A story has been doing the rounds over the past week about how police have stepped in to stop theft from Coles’ self-service checkouts. From Australian Food News:
Coles has reported that approximately one third of shoplifting from its NSW and ACT stores was done using self-serve checkouts.
Stealing through self-serve checkouts includes either by not scanning an item on the machine or by scanning the item as a cheaper alternative, so a customer is charged less…
It was announced on 6 October 2016 that NSW officers would be brought in to crack down on theft at Coles self-service checkouts.
According to a ABC report, the police involvement would take the form of covert operations, including the use of plain-clothes officers and security camera footage…
This move sees police taking a greater role in detection of shoplifting, at no cost to Coles.
The obvious question to ask is why is the Australian police force being used to prevent theft at Coles? The implementation of self-service checkouts has saved the major supermarkets huge labour costs (at the expense of low-skilled workers). Surely they can use some of these profits to employ their own in-house store security, as occurs across many major retail outlets (e.g. department stores)?
The police should tell Coles to get stuffed, dig into their own deep pockets, employ their own private security services, and not waste scarce public resources.
