The Three Minute SOAPBOX:

I see many of the same ones all of the time. One guy comes in around 11 pm. The store is empty. He goes around picking up his items, grabs a gallon of milk, fills a basket, and walks straight out the door. I am never allowed to confront these people, but calmly ask them if they are ready to check out and they simply ignore me, leaving the store rapidly. We have security in the daytime but not later at night when I work.Shoplifters come in all shapes sizes and colors, but they differ in their approach. Some are simply homeless and hungry. They grab a sandwich and leave. I don't mind them so much. It's the ones who boost expensive items to make a profit. I get so mad at these people!! What gives them the right? The audacity!! If I can't have something for free, NOBODY should have it! I would be for hiring private thugs to apprehend these people were it my store. I defy anyone to make a case for why these people have a right to do what they do!! It hurts all of us, but it hurts my wages on top of it all. Our store loses roughly $800.00 a day to theft. The new manager has cut our hours by 10%. Thus, we are each earning roughly 8 hours a week less wage which works out to $100.00+ a week for me.One would be amazed to know that roughly one in 20 shoppers steal. It almost makes me want to give in to a higher security state. At least we would be stopping all the theft.

It doesn't work that way. Look at the "war on drugs".And a police state tends to produce more corruption at all levels.

well im all for high tech cameras and facial recognition scanning. all that security needs to do is identify the perps. The police can do the rest. My point is that these people have no right to do what they do. I feel they are stealing directly from me. I say that humans need to police themselves....weed out the bad apples.Even jesus said that not everyone finds the narrow road. I would submit that honesty is a basic human requirement from each other. Stealing hurts all of us.There would be no theft in Heaven.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

When I first went to Bolivia I was surprise to see armed, uniformed guards in the supermarkets (called Hyper-maxis) in the larger cities. Banks and many other businesses had the guards, but the outside doors were also locked. The guards would unlock the doors for you and then lock them behind you.I wonder if they have been doing this since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?

It is not that bad here yet, but if guards controlled the door, we would save at least 500.00 a day plus enough to pay the guard. I suspect that one reason the company has security is simply to get a better rate on loss insurance. They write all the theft off, but they can't do that with labor so they cut us! Thus even if they saved the shoplifting money I likely wouldn't see any of it.

I'm not going to be devil's advocate for thieves but that's an over-simplification. Security hurts (costs) all of us too. Drivers who speed, etc. hurt (cost) all of us too. Everything anybody does has consequences. The knowledge of good and evil is not a simple accounting.Fixating on the cost of "moral" transgressions doesn't seem healthy to me.

They steal expensive stuff from supermarkets to buy drugs Phat.

Well I know that! What gets me angry is that the store does little to stop them, and the hours keep getting cut from we employees to compensate.

Stores generally allow around 2% 'shrinkage' and figure that most of it will come from employees so they factor that in. I'd say that you'd be losing hours regardless of theft.I feel your frustration though - if it was my store I'd be furious.

This is how I wish my store would deal with the problem.

My little brother has been in retail lost prevention for over 25 years. Employee theft is much more of a problem than theft by customers. That is not to say that theft by customers should be ignored. But it's significance needs to be truly understood.
There are ways that retail companies can easily lower employee theft. The prime way is to show employees that they are valued and that they have a stake in the company's success.
That means doing things that retail corporations will never do until they are forced by the will of the people and employees.
Higher wages.
More vacation time.
Better retirement benefits.
Humane scheduling.The gains corporations get in productivity and less employee theft(of product, time, intellectual property, and corporate intelligence) will help pay for a lot of the above.As we all now this will never happen in the US until people get to the point that things get so bad and we take the demands to the streets.Theft by Employees More Common than Theft by Customers

This may statistically be true in general, but I cannot believe it to be true at my store. The shoplifters behave similar to the ones I show in the video a couple of posts back. At worst, our employees steal time and a free drink here and there. We may have a mole here and there, but by and large, the shoplifters get away with a large percentage.

You might want to have a talk with your corporate loss prevention. 25 years ago, when I ran a small chain of convenience stores, losses from employees outweighed customer theft. According to studies and info I have seen from a major home improvement retailer(my brother's employer)this is still true.

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I worked in retail part time for 5 years in my younger years, and I can anecdotally confirm this (for clarity's sake, I didn't steal anything). It's as simple as employees stuffing merchandise in the trash, and then dumpster diving at night. When you have low wage staff they don't have anything to risk because they can always find the same sort of job elsewhere, and this is what happens.