Coming soon:
Paper or Plastic...creep.
Posted on 12/09/2023 11:48:52 PM PST by thecodont
San Francisco stores have quietly disabled self-checkout recently, indicating a trend in “defensive retailing” that may soon spread across the city. While innovative measures to prevent theft at Bay Area retailers have been well documented this year, the changes to self-checkout are a more recent development.
The Safeway at 1335 Webster St. in the Fillmore District closed down its self-checkout area a few months ago, an employee confirmed to SFGATE. Target on San Francisco’s Mission Street also has closed its self-checkout kiosks, rotating the screens backward to make them unusable to customers, SFGATE confirmed.
While Safeway and Target did not respond to SFGATE’s requests for comment on why these self-checkout stations are no longer available to customers, self-checkout stations have been linked to increased shoplifting at other retailers. Retail crime has become an outsize concern locally over the past few years. In September, Target blamed the closure of three Bay Area stores on theft and organized retail crime. In 2021, Safeway cut hours at its store in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood due to increasing theft.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
At the end of your shopping, you took the tickets to a counter, where an employee rang up the tickets and collected the total amount due. Then you waited for 5-30 minutes, depending on how big your order was and how busy the store was, and your stuff came out on a conveyor belt.
Another employee matched your receipt to the stuff, and you left the store. I can see the future of retail in the ghetto coming to that scenario, and as we import or cultivate more ghetto, the ghetto will be everywhere.
Does Amazon still have zero-employee stores?
Name - Amazon Go, I think.
What a short sighted ignorant policy.
Sounds like your area has not been Ghettoized by the Democrat Party yet.
I remember Service Merchandise. Detroit suburban area. Got a great deal on .22lr when they were closing the store. A friend and I bought all they had left. Approx. 25000 rounds between the 2 of us for about 10 cents on the dollar.
I really liked that store.
Inoperative measures to stop theft and looting, dont engage
I don’t have the guts to steal, but it’s easy to see how it’s done. Just pass the item over the scanner with the bar code facing away from it, thus pretending to scan it and keep moving on. Do it for a few high dollar items, pay and get out of the store.
I’ve watched the self checkout attendants at our local Walmart. Most of them watch customers like a hawk sizing up a mouse for the kill. Then others are too obsessed with their device just texting away or whatever they are doing. With the latter anyone could steal the store blind.
The companies that went to self checkout must have had real dumb management, thinking everyone is honest. They forget there are democrats out there.
They opened a few in the Soviet of Washington only to close most of them shortly after. I’m not sure how many are left.
Coming soon:
Paper or Plastic...creep.
I still have a Crossman pellet gun that I bought at Service Merchandise 50 years ago
Merchandise? 🤓
Somehow I doubt this will help much. The videos I’ve seen show people brazenly filling up large bags with loot and muscling their way past store employees. It may deter the more timid shoplifters, but not the ones who (apparently) do it for a living.
The companies that went to self checkout must have had real dumb management, thinking everyone is honest. They forget there are democrats out there.
Service Merchandise was a great store. In Hartford, we had a store like that called H.B. Davis. In the 1970s, more merchandise were leaving the back door than the front door, so it closed. Catalog showrooms should make a comeback. Of course, you need to make sure the employees are honest.
Not even close to the reason. SelfCheck is so stores can not hire clerks — when the state mandates minimum wages.
Clerks are expensive, especially when benefits are considered. Machines are cheaper. And, since you can readily steal out thisaway in CaCaLand without prosecution, why spend extra money with clerks?
Crime is not punished (so integrity is not valued) and clerks are expensive (so hire a machine).
My practice is that if a real clerk is not available I drop the items I was intending to buy at the front and walk out. I DO NOT WORK THERE.
self checkout = theft
Wow!!! Who knew??
When thieves simply load up a cart and roll it out the door, ending self checkout is a joke. The real thieves don’t waste their valuable thieving time by pretending to pay.
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