How shoplifters justify theft at supermarket self-service checkouts - Phys.org
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How shoplifters justify theft at supermarket
self-service checkouts
23 May 2018, by Emmeline Taylor
to experience shoplifting (86%) than those without
(52%).
The carrot trick
A few years ago, I was working with retailers in
Australia to reduce shoplifting, when one of the
major supermarkets discovered that it had sold
more carrots than it had ever had in stock. Puzzled
by this development they looked into their
inventories and found that in some cases individual
customers were apparently purchasing 18kg of
carrots in one go. Unfortunately this wasn't a
sudden switch to healthy eating or a desire to
increase vitamin C intake, it was an early sign of a
new type of shoplifter. Otherwise honest shoppers
were using the self-service checkout to transact
A green light for dishonest behaviour? Credit:
more expensive items – typically avocados – and
shutterstock.com
put them through as carrots. The behaviour
became a national epidemic, so much so, that the
police launched a crackdown specifically on avo'
theft at the self-service checkout.
The number of self-check out terminals around the
world is predicted to reach 325,000 by 2019 and
In the UK, surveys have revealed similar problems
some stores have even become fully self service.
– one in five shoppers admit to regularly stealing
But for some supermarket customers, the removal
when using the self-checkout, approximately £15
of store clerks has been a green light for dishonest
per month, amounting to a staggering £1.6 billion
behaviour.
worth of items every year. In fact, the extent to
which this has become normalised has led some to
Based on research in this area, I developed an
suggest that the machines themselves are
acronym to describe people who steal or give
crimonogenic, turning otherwise honest customers
themselves a hefty discount at self-service
into "a nation of shoplifters".
checkouts: "SWIPERS" – or seemingly well-
intentioned patrons engaging in routine shoplifting.
Self-service machines can be manipulated in many
And they are costing the retail industry billions of
different ways. Other techniques include obscuring
pounds a year.
the barcode while mimicking the scanning motion,
stacking items together so that only the bottom one
Customers are now relatively autonomous in the
is scanned, scanning items but not paying, or only
picking, payment and packing of goods they wish
partially paying, or entering the wrong quantity of
to purchase, but trusting them to process an
loose items.
honest and correct transaction is not without
problems. The Home Office's 2014 Commercial
A typology of 'swipers'
Victimisation Survey found that supermarkets with
self-service checkouts are significantly more likely
In my research analysing surveys on this issue and
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what people admit to, I've divided "swipers" into four 3. Compensating
main groups.
Self-service usually results in fewer staff and more
profits for the retailer, which for some "swipers"
provides justification for their theft. Some
customers believe that they should be
"compensated" for having to process their shopping
themselves when previously someone would have
been paid to do it for them – it costs an estimated
US$1 to check out a US$100 spend. So overall,
losses through customer theft might be cheaper
than the cost of paying cashiers.
There are also ideological motivations: a
resentment towards the growing automation of
jobs, and the domination of large supermarkets
over small community businesses. It's difficult to
ascertain whether this group genuinely consider
Don’t put unexpected items in the bagging area. Credit:
shoplifting to be a political act, or whether this
cormac70/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND
enables them to continue to perceive themselves
1. Accidental as honest and moral individuals.
Many "swipers" claim that they originally stole by 4. Irritated or frustrated
accident, but when they realised how easy it was, it
became a regular habit. In a 2014 "Unexpected item in the bagging area" announces
VoucherCodesPro survey, 57% of those admitting the machine accusingly as a red flashing light
to theft when using self-scan machines claimed that comes on. Perhaps unsurprisingly, self-service
they first stole goods by accident or because they checkout is now considered one of the most
couldn't get an item to scan. Those who are not irritating features of British modern life. Those who
apprehended or punished are likely to revise down steal through frustration believe it's justifiable in
their risk assessment and continue to commit response to their experience at the store, and draw
offences, so creating a symbiotic spiral of upon a range of excuses, or what are known in
escalating criminality. criminological parlance as "techniques of
neutralisation". Justifications often include: "the
item wouldn't scan", "the barcode was damaged"
2. Switching
and "I couldn't find the correct fruit or vegetable".
It's difficult to know if the customer originally
Peanuts are cheaper than pine nuts, cooking
intended to pay for the item or whether self-service
tomatoes are cheaper than vine tomatoes, and of
check-out invited this type of post hoc excuse
course, carrots are cheaper by weight than most
making, also found among many burglars.
other fruit and vegetables. Recognising this, many
customers switch labels or deliberately input a
different item on loose products. Perpetrators of Pleasure-seeking shoplifting
this kind of "discount theft" do not necessarily view
Not all crime is rational or motivated by money.
their actions as theft. Rather this behaviour is
Some retail crimes are committed for more visceral
perceived as "cheating" the system rather than
reasons, such as armed robbers who get a kick out
stealing – or as I argue, a way of "gamifying" an
of the adrenalin, power and control, even when the
otherwise mundane routine. Since switchers do pay
rewards are minimal. Recognising that
something for the goods, they often don't consider it
transgression can be enjoyable provides some
to be "real" theft.
understanding as to why shoplifting is not solely the
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preserve of economically and socially
disadvantaged groups stealing for subsistence.
In 2016, the Amazon Go concept store was
unveiled with its "Just Walk Out" approach to
shopping, using the same type of artificial
intelligence technology used in self-driving cars to
eliminate the need for checkouts. As a truly fluid
and autonomous shopping experience looks set to
be the next step in retail, augmented with
biometrics such as facial recognition and artificial
intelligence, only time will tell what new techniques
the "swipers" will develop.
This article was originally published on The
Conversation. Read the original article.
Provided by The Conversation
APA citation: How shoplifters justify theft at supermarket self-service checkouts (2018, May 23) retrieved
5 May 2019 from
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-shoplifters-theft-supermarket-self-service-checkouts.html
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