Thievery on the rise

Thievery in supermarkets has to be on the rise. Since the introduction of Reusable Shopping bags earlier this year theft in our local supermarkets is definitely on the rise. As a manager in one of Canada’s top supermarket chains I and my co-workers have apprehended and hindered five obvious professional theft attempts all ranging in the four to five hundred dollar range in the last Four months alone. These are just the ones we have come across. How many others are getting away with it? If this is going on in our store alone can you imagine the amount of money just walking out of other stores? AND AT WHAT COST TO YOU AND ME THE AVERAGE CONSUMER WHO HAS TO ACTUALLY PAY FOR WHAT WE WANT?

Since we have eliminated the use of plastic bags in order to reduce their harmful Effects on the environment, and since we cannot force people to bring their own Reusable Shopping bags when they go out and shop nor can we insist that they take a box or plastic Bag many customers just put their purchases back into their shopping carts to carry out their groceries. Although most people are honest enough to pay for their items some do not. THEFT in stores is not a new concept. Shoplifting will always exist. That I think is a given.

In our store we have augmented our security, updated our surveillance cameras and also trained the staff to look for certain things that would indicate to them that a professional thief is working his craft. This kind of theft is really starting to anger me. I wonder if saving the environment from plastic bags and as much as I know we need to do everything to attain this goal do we need to pay even more than necessary for our groceries? I know that using recyclable Shopping bags is what we need to do. We need to come up with better and bigger ways to stop this kind of professional thief. I would like to hear from you and I would you like your comments and some of your ideas on this subject. I believe that unless something is done it will become a bigger and more costly problem.

In my next blog I’ll give you some of the methods that these professional thieves have come up with.

For more information on reusable shopping bags I invite you to visit us at otraditionhandbag