[billbears]

Exactly. I worked in retail for about five years with Circuit City (no cracks, I won't even shop there myself now). The reason the check is done is because of the reason you've given. It was rampant, especially in the car stereo department where the products are small but expensive. No one checked their purchases and employees could sell their friends $1500 worth of car stereo equip for $50-60 bucks. The problem was that inventory was only done twice a year and by that time, the offending employee had usually quit.

[PLMerite]

I'm not sure how stores treat their employees now (I know a guy who works at Wal-Mart, I'll ask him tomorrow), but when my mother worked at Memco almost twenty years ago, the employees had to check their personal bags with the security guy in the warehouse where all on-duty emplyees were required to enter/exit. The guard also checked their packages when they left if they'd bought anything between clocking out and leaving.

Of course, the night manager was cooking the books and pocketing a bunch of money from the tills...

As for customers, it was store policy, IIRC to staple shut bags and put the proprietary "tape of the day" on the bag, or anything too big to fit in a bag.

The guard by the customers' exit (usually an off-duty cop) scanned for the sacred tape as you passed.