Self-checkout theft causes problems for retailers – and customers who hate receipt checks

For Brian Simpson, a recent routine shopping trip to a Canadian Tire store in Toronto turned into a disturbing experience. He says that after he paid for his stuff at a self-checkout, a security guard blocked him from entering the store and demanded to see his receipt.

“It made me feel like a suspect, like I’d done something wrong,” Simpson said. “I don’t like the fact that they … lump us all together, that they assume that anyone who uses self-checkouts is going to steal.”

The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) told CBC News that shoplifting is on the rise and it is working with retailers to find solutions. Some major retailers have introduced random receipt checks in select stores, but the practice has drawn backlash from customers, who say they shouldn’t pay the price for self-checkout theft.

“It treats us like criminals because of the changes they made to the store because of this self-checkout expansion,” said John McCracken, who came across a receipt warning sign at a Loblaw Superstore just outside Halifax last month.

“If you’ve ever used the self-checkout checkouts, you know how incredibly easy it is to drop them off.”

So how bad is the self-checkout theft problem – and is it driving receipt checks? CBC News posed those questions to Canadian Tire, Walmart and Loblaw Companies Ltd., each of whom has included the checks in some capacity. None of them directly answered the questions.

Canadian Tire said in an email that receipt and bag checks, which are left to the discretion of individual shop owners, are often used for “stock management” in the industry. Walmart said receipt checks could be used for theft prevention, but it didn’t specify what kind of theft. Loblaw sent comments to the RCC, but the retail council said it does not track losses at checkout.

So CBC News turned to criminologist Adrian Beck, who has been researching self-checkout theft for more than a decade. He said it is a growing problem due to the proliferation of self-checkout machines and the fact that thieves consider the risk of being caught low.

“We have a higher proportion of people using them, and quite a few people are now more comfortable about how you could use and abuse these systems,” said Beck, an emeritus professor at the University of Leicester in England.

As part of an industry-funded study published in 2022, Beck surveyed 93 retailers (he declined to name) across 25 countries that have built in self-checkout technology.

According to the study, retailers estimate that as much as 23 percent of their store losses were due to a combination of theft and customer error at self-checkouts.

Two-thirds of retailers said self-checkout losses were a growing concern.

The carrot trick

Sometimes customers make honest checkout mistakes, such as accidentally not scanning an item. Beck said this could encourage thieves to steal because they feel like they have a good excuse if they get caught.

“I can just say, ‘You know what, I’m sorry, obviously I made a mistake. The machine was difficult to use,'” he said. “The real problem retailers have is that they find it very difficult to prove I’m a thief rather than a bad scanner.”

Beck said there are several methods thieves use to steal from self-service checkouts, such as entering the code for carrots when scanning more expensive products without barcodes, such as grapes, for example.

“They’re misrepresenting what they’re actually buying because they know carrots are a lot cheaper than grapes.”

LOOK | Loblaw customers protest receipt signs in stores:

Loblaw customers angry about receipt checks

Loblaw customers are disgusted by signs in stores that say customers must be prepared to show their receipt to validate their purchases. Some say it makes things worse with high prices and call bag searches an invasion of privacy.

Another trick is called “skip scanning“where thieves only scan some of their belongings. Tom Doyle, a plainclothes detective who patrols stores in Ontario, said he regularly catches people doing this at self-checkout checkouts.

“They’ll scan the oranges there, but they’ll put the steak in [directly] in the bag,” said Doyle of Corporate Protection & Investigative Services in Toronto. “If there’s $200 worth of groceries, they might pay $50.”

Doyle said in his experience that self-checkout thieves are generally average customers looking to lower their bill.

“Everything is getting more expensive,” he says. “They say, ‘That’s too expensive. I can use that $20 for something else.'”

Are receipt checks a good solution?

Beck said retailers are using a variety of techniques to mitigate self-checkout losses, such as training clerks to watch over customers, integrating technology such as surveillance cameras and conducting random receipt checks.

But receipt checks can be a turnoff for customers. Romina Moazami said she was asked several times to show her receipt earlier this year after using self-checkout at a Canadian Tire in Burnaby, BC Moazami says she is now boycotting the store.

“Why are you profiling me as a suspect?” she said. “I’m willing to pay more or drive further so that I don’t condone this behavior.”

Toronto Canadian Tire customer Simpson said stores struggling with self-service machine theft should consider withdrawing their machines. “You may need to rethink whether self-checkout is right for your location.”

But Beck suggests that retailers will continue to offer self-checkout as long as the money they save through reduced labor costs exceeds what they lose due to theft and scanning errors.

“Self-checkout is only going to increase, especially in supermarkets, where we see it being very dominant now,” he said.

Receipt checks can also be permanent. Despite the backlash, Canadian Tire, Loblaw and Walmart gave no indication they are reconsidering the practice.

According to legal experts, retailers can only enforce receipt checks if they have witnessed theft by a customer or if their customers signed up for a store membership where they agreed to the checks.