Taking Care of Our Valued Shoplifters

[Spiffy McMoron]

I guess too many folks think that thieves stand out somehow, like they wear striped shirts, tiny Lone Ranger masks, and carry around burlap sacks with "$" printed on the side.

Ah, how I miss the good old days... *Sniff* Oh the nostalgia...

Anyways, if an employee has to stand by the self-check out to ensure that you've scanned all of your items, why wouldn't you get that employee to scan the item for the customer? And while everybody's there, the employee might as well take the customers money, and hand back the receipt and change, and make it a traditional cash register? Or am I just missing something?

[Worker-Intellectual]

Anyways, if an employee has to stand by the self-check out to ensure that you've scanned all of your items, why wouldn't you get that employee to scan the item for the customer? And while everybody's there, the employee might as well take the customers money, and hand back the receipt and change, and make it a traditional cash register? Or am I just missing something?

You are missing one thing: Rule #1: Most retail companies are cheap bastards and can't afford to pay more employees because that might cut into the boss' bonuses... they don't have to pay computers.

Of course, with all that theft... Rule #2: Most retail companies are dumb and shouldn't be in business

[El Barto]

Ah, how I miss the good old days... *Sniff* Oh the nostalgia...

Anyways, if an employee has to stand by the self-check out to ensure that you've scanned all of your items, why wouldn't you get that employee to scan the item for the customer? And while everybody's there, the employee might as well take the customers money, and hand back the receipt and change, and make it a traditional cash register? Or am I just missing something?

Most self-check outs that I've seen have 1 cashier (or whatever they call them when they're at a self checkout) watching 4 self-checkout registers. 1 cashier can't ring out 4 people at the same time.

My store actually has some burlap sacks with "$" printed on the side. We use them to take the deposit to the bank.

[Broomjockey]

My store actually has some burlap sacks with "$" printed on the side. We use them to take the deposit to the bank.

Talk about a moving target!

[Crafty1289]

My store actually has some burlap sacks with "$" printed on the side. We use them to take the deposit to the bank.

And they actually use them??? Thats ridiculous! When I did the banking in a store with a post office, I took the money to the PO in a big brown A4 envelope - its less conspicuous - and I put the banking book in there too, so it didn't look like I had any money at all (apart from the fact I was being let through the side secure door of the PO instead of making me queue with £5000 in my hand lol.)

Most of our company's stores have roll-top deposit safes emptied 3 times a week by a cash in transit guard. None of our stores take money out of the building.

[/off topic] lol

The whole self-checkout system must be a PITA to set-up, having to weigh every item. And being used to workin a till myself, I dont think i'd enjoy using it - not being able to quickly scan everything and bag it and get the hell out! The whole weighing each item would annoy the hell out of me.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My store actually has some burlap sacks with "$" printed on the side. We use them to take the deposit to the bank.

Why a dollar sign?

They might as well have printed "Please rob me!" on the bags.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Another thing...if the shoplifters in my city knew just how little our LP person is in the store, they'd rob us blind.

We have a whopping ONE LP person. It's simply unreasonable to expect her to be in the store from 8 am to 10 pm seven days a week. In fact, I hardly ever see her at all.

And then it takes a long time for us to catch on that stuff is being jacked. The employees aren't as viglilant as corporate would like them to be, and most of the time they can't be.

What good is a camera system if there's not going to be anybody monitoring it most of the time?

[protege]

Why a dollar sign?

They might as well have printed "Please rob me!" on the bags.

I was thinking that too. A better idea would be to use a courier service, or at least get some bags without the damn dollar signs.

At the bank where I used to work, quite a bit of effort was made to *not* use anything distinctive when shipping cash from branch to branch, and *never* an employee's car. They'd use either a courier, or armored car...even for the smallest shipments. That way, the risk of robbery was lessened.

[Kogarashi]

The whole self-checkout system must be a PITA to set-up, having to weigh every item. And being used to workin a till myself, I dont think i'd enjoy using it - not being able to quickly scan everything and bag it and get the hell out! The whole weighing each item would annoy the hell out of me.

I actually don't mind using it, but that's because Wal-Mart's s-c's have improved to the point where so long as I set each item in the bagging area right after it's scanned, I can scan items rapidly with little interruption. Admittedly, it's not as fast as if I were to do it at a regular register, but I don't want to have to wait in a longer line (the s-c lines at the stores I shop at are usually shorter), or deal with a cashier who's potentially much much slower than I am at scanning.

And Spiffy, El Barto pegged it on the nose. With the self-checkouts, one cashier can oversee four transactions at once, which means one employee can handle four times the regular register's load. During Christmastime, if that one cashier also runs the till at the cashier podium, that's five transactions at once.