![]() ![]() As a result, Spar and Albert Hijn tend to not call the police in those cases. So, as the random check occurs before a customer leaves the gates, not having scanned items does not constitute a crime. According to Leighton, a punishable crime is only committed as soon as the perpetrator leaves the store with items that they did not scan. When it comes to cases of theft from self-checkout machines, the legal basis for employees to take action varies depending on who you ask. While Leighton has not determined the effect of the measures in absolute numbers, they have been effective, but unable to eliminate shoplifting entirely. After an initially high rate of thefts caught thanks to the measures, the number has declined as shoplifters grew aware of the monitoring. More recently, Leighton has been able to decrease this number by introducing random checks and CCTV cameras. At Spar, most customers steal single items, while at Albert Heijn, customers with shopping carts full of groceries are frequently caught having scanned only one item. With a loss of 7,000 euros on a turnover of 400,000 euros, the Albert Heijn records damages of less than half the percentage of the Spar. Students, who make up around 60 per cent of Leighton’s customers, are a considerable part of the issue, being repeatedly caught red-handed or later on camera.įor comparison: The relative numbers of shoplifting for Albert Heijn Molukkenstraat are significantly lower. In contrast, Albert Heijn’s vast majority of stores are owned by the chain itself, meaning only the multi-billion corporation suffers from theft.ĭespite the efforts, the amount of shoplifting at the Spar Science Park remains high, with nearly 2000 euros of stolen goods at 50,000 revenue per week. Next to this, he donates a percentage of his profits to the NGO ‘Kinderhulp Afrika’, meaning that the money “does not only get stolen from me as the owner but also from the children in Uganda”. He emphasises that students are not stealing from a big corporation, “They steal from me as a person”. Together with new exit gates that can only be opened with a valid receipt, Leighton was able to crack down on the number of involuntary thefts.īecause Spar stores are independently owned, as opposed to for example Albert Heijn, the financial loss because of shoplifting directly affects the owner, Leighton. This is the reason he bought the new machines, which automatically print a receipt as soon as the transaction is successful. “There are a lot of transactions stopped, blocked, failed and the people are already out”, says Leighton. Shoplifting occurs both deliberately and involuntarily, with the latter occurring mostly due to system errors. Self-checkouts caused a rising tide of theft. However, the self-checkout comes at a – quite literally – great price to the retail owners. At the self-checkout area, he needs at maximum two employees to monitor over 20 self-checkouts, whereas every cash register requires one employee each. “People do not want to work as a cashier anymore and the self-checkout simply needs fewer people”, he says. ![]() “It is basically impossible to find workers these days”, says the manager of the Albert Heijn Molukkenstraat, who prefers to remain anonymous. Intuitive reasoning might suggest that the decision was mainly economically driven, but retailers in Amsterdam resort to this measure mostly as an answer to the tight labour market. Since then, customers have only been able to pay by card in Leighton’s store, as he decided to replace the traditional register completely with the autonomous machines. This is made possible by the four self-checkout machines that the store’s owner, Vincent Leighton, installed around three years ago. Despite the high customer volume around this time, one rarely has to wait more than two minutes to pay and leave. Around lunchtime at Spar Science Park, customers flock into the store, yearning for a croissant or one of Spar’s signature frozen pizzas. From the big supermarkets to the mid-sized Spar, in nearly every store belonging to the major chains the machine can be found. It also found its way into our local Spar.īy now, the do-it-yourself scanners are unavoidable in the Netherlands. On its conquest of the retail world, it has increased revenue, efficiency… and shoplifting. The self-checkout – the reification of one person’s fears and the other’s dreams – has replaced much of the traditional cash register and reshaped the way we buy our groceries.
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