Theft groups repeatedly case and steal from stores in the region. We want to join hands with other companies and work out an area-wide response.

Shoplifting is becoming a serious problem as more retailers have introduced self-checkouts to deal with labor shortages.

Imagine yourself with kids that are noisy and you are trying to concentrate for self-check out and missed some items. They'll charge you for theft because your negligence?

Who really introduce this problem?

 Shoplifting is becoming a serious problem as more retailers have introduced self-checkouts to deal with labor shortages.

Labor shortages=Living wage shortage in a service based economy.

On top of the wage theft by many retailers for which they are never punished.

It's easy to make a mistake with self-checkouts. Sometimes the scanner doesn't ping before you put the item in the bag, and bingo, you get a free item!

I once bought groceries at one of my local supermarkets using the self checkout. After returning home I realized that of the 4 beers in my bag only one was on the receipt. 100% genuine mistake, But I haven't used since.

I agree that it's easy to make a mistake with the self-checkouts, but it may also work the other way. An item being registered twice, for example. That said, I'd wager that a customer would be more likely to inform the shop if they noticed an item appearing twice on their receipt, rather than it not appearing at all. Neither has happened to me, that I know of.

And I think the companies have done their math and worked out that the 'shrinkage' they incur at self-checkouts (shoplifting, genuine mistakes and so on) is more than made up for in reduced labor costs. However, that equation may change if particular shops are being specifically targeted by 'theft groups.'

As the above posters have pointed out, it's important to differentiate between theft and honest mistakes, but knowing the mindset here, I have little faith.

A new big home center opened up nearby about 7 or 8 months ago. 3 months ago I saw them installing and running anti-theft cables through all of the Makita and others power tools on display. I guess someone is stealing, but “theft groups”? Like many US urban area free for alls? That would make the news here on JT unless they were a BBQ whatever gang.