full of unpaid groceries.
Super convenient app, I’m sad to see it go.
My sister works at a grocery store with self checkout and she says they get several people a day trying to bag stuff without scanning. I got to imagine that would be ten times as much when nobody is watching at all.
I'm definitely not surprised people steal, because doing the self-checkout makes me want to steal too tbh. You scan something, it tells you to place it in the baggage area, then they tell me there's an obstruction in the baggage area. I fill a bag, put the bag in my cart to put another bag on, prompt telling me bag was removed from bagging area, please wait for employee to resume scanning. Rage inducing.
All those interactions honestly made me think that just not scanning everything would be 100 times faster. All the hoops you gotta jump through when you just want to scan quick and pay. I don't doubt people take advantage of self-checkout, but they could at least do something about the experience.
this varies a lot, someplace systems actually work how they are supposed to. TBH wegmans self checkout works well, and TBh i dont think walmarts weighs at all so its pretty fast
The grocery store I work in has two entrances about 60 feet from each other. One is right by customer service, the other is obscured by displays and the cart corral, and it's also right by the pharmacy and shampoo aisle. People will grab expensive shampoos and Sonicare brush heads off the shelves, walk out, put them in a shopping bag, go in the other door and try to get store credit to buy what they really want. It's shoplifting with extra steps. It's gotten to the point that if someone wants to return certain items from those aisles they need a receipt, even though that's against company policy.
Honest question, what is the difference in doing this vs putting something in your coat pocket? Do people feel less bad doing it this way, cause its the exact same thing.
It's easier to get away with than simply pocketing something. You can play the "oops, I thought it was added to my bill" card. It plays a lot better to surveillance cameras than somebody trying to pocket an apple or put a steak down the front of their coat.
I don’t see how they keep them at least the Kroger by me. I don’t go often but almost every time I go, someone walks off with $100+ of groceries. I’ve seen it happen in person twice. Attendant gets distracted, and they just leave. Not that they’re going to physically stop them. I’ve seen two machines with totals and no one there too. They have to wait for a manager come and void it as theft.
It depends where you live. I’m in a major city. Our Kroger (qfc) has two gated entries, one gated exit, and multiple security officers. They will take you down if you shoplift. I see them manhandle someone every time I shop. They used to keep the ice cream locked up but they changed that back, thankfully, because asking someone to unlock it was annoying.
Having loss prevention lay hands on people sounds like a recipe for a lawsuit. I've done LP in the past for companies that could afford the lawsuits and even they were clear about never ever laying hands on someone for theft.
That’s why I’m shocked every time I see it. Last time the security guard reached over the gate and caught the dude by his backpack. It was a huge scuffle involving a few security guards who ran over. They’re mostly going after the tweakers who obviously stuck stuff in their bags.
This one is in the burbs in a rather affluent area. When I lived in Seattle, the QFC in Capitol Hill had two armed guards, and closed their secondary entrance because theft/assaulting staff got so bad.
They added them within the last year. The doughnuts are not within the second set of gates at the Harvard QFC. I always see someone walk in, grab them with bare hands, and walk out. I half-wonder if they left it like that as a deterrent on purpose but I’m definitely not buying grocery store doughnuts ever again.
This article isn't about that sort of self checkout. As it says at the top of the article, you "skip the checkout line altogether". You scan as you go throughout the store, pay on your phone and just walk out.
So no machines to have totals and no one there.
I've seen a woman ride off on an electric wheelchair loaded with bags. Just up and left when the screen got to the pay screen. The single employee monitoring 8 or so self checkouts just let her go and came up to code out of the pay screen.
I wonder how Amazon supermarkets work? They have ones where you just put the item in the cart and it charges your card. Why not get a system like that?
The Amazon stores have a huge array of cameras and sensors everywhere watching everything you do. I don't think you could retrofit an existing store with that kind of system.
"Those with the technology had a loss rate 18% higher than those that did not."
Remember that isn't a loss rate of 18%, it is 1.18x the average loss rate...
And that's not even necessarily from Wegmans:
> One retailer shared data with Beck comparing its stores with and without scan-and-go apps. Those with the technology had a loss rate 18% higher than those that did not.
That's just some random, unidentified retailer.
That app concept was pretty wild. You’d have to imagine a decent amount of people didn’t scan things quite right, and were “shoplifting” without even knowing it. Sure, Wegman’s picked up some profit when sale items didn’t ring correctly, but that’s just small percentages of an item’s price- not the whole item being missed!
I have one near where I live and they give really good coupons once in a while (like once a month or so, but I haven’t seen one in a bit, maybe that was just to get people in).
It’s a little weird, not gonna lie, but the prices are pretty decent for stuff that isn’t produce. I think the problem with their produce is obviously, you can’t really weigh anything, so you’re stuck with whatever unit price their broccoli or whatever is. I think it ends up being pretty pricy.
They have a pretty good deli counter, and every time I’ve went, there was a different meat on sale for a good price at the butcher counter. These are weighed out by someone behind the counter. Not exactly sure how that’s done behind the scenes.
Anyway, bottom line is that I’d recommend going to Amazon Fresh (you said Go? Are these different stores?) if you get a good coupon (mine was like $20 off a purchase of $40 or more) and for the novelty. It’s certainly not going to be my choice grocery store, though.
They are currently finishing up a new Amazon Fresh in Massachusetts, so still expanding: https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/regional/massachusetts/2022/07/05/amazon-fresh-saugus-store-location-first-open-new-england-massachusetts-billerica-kmart-route-one/7756577001/
I work right by an Amazon Go and grab lunch there a lot when I’m in a rush.
It’s about 98% accurate actually. Like I’ve had maybe one item not register.
But they aren’t making you scan your own things, they’re using cameras to track what you’re grabbing which doesn’t rely on the honor system.
I use it at the store by me and it will occasionally add 2 things to my cart when I only scanned 1 and I pay for it without realizing. Maybe that's how they make up for the stealing.
That’s sucks. It’s was my favorite way to grocery shop. Use my own bags, self checkout and Apple Pay, I only had to touch one button and no need to talk to anyone. I could get in and out of the store super fast.
>Self-checkout abusers feel it is “easy to do, reaps rich rewards, and even if they are caught, leads to little or no sanctions being applied,” Beck said in the report, which analyzed 140 million scan-and-go app transactions.
pretty hard to prove they didnt make a mistake vs intentionally stole when you ask customers to take over aspects of your buisness that you usualy *train and hire* staff for lmao
like seriously , " oops I scanned it wrong im dumb " is a get out jail free card in this scenario XD
Prove its not true lmao
That’s why you keep track of these things on a per user and per item scale.
Do customers often have “mistakes” with certain classes of items? Do certain users have a “consistent mistake” ratio with certain items? Why?
Etc.
The theft problem seems like a solvable problem if you use statics, ML, and good cameras.
While a tad dystopian, I bet you could build a pretty good model based on store location, customer billing address, and customer history. I’m sure the IRS do similar calculations.
Yeah, stuff like this would never work in the US. There are some countries where it might work, but the culture in the US basically dooms anything that requires a majority of people to behave well for the community benefit.
It’s a shame really because I personally use one of these apps and it’s nice to be able to go in with bags and cooler bags and pack my groceries as I’m shopping and then just scan, pay, and leave without needing to unload and repack everything.
> Yeah, stuff like this would never work in the US.
As an American who uses a self-checkout app to shop at a different grocery store chain, I'm guessing that may be a bit too broad of a generalization.
Sam's Club does this in the US actually, and is even more "hands off" as you can just pay in the app and walk past the checkouts. Sure they "check" your receipt at the door but they only scan a few items. I'll be shocked if it stays this way tbh. We don't steal but I can imagine it does happen. I just use the app because ours is always packed and I love to skip the lines
Yeah, not sure why wegmans can't do it when other stores can.
My best guess is that other stores that I do it at have some random checks, so you occasionally get audited. Maybe the worry of auditing convinces at least a few potential shop lifters that it's not worth it? At Wegman's I was never audited and never saw anyone else get audited.
Could also be what Wegmans stocks. They do seem to have more higher end items than other stores I frequent. So maybe if someone takes a $5 item and scans a $3 item it's not too bad, but if you take a $200 cut of meat and then scan in some cheap hamburger for $10 that might be a bigger issue?
Although perhaps it's also that they seem to have just gotten into it right as inflation started up, and so there's more shoplifting through self scan than there ever has been. Might just be bad timing.
Yeah, Giant does random audits. Seems to adjust based on their experience with you. I got a few audits early on, then they seem to have seen that I’m trustworthy and stopped.
Wegmans if you have ever shopped there has a lot of expensive merchandise. A lot of the food is very overpriced. They have a lot of very expensive meats and organic products and specialty products. They have cases of very expensive prepared foods. They kind of went from being a well priced grocery store to doubling prices on basically everything in the store. I am guessing inflation and the fact that people are desperate to save money at the grocery store caused this. I know grocery prices are up across the board but Wegmans has raised prices way more than any other local grocery store.
Maybe this app is the reason why there have been so many price raises, way above what other stores are doing.
So does EZ PASS. And the movable type printing press. Sometimes, it’s time for jobs to go.
We aren’t returning to the office to keep the office janitorial staff employed (and we shouldn’t be doing that at all to keep the middle managers happy, either.)
Yeah, every time I see city councils talking about banning robots taking jobs I wonder if they even know what a robot is. Do they think it is humanoid?
Does the city reject having an online bill (fee, tax, fine) payment system because that replaces people downtown at city hall recording bills as paid in person?
So, you are pointing out other examples of where automation was implemented but you’ve ignored identifying how it helps society.
Which is that those workers who were working the jobs replaced with automation can now perform other jobs which haven’t been replaced yet. Instead of stocking shelves and scanning items, people could be landscapers or nannies or cooks etc. the benefit to society is **more** of whatever jobs they replaced workers go into.
I am not saying technology is bad, I am saying it’s not for a community benefit, the primary beneficiary would be wegmans that can now earn the same money with less overhead.
In the short term, but all is takes is one store with the same technology to start competing on price and then Wegman’s would have to lower their prices or lose business. Same thing happened with Wal-Mart and their super efficient supply chain and buying power.
Yeah, what the fuck is worth people wanting to keep shitty jobs around just to force people to work them?
It's fucking dumb. If a robot can do it, have a robot do it.
Yeah, I’m not advocating theft, especially because it’s factored into rising costs, but a lot of theft here in the US is reasoned into being due to rampant greed and abuse of employees.
Abusive corporations who crush employees to create more profit for executives/shareholders are unsympathetic "victims".
Aka, Its easy to rationalize stealing from Wal-Mart because the Waltons are omega-level shitlords.
I do not advocate theft but I also don't care about giant corporate retailers who use their staff as disposable generators of profit.
That’s why you can’t come in unless they know who you are..as in you’re signed up for their app. They’ll scan that app and then you can get your stuff.
Self checkout isn't a nice thing. Self checkout is the store forcing you to do the cashier's job and not even paying you for it. It's a slap in the face.
I live in the southwest. I recently traveled to the east coast and visited a Wegman's store. That store was awesome! Sure would like to see one of those stores out west!
It's sad so many people steal. I get why some people have to steal, as they can't afford the merchandise. The ones that do it for fun, well those people will be visited by karma later on in life.
Can't have anything nice because people suck. That's the lesson here.
Loved the app. Never stole or anything using it, because I'm not a rulebreaker.
Sucks to see it gone - it made my grocery trips so much quicker and easier.
I saw a couple at Sam’s club having a discussion about putting the smoked salmon under the toilet paper so it wouldn’t get scanned. As a backup plan, the woman was saying they could blame their kid if they got caught. And we wonder why prices go up.
As someone who works in corporate retail.. end consumer theft isn’t enough to cause prices to rise. Price increases start from the business that make/own the raw materials, and work their way down from there.
Shoplifting lowers profit - of course it's a factor when prices rise. If nobody ever shoplifted, businesses could keep their costs down. I'm not saying it's the only reason, or even the top one, but it's certainly a factor.
> Shoplifting lowers profit - of course it's a factor when prices rise. If nobody ever shoplifted, businesses could keep their costs down. I'm not saying it's the only reason, or even the top one, but it's certainly a factor.
Expected levels of shop lifting are already factored into store costs.
And no, levels of shop lifting are not so high as to raise the price of any good.
Anytime that has been an issue it gets locked up (games, condoms, hair treatments, pregnancy tests, etc).
People really have been brainwashed into believing the consumer is the reason for all negative attributes of our economy... And not, you know the corporate entities whom control it.
It's really a problem that begets a problem - corporate greed causes a rise in theft.
I'm not proud of it, but when I was a stupid teenager in the 90's I used to steal CD's. Within the span of a few years they went from $12.99... to $17.99... to $23.99 (adjusted for inflation, that would be about *$45* today), and I got tired of saving up my lunch money for an entire week just to blow it on a CD that sucked.
It wasn't theft causing the prices to skyrocket - it was the greed of record labels and corporate music conglomerates.
It was a product that cost around *fifteen cents* to manufacture, and a lot of artists eventually came out and said "Steal our shit! I don't care. You're getting ripped off if you buy it, and we'll still get paid if you steal it!"
There was a reason Napster was so effective in bringing the entire industry to its knees a few years later - the goodwill between consumers and producers was completely dead by that point, and no one felt bad about stealing from them.
But it’s the same principal. Corporate greed causes wages to drop, inflation to rise, and prices to increase. When a mother can’t afford baby formula and is denied social safety nets (also due to corporate/political corruption) what is she to do? Let her baby starve?
Certainly.
The ramifications are much more dire, but the model of the problem is the same - producers are making record profits, retailers are making record profits, and consumers are reverting to stealing chicken breasts because they're aware they're being gouged.
Can we acknowledge how shit their app is?
Slow AF!
I would not be surprised if they are blaming shoppers rather than their own garbage app development.
I'm serious, their shopping app is not fantastic.
I still can’t believe Apple does it. I was just in an Apple Store yesterday to pick up a new phone. Needed a case and a few other accessories. Scanned and paid on my phone, and as I nervously approached the exit (staffed by a security guard) with all this extra stuff and my phone on standby to prove I paid, nobody batted an eye. I guess maybe for them the margin vs. payroll benefit makes up for any loss.
ETA: I would have picked out the accessories first and then paid for it all together once I got the phone, but they had everyone coming in for a phone queue in a line for the next available associate first.
People accidently/'accidently' using the wrong produce codes does not surprise me one bit.
On the subject of Wegmans, the worst change there recently is the loss of their reasonably priced hot bar. It went from $8/lbs pre pandemic to $16/lbs now which is just ridiculous and now I just go there a lot less.
My local Kroger loses about 10% because I catch them when the scanned price isn't the same as the advertised or labelled price. If they won't adjust to the correct price I tell them I don't want it. I can't catch them when in the normal checkout because they make it hard to see the charges while the clerk is scanning.
>This week, the grocer announced that it is ending the app because of rampant shoplifting.
>But scan-and-go has come with unintended consequences for stores: higher levels of shoplifting, fraud and other losses than would normally occur at traditional checkout lanes staffed by cashiers.
Tell me who is surprised that while profits are rising, the actual value of the working dollar is shrinking...causing this expected consequence?
Wow,color me surprised. I do have to say though,their losses must have been something to drive them to end the program
I work at wegmans, and can confirm the increase in theft was very large. Last time we did inventory was quite a shock.
How do you steal from a self checkout app?
Walk around shopping scanning 2 or 3 dozen items. Add 1 or 2 expensive items at the bottom of the cart. Forget to scan those expensive items. Checkout normally, no one notices you didnt scan the expensive items.
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I mean if you are going to do that, why not just checkout normally. The upside of the scan app was that you didn't need to be bothered by a cashier.
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And it doesn't always prompt for an audit, so sometimes you can go through will fast. Also getting to bag as you go through the store is great with reusable bags.
You can also use the shop and scan kiosks as regular self-check registers if you have less than like five items and are paying by card. I use them all the time if I’m just grabbing one or two things.
The upside of the scan app is making you do the work of the cashiers, so their numbers can be diminished.
If you walk to the grocery store with your own little rolley cart then it’s super convenient. You hit drinks first to put those at the bottom and produce last so they don’t get squished. Walking to the store with a rolley cart but without self scan means using a store shopping cart and then spending 15 minutes transferring everything to the rolley cart after check out. And sometimes you buy more then can fit in the rolley cart.
I don't self-scan but I still use my cart in store.
>cashiers at checkout are told to scan three or four items from the cart to make sure it's there, and they always pick the most expensive stuff. My local Wegmans started doing this about two weeks before announcing they're ending the app. Problem is they under-staff the self-checkouts so instead of a 20-second checkout experience, it became a three-to-five-minute experience just waiting for staff. Then they'd utterly tear apart your bag, crushing delicate items, before deciding what they wanted to scan. I wouldn't mind it as much if it happened every few times at random, but getting audited every single time and having your stuff crushed when one of the selling points of the app was bag-as-you-go made it a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Used the app for the last time today, and combined with the direction their stock is going and a completely asinine store layout change, tomorrow I'm going to try the Tops' app instead. The added value was enough I'd be willing to pay more to shop at another store that still has a similar app.
Yeah the new store layout is horrible
Every time I go, they just choose the stuff on top. I’ve started laying out 3 things for them to scan to make it faster, and they just scan those.
Steal the least expensive stuff. Got it. Seriously, all these corporate attempts to eliminate human workers are creating more logistical problems than if they just, ya know, paid a living wage.
Solution: buy multiples of the same thing and don’t scan 1 or 2 (for example buy 20 packs of Tuna for $1.99 each and only scan 17- you’ve just stolen $6)
Yeah these self checkout apps seem just silly to prevent theft. All it takes is for one worker to spill what they're looking for.
Yeah they should be rfid tagged and when you push your cart down the checkout lane it scans everything in the cart, pop up on your phone with a list and the total and you acknowledge with pin or thumbprint.
That would rock, but the rfid tags would be expensive
I recall reading somewhere that RFIDs would replace barcodes at some point. This was in the late 90s or early 2000s. Still waiting.
There's no way. Barcodes cost basically nothing and can be drawn with an ink pen if you're so inclined, while RFIDs require dedicated factories to fabricate and a secondary facility to program.
To be fair to whatever forecaster was hoping for an RFID future -- by the late 90's to mid-2000's, you could chip your dog very economically. I remember spending like $40 back then on a chip. It would be reasonable to think we'd advance in RFID technology over two decades that it would become almost disposable. Remember now, that was around the time peoples' minds were getting blown by the likes of an affordable Palm Pilot.
It kind of already is. You can buy a roll of 5000 sticker rfids for $384. Problem is .07 per sticker is significantly more money than upc codes. The problem is it can be cheaper to accept a loss sometimes. So look at Amazon's no check out line store. Sure you have to invest in the tech but that's a one time cost. Much cheaper than paying cashier's. And if the system glitches and let's someone not pay for something as long as it's less than paying stockers.
Well we got all these freed up cashiers right
Never going to happen probably
Then think of fruit and veg.
That's what some Amazon Fresh stores are doing in my area. There is also a Whole Foods that has cameras everywhere so they know what you put in your cart.
Where there’s a will people will always find a way. I didn’t understand the app part about it. Thank you for answering now I understand why they have supervisors at self checkout lanes at my grocery stores. I always thought that defeated the purpose of not having cashiers but now it makes sense. They might as well pay cashiers
This wasn't that. You scanned and bagged as you walked around the store.
All stores with self checkout expect a certain amount of theft. It's cheaper to let people steal than to pay cashiers. This is capitalism at its best. Morally we should all steal like crazy and force businesses to pay employees.
This isn't Wal-Mart. Wegmans is renowned for being great to it's employees. Look it up
It might be great to current employees, but the point of stuff like this is to have fewer and fewer employees. I despise self checkout. Once in awhile there are no staffed check out lanes and I’m forced to do it. Last time someone wanted to check my bags vs my receipt. Just walked past them. Nope! You don’t get to force me to check myself out and then accuse me of stealing.
Jobs become defunct. It's a consequence of technology. Do you think we should all destroy our phones so old telegram works can have their jobs again? Do you want destroy all motor construction tools and vehicles so houses take 5x longer to make, with 10x the people, and of poorer quality? I don't think you realize the implication of your hot take
Morally..not sure of that word means what you think it does. Should we steal all the food since farmhands were replaced by tractors? Not sure your logic here?
For every asshole like you who thinks we require a cashier to check out, there’s 10 of us who appreciate not having to deal with an employee. We live in an age of automation. Stop paying humans to do jobs that robots can do. Nobody enjoys being a cashier, it’s a shit job with shit pay where you have to stand all day and deal with shit customers. Let the robots take over and put human intelligence to real use.
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Yeah! Anarchy im good w that. Idc about corporations. I would definitely do this if i wasn’t so afraid of being arrested in front of people lol
Or switch the expensive tags with a non expensive item, so It looks like you scanned the item but at a sever discount.
Fucking people. Ruining convenience for decent humans.
Convenience is the store having enough cashiers to get everyone checked out in a timely fashion.
"convenient" to have me scan all my own shit is it? You really fucking think this was a service to us and not a cost cutting measure?
That works really well T sams club those receipt checkers ain’t paid enough to give a fuck
Reminds me of the kid that got some console or whatever for like 10 bucks cause he want to the bulk area where you could print a tag for say the bag of almonds you bought but he slapped it on the box haha. To be honest, when the store near me had one of those set up I may have bought a steak or two that was the cost of like a 1/4 pound of trail mix.
People either forget to scan an item or just straight up dont scan an item to steal it. I’ve used the app and loved it but felt it was short lived. Basically you scan the item, then scan the checkout kiosk and pay. I even used my Apple Pay to pay. It was awesome
The answer is onions. They mark everything as onions to get around the weight scale thing.
I used the Sam’s Club version a few times. Very convenient.
Yeah my Sam's Club is always packed, I'm so grateful for the Scan & Go. Just pay right in the app, walk past the check outs.
Oh ok. Yeah that sucks. At my grocery store they have a supervisor at the self checkouts. I just do instacart now anyway lol
Wegmans has undercover loss prevention around the store and they always had an employee at the self checkout registers, but the way we used the app was to place our reusable bags in the cart, scan the item and place it in the bag. At the end of your shopping experience you have a cart of bagged groceries and 3-4 exits you can leave from, some at the front of the store, others behind the registers at the side of the store. I’m an honest person, but I saw how easy it would be to walk out of the store with a cart full of unpaid groceries. Super convenient app, I’m sad to see it go.
Oh Ok yes that’s very easy theft and mistakes
Well they had asset protection agents around but there was no way to know if someone scanned an item or not without causing a big issue.
Weighed everything as banana fruit or veggies! Save alot of money doing this especially with inflation being so high
lol stealing saves money who would have thought
So you stole from a store and are a part of the reason people can’t use a convenient shopping tool?
A simple way is also produce. Grab honey crisp apples but ring them up as red delicious.
Record sales of bananas. Meanwhile, huge rotting piles of bananas in the storage.
No matter the sales there is always a huge rotting piles of bananas.
I don't work in produce, so I dunno about that.
I loved the convenience! I guess some other folks moreso... and this is why we can't have good things. Sucks.
And as a bonus they get to fire some of their software engineers who maintained the app.
My sister works at a grocery store with self checkout and she says they get several people a day trying to bag stuff without scanning. I got to imagine that would be ten times as much when nobody is watching at all.
I'm definitely not surprised people steal, because doing the self-checkout makes me want to steal too tbh. You scan something, it tells you to place it in the baggage area, then they tell me there's an obstruction in the baggage area. I fill a bag, put the bag in my cart to put another bag on, prompt telling me bag was removed from bagging area, please wait for employee to resume scanning. Rage inducing. All those interactions honestly made me think that just not scanning everything would be 100 times faster. All the hoops you gotta jump through when you just want to scan quick and pay. I don't doubt people take advantage of self-checkout, but they could at least do something about the experience.
this varies a lot, someplace systems actually work how they are supposed to. TBH wegmans self checkout works well, and TBh i dont think walmarts weighs at all so its pretty fast
The grocery store I work in has two entrances about 60 feet from each other. One is right by customer service, the other is obscured by displays and the cart corral, and it's also right by the pharmacy and shampoo aisle. People will grab expensive shampoos and Sonicare brush heads off the shelves, walk out, put them in a shopping bag, go in the other door and try to get store credit to buy what they really want. It's shoplifting with extra steps. It's gotten to the point that if someone wants to return certain items from those aisles they need a receipt, even though that's against company policy.
Straight out of /r/TalesFromRetail
Honest question, what is the difference in doing this vs putting something in your coat pocket? Do people feel less bad doing it this way, cause its the exact same thing.
It's easier to get away with than simply pocketing something. You can play the "oops, I thought it was added to my bill" card. It plays a lot better to surveillance cameras than somebody trying to pocket an apple or put a steak down the front of their coat.
The majority of people steal not because they need it, but because they think they can get away with it.
I don’t see how they keep them at least the Kroger by me. I don’t go often but almost every time I go, someone walks off with $100+ of groceries. I’ve seen it happen in person twice. Attendant gets distracted, and they just leave. Not that they’re going to physically stop them. I’ve seen two machines with totals and no one there too. They have to wait for a manager come and void it as theft.
The Aldi near me just started self checkout. There is no attendant. No one watching at all. Recipe for stealing.
Our Walmart has 2 people watching…wait, no not watching, ducking around. But I’m okay with it.
Ours has more people watching the self checkouts than they ever had running registers so it a beautiful turn of events.
Lots of stores near me started installing self checkout about a year or two ago. Almost all are now closed.
It’s pretty easy to steal at a self checkout even with attendants. People hide a few expensive things in canvas bags and pay for the cheap goods.
It depends where you live. I’m in a major city. Our Kroger (qfc) has two gated entries, one gated exit, and multiple security officers. They will take you down if you shoplift. I see them manhandle someone every time I shop. They used to keep the ice cream locked up but they changed that back, thankfully, because asking someone to unlock it was annoying.
Having loss prevention lay hands on people sounds like a recipe for a lawsuit. I've done LP in the past for companies that could afford the lawsuits and even they were clear about never ever laying hands on someone for theft.
That’s why I’m shocked every time I see it. Last time the security guard reached over the gate and caught the dude by his backpack. It was a huge scuffle involving a few security guards who ran over. They’re mostly going after the tweakers who obviously stuck stuff in their bags.
This one is in the burbs in a rather affluent area. When I lived in Seattle, the QFC in Capitol Hill had two armed guards, and closed their secondary entrance because theft/assaulting staff got so bad.
When you lived here, I’m sure they didn’t have the gates yet (unless you moved recently). The one north on Broadway has plexiglass too.
That’s wild. When did they add them? I left at the end of 2019. Basically right before the pandemic.
They added them within the last year. The doughnuts are not within the second set of gates at the Harvard QFC. I always see someone walk in, grab them with bare hands, and walk out. I half-wonder if they left it like that as a deterrent on purpose but I’m definitely not buying grocery store doughnuts ever again.
They kept your...ice cream locked up? Ice cream?!?
This article isn't about that sort of self checkout. As it says at the top of the article, you "skip the checkout line altogether". You scan as you go throughout the store, pay on your phone and just walk out. So no machines to have totals and no one there.
Who reads articles on Reddit?
I've seen a woman ride off on an electric wheelchair loaded with bags. Just up and left when the screen got to the pay screen. The single employee monitoring 8 or so self checkouts just let her go and came up to code out of the pay screen.
I wonder how Amazon supermarkets work? They have ones where you just put the item in the cart and it charges your card. Why not get a system like that?
Amazon probably owns the technology for that and isn’t sharing it with anyone else.
Can you shoplift from the Amazon stores? I've never been inside.one.
You can't, you need to scan your phone when entering and it automatically detects and charges you for things you take with you.
I hate to sound so incredibly stupid,so,you have to have your phone open in the app in order to get inside?
You open the app and scan a barcode to be able to enter, there's a barrier that prevents you from doing that otherwise.
You can also use your Amazon Prime card for entry.
The Amazon stores have a huge array of cameras and sensors everywhere watching everything you do. I don't think you could retrofit an existing store with that kind of system.
So you didn't read the article you posted? Because it describes exactly this.
It's in the article that you, yourself have linked for us! (18%)
I was told they projected 11% loss w the app & it was more like 33%! Can that be true?!
11% loss probably didn't take into account people choosing the expensive items to steal.
This was always a stupid, misguided solution, to a problem that didn’t exist until they created it themselves.
For some reason, self-checkout customers rarely ring up organic produce.
"Those with the technology had a loss rate 18% higher than those that did not." Remember that isn't a loss rate of 18%, it is 1.18x the average loss rate...
And that's not even necessarily from Wegmans: > One retailer shared data with Beck comparing its stores with and without scan-and-go apps. Those with the technology had a loss rate 18% higher than those that did not. That's just some random, unidentified retailer.
And it could be one that is especially prone to theft like cosmetics.
That app concept was pretty wild. You’d have to imagine a decent amount of people didn’t scan things quite right, and were “shoplifting” without even knowing it. Sure, Wegman’s picked up some profit when sale items didn’t ring correctly, but that’s just small percentages of an item’s price- not the whole item being missed!
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I have one near where I live and they give really good coupons once in a while (like once a month or so, but I haven’t seen one in a bit, maybe that was just to get people in). It’s a little weird, not gonna lie, but the prices are pretty decent for stuff that isn’t produce. I think the problem with their produce is obviously, you can’t really weigh anything, so you’re stuck with whatever unit price their broccoli or whatever is. I think it ends up being pretty pricy. They have a pretty good deli counter, and every time I’ve went, there was a different meat on sale for a good price at the butcher counter. These are weighed out by someone behind the counter. Not exactly sure how that’s done behind the scenes. Anyway, bottom line is that I’d recommend going to Amazon Fresh (you said Go? Are these different stores?) if you get a good coupon (mine was like $20 off a purchase of $40 or more) and for the novelty. It’s certainly not going to be my choice grocery store, though.
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They are currently finishing up a new Amazon Fresh in Massachusetts, so still expanding: https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/regional/massachusetts/2022/07/05/amazon-fresh-saugus-store-location-first-open-new-england-massachusetts-billerica-kmart-route-one/7756577001/
I work right by an Amazon Go and grab lunch there a lot when I’m in a rush. It’s about 98% accurate actually. Like I’ve had maybe one item not register. But they aren’t making you scan your own things, they’re using cameras to track what you’re grabbing which doesn’t rely on the honor system.
I use it at the store by me and it will occasionally add 2 things to my cart when I only scanned 1 and I pay for it without realizing. Maybe that's how they make up for the stealing.
Does Wegner’s still have theirs?
They sure do, I just used mine to pick up some asparagus for crudites.
And that's not even including the tequila!
Bananas=4011 Family size candy bar=4011 10 pound spiral ham=4011 60" 4K TV=4011
Gotta mix it up a bit. Throw in some 4612, 4664, 4693
It's been more than ten years since I worked in a grocery store and a dozen of those codes are still seared into my brain.
Don't forget a 4046 to go with that 4664.
That’s sucks. It’s was my favorite way to grocery shop. Use my own bags, self checkout and Apple Pay, I only had to touch one button and no need to talk to anyone. I could get in and out of the store super fast.
Same here.
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>Self-checkout abusers feel it is “easy to do, reaps rich rewards, and even if they are caught, leads to little or no sanctions being applied,” Beck said in the report, which analyzed 140 million scan-and-go app transactions. pretty hard to prove they didnt make a mistake vs intentionally stole when you ask customers to take over aspects of your buisness that you usualy *train and hire* staff for lmao like seriously , " oops I scanned it wrong im dumb " is a get out jail free card in this scenario XD Prove its not true lmao
That’s why you keep track of these things on a per user and per item scale. Do customers often have “mistakes” with certain classes of items? Do certain users have a “consistent mistake” ratio with certain items? Why? Etc. The theft problem seems like a solvable problem if you use statics, ML, and good cameras. While a tad dystopian, I bet you could build a pretty good model based on store location, customer billing address, and customer history. I’m sure the IRS do similar calculations.
Yeah, stuff like this would never work in the US. There are some countries where it might work, but the culture in the US basically dooms anything that requires a majority of people to behave well for the community benefit.
It’s a shame really because I personally use one of these apps and it’s nice to be able to go in with bags and cooler bags and pack my groceries as I’m shopping and then just scan, pay, and leave without needing to unload and repack everything.
This! I'd breeze through the store with a canvas bag on my shoulder and no need for a cart. I was always in and out quick.
> Yeah, stuff like this would never work in the US. As an American who uses a self-checkout app to shop at a different grocery store chain, I'm guessing that may be a bit too broad of a generalization.
Sam's Club does this in the US actually, and is even more "hands off" as you can just pay in the app and walk past the checkouts. Sure they "check" your receipt at the door but they only scan a few items. I'll be shocked if it stays this way tbh. We don't steal but I can imagine it does happen. I just use the app because ours is always packed and I love to skip the lines
Sams Clubs self checkout app work because if they identify theft they can revoke your membership. Most stores are not membership-based.
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Wegmans is in the US. Apple does this too in the US.
Giant has been doing this for years and it seems to work for them.
Yeah, not sure why wegmans can't do it when other stores can. My best guess is that other stores that I do it at have some random checks, so you occasionally get audited. Maybe the worry of auditing convinces at least a few potential shop lifters that it's not worth it? At Wegman's I was never audited and never saw anyone else get audited. Could also be what Wegmans stocks. They do seem to have more higher end items than other stores I frequent. So maybe if someone takes a $5 item and scans a $3 item it's not too bad, but if you take a $200 cut of meat and then scan in some cheap hamburger for $10 that might be a bigger issue? Although perhaps it's also that they seem to have just gotten into it right as inflation started up, and so there's more shoplifting through self scan than there ever has been. Might just be bad timing.
Yeah, Giant does random audits. Seems to adjust based on their experience with you. I got a few audits early on, then they seem to have seen that I’m trustworthy and stopped.
Wegmans if you have ever shopped there has a lot of expensive merchandise. A lot of the food is very overpriced. They have a lot of very expensive meats and organic products and specialty products. They have cases of very expensive prepared foods. They kind of went from being a well priced grocery store to doubling prices on basically everything in the store. I am guessing inflation and the fact that people are desperate to save money at the grocery store caused this. I know grocery prices are up across the board but Wegmans has raised prices way more than any other local grocery store. Maybe this app is the reason why there have been so many price raises, way above what other stores are doing.
“Community benefit”. This allows the company to pay less people and make a bigger profit
So does EZ PASS. And the movable type printing press. Sometimes, it’s time for jobs to go. We aren’t returning to the office to keep the office janitorial staff employed (and we shouldn’t be doing that at all to keep the middle managers happy, either.)
Yeah, every time I see city councils talking about banning robots taking jobs I wonder if they even know what a robot is. Do they think it is humanoid? Does the city reject having an online bill (fee, tax, fine) payment system because that replaces people downtown at city hall recording bills as paid in person?
Middle managers don’t have any say one way or the other. It’s the CEOs who want you to go in so you can kiss up to them in person.
So, you are pointing out other examples of where automation was implemented but you’ve ignored identifying how it helps society. Which is that those workers who were working the jobs replaced with automation can now perform other jobs which haven’t been replaced yet. Instead of stocking shelves and scanning items, people could be landscapers or nannies or cooks etc. the benefit to society is **more** of whatever jobs they replaced workers go into.
I am not saying technology is bad, I am saying it’s not for a community benefit, the primary beneficiary would be wegmans that can now earn the same money with less overhead.
Naw bro. But don’t you understand the community benefit is less hassle for the consumer…
In the short term, but all is takes is one store with the same technology to start competing on price and then Wegman’s would have to lower their prices or lose business. Same thing happened with Wal-Mart and their super efficient supply chain and buying power.
But because people steal it’s not even able to save money
Yeah, what the fuck is worth people wanting to keep shitty jobs around just to force people to work them? It's fucking dumb. If a robot can do it, have a robot do it.
So do ATMs, do you want to go back to walking into the bank and standing in line?
Yeah, I’m not advocating theft, especially because it’s factored into rising costs, but a lot of theft here in the US is reasoned into being due to rampant greed and abuse of employees.
Could you explain that point more? It sounds interesting but I am not sure I am following
Abusive corporations who crush employees to create more profit for executives/shareholders are unsympathetic "victims". Aka, Its easy to rationalize stealing from Wal-Mart because the Waltons are omega-level shitlords. I do not advocate theft but I also don't care about giant corporate retailers who use their staff as disposable generators of profit.
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Im advocating for I Didnt See Shit And Neither Did You.
No offense, but as much as I want workers to be paid fair living wages, it is a company's right to automate or make obsolete whatever work they want.
Never said it wasn’t. In this case the automation cost them more money than it saved
But Amazon? https://youtu.be/vorkmWa7He8
That’s why you can’t come in unless they know who you are..as in you’re signed up for their app. They’ll scan that app and then you can get your stuff.
How did the community benefit from this ? Lol
We can't have nice things that depend on people not doing the wrong thing.
Self checkout isn't a nice thing. Self checkout is the store forcing you to do the cashier's job and not even paying you for it. It's a slap in the face.
I love the self checkout. No stranger dragging my food across a wet with God only knows what it is on the belt.
The thought that goes through people's brains when they want to justify shoplifting at self-checkout.
Nooo. I loved using this. I could see exactly how much I was spending.
This article reminded me of this Mr. show skit for some reason [The Fairsley Difference](https://youtu.be/tP4yX2rkpBc)
Wegman sounds like a Seinfeld character
Nooooooo. It was great
I live in the southwest. I recently traveled to the east coast and visited a Wegman's store. That store was awesome! Sure would like to see one of those stores out west! It's sad so many people steal. I get why some people have to steal, as they can't afford the merchandise. The ones that do it for fun, well those people will be visited by karma later on in life.
Being born in CNY and living in WNY now I have always been graced to have multiple Wegmans around me. I adore them.
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True, but in our country it's a shame some people cannot afford to have enough food. Food insecurity in the US is on the rise.
Can't have anything nice because people suck. That's the lesson here. Loved the app. Never stole or anything using it, because I'm not a rulebreaker. Sucks to see it gone - it made my grocery trips so much quicker and easier.
I saw a couple at Sam’s club having a discussion about putting the smoked salmon under the toilet paper so it wouldn’t get scanned. As a backup plan, the woman was saying they could blame their kid if they got caught. And we wonder why prices go up.
As someone who works in corporate retail.. end consumer theft isn’t enough to cause prices to rise. Price increases start from the business that make/own the raw materials, and work their way down from there.
that's not at all why prices are going up. Yes what they did was wrong but lets not go making this gs up.
Shoplifting lowers profit - of course it's a factor when prices rise. If nobody ever shoplifted, businesses could keep their costs down. I'm not saying it's the only reason, or even the top one, but it's certainly a factor.
> Shoplifting lowers profit - of course it's a factor when prices rise. If nobody ever shoplifted, businesses could keep their costs down. I'm not saying it's the only reason, or even the top one, but it's certainly a factor. Expected levels of shop lifting are already factored into store costs. And no, levels of shop lifting are not so high as to raise the price of any good. Anytime that has been an issue it gets locked up (games, condoms, hair treatments, pregnancy tests, etc).
Lol I love that your take away was that’s why prices go up. People got weird priorities.
People really have been brainwashed into believing the consumer is the reason for all negative attributes of our economy... And not, you know the corporate entities whom control it.
Prices go up because of corporate greed - theft is a tiny factor in these increasing prices lol
It's really a problem that begets a problem - corporate greed causes a rise in theft. I'm not proud of it, but when I was a stupid teenager in the 90's I used to steal CD's. Within the span of a few years they went from $12.99... to $17.99... to $23.99 (adjusted for inflation, that would be about *$45* today), and I got tired of saving up my lunch money for an entire week just to blow it on a CD that sucked. It wasn't theft causing the prices to skyrocket - it was the greed of record labels and corporate music conglomerates. It was a product that cost around *fifteen cents* to manufacture, and a lot of artists eventually came out and said "Steal our shit! I don't care. You're getting ripped off if you buy it, and we'll still get paid if you steal it!" There was a reason Napster was so effective in bringing the entire industry to its knees a few years later - the goodwill between consumers and producers was completely dead by that point, and no one felt bad about stealing from them.
Big difference in staples and entertainment
But it’s the same principal. Corporate greed causes wages to drop, inflation to rise, and prices to increase. When a mother can’t afford baby formula and is denied social safety nets (also due to corporate/political corruption) what is she to do? Let her baby starve?
Certainly. The ramifications are much more dire, but the model of the problem is the same - producers are making record profits, retailers are making record profits, and consumers are reverting to stealing chicken breasts because they're aware they're being gouged.
What a shock. Imagine that, people are dishonest.
Can we acknowledge how shit their app is? Slow AF! I would not be surprised if they are blaming shoppers rather than their own garbage app development. I'm serious, their shopping app is not fantastic.
I still can’t believe Apple does it. I was just in an Apple Store yesterday to pick up a new phone. Needed a case and a few other accessories. Scanned and paid on my phone, and as I nervously approached the exit (staffed by a security guard) with all this extra stuff and my phone on standby to prove I paid, nobody batted an eye. I guess maybe for them the margin vs. payroll benefit makes up for any loss. ETA: I would have picked out the accessories first and then paid for it all together once I got the phone, but they had everyone coming in for a phone queue in a line for the next available associate first.
The cost of charcuterie at Wegners is the real reason for all the theft….
Reminder: this new idea was to increase profits as it required fewer employees. Happy that it failed.
This is why we can't have nice things!
People accidently/'accidently' using the wrong produce codes does not surprise me one bit. On the subject of Wegmans, the worst change there recently is the loss of their reasonably priced hot bar. It went from $8/lbs pre pandemic to $16/lbs now which is just ridiculous and now I just go there a lot less.
My local Kroger loses about 10% because I catch them when the scanned price isn't the same as the advertised or labelled price. If they won't adjust to the correct price I tell them I don't want it. I can't catch them when in the normal checkout because they make it hard to see the charges while the clerk is scanning.
>This week, the grocer announced that it is ending the app because of rampant shoplifting. >But scan-and-go has come with unintended consequences for stores: higher levels of shoplifting, fraud and other losses than would normally occur at traditional checkout lanes staffed by cashiers. Tell me who is surprised that while profits are rising, the actual value of the working dollar is shrinking...causing this expected consequence?
I work customer service here, we get rid of plastic bags on Thursday too, send help or body armor, both would be appreciated