Giant trolley scales being trialled by Tesco have caused a mixed reaction with concerns that ‘honest shoppers’ are being ‘treated like thieves’.
Trolleys are weighed before checkout of those using Scan as you Shop (SAYS) to ensure the weight is the same as the items scanned.
Three of the checkouts have been installed at the Tesco store in Gateshead while the SAYS system has been rolled out in a select number of stores across the UK.
However, some shoppers thought the checkouts looked more airport security with one person pointing out they were similar to ePasssport gates.
Business retail consultant Ged Futter believes the measures have been brought in to tackle the rising levels of shoplifting and reduce staffing costs, not to make the checkout system quicker.
In a warning to Tesco, he said that if shoppers are ‘being treated like thieves they will go somewhere else’.crim
‘They’re forgetting that trust is the most important thing for all of the retailers and it works both ways. If customers don’t feel trusted or think they’re being treated like thieves they will go somewhere else,’ he told the BBC.
Retail criminologist Proffesor Emmeline Taylor added that the scales were ‘quite foreboding and reminiscent of security scanners’.
‘They don’t want to give the impression that they are pointing the finger at their honest customer,’ she said.
Users on Reddit agreed and joked that the scanners were similar to security checks at airports.
‘Am I at border control or Tesco?’ one user asked. Another said: ‘Come for the shopping, stay for the full body scan! Wtf.’
‘Are those the gates for the new Heathrow runway?’ a third queried.
‘TSA Tesco Security Administration’ someone else said. Meanwhile, another added: ‘Better get the Tesco Passport ready.’
Others were also skeptical of how accurate the large scales would be to smaller items and if the new technology would work effectively.
‘(Who) knows how that will work when it would have to be sensitive enough to work for like birthday cards and also have enough variance for different bags people use, coat hangers, product weight, etc,’ someone pointed out.
Some of those who aren’t keen on the development questioned the accessibility and effectiveness of the ‘insane’ new checkouts.
‘Those floor scales are going to cause headaches. Especially as supermarkets are not too good at the calibration of scales,’ one shopper wrote.
‘Hardly looks wheelchair accessible. Definitely not fitting my wheelchair through there,’ a second said.
‘This is all going too far now. Can we not go back to mainly staffed tills and just have the odd couple self service for 10 items or less?’ someone asked.
‘A very dystopian feel, hoping that the general public will vote with their feet,’ another chimed in.
But some customers were big fans of the modern shopping method.
‘Have you used these things? They are 10-times more convenient and faster. I love walking past giant queues with a full trolley, scan screen, pay and on my way with bags packed already. If you don’t want to use them, don’t,’ one man said.
‘I’m all for it! Why wait around to be ‘processed’ when you can put your items in a trolley, pay, and go?’ another agreed.
It comes after shoplifting offences rose by 23 per cent to more than 490,000 a year to hit the highest level since records began, official figures revealed last month.
The shocking data is further proof of Britain’s worsening retail theft epidemic, which an industry body today warned was ‘out of control’.
There were a total of 492,914 offences recorded by police in the year to September, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) found – the highest figure since current police recording practices began for the year ending March 2003.
Police recorded 1.8 million theft offences in the year to September, a two per cent increase driven by shoplifting and a 22 per cent rise in crimes involving theft from a person (146,109). Knife offences and robberies rose by four per cent each.
It comes amid warnings that shoplifting is ‘spiralling out of control’ after a survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) suggested there were more than 2,000 incidents a day, with staff facing assault, being threatened with weapons, and racial and sexual abuse.
There were more than 55,000 incidents of theft per day, equating to more than 20 million in total.
The alarming figures show the issue is getting worse, with cases of attacks and shoplifting beating last year’s record numbers to be a fresh high since the surveys began in 2001.
This is despite businesses paying a record £1.8billion on prevention tactics such as CCTV, more security guards and body worn cameras.
Some 61 per cent of retailers say the police response to calls for help has been ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.
Retailers are reporting unprecedented levels of violence towards their staff, with the number of incidents involving a weapon more than doubling to 70 per day.