Hardly a week goes by that some supermarket ‘scandal’ or another doesn’t hog headines in the social media channels. And many involve Loblaw’s. This week: It seems some Loblaw’s-owned stores are making COSTCO-style cart checks…
We were warned it was probably coming. A new consumer kerfuffle has been sparked lately by COSTCO’s amped-up cart and receipt exit checking, and social media commenters seem to be hyper sensitized to the issue…
Spreading to other mega-stores
Loblaw’s is getting more than it’s share of bad (social) media coverage again this week. This time it over the emergence of reports that some of the store’s outlets have instituted cart and receipt exit checks – à la COSTCO.
COSTCO has been doing it for years, to make sure folks don’t leave the store with more ‘bargains’ than they actually paid for. But it’s new to other retailers.
A history of ‘pilot’ flops
Loblaw’s has been in the forefront of Canadian supermarket chains trying new ways to curb ‘food-lifting’. The theft of food from retail stores costs the stores millions a year. And the industry has given the issue top priority.
Notably, Loblaw’s latest attempts to control food theft have included putting up tank-trap-like fences separating their exits from their shopping floors. And, most recently, trying automated receipt scan-ners at exits, to ensure that shoppers have paid for their purchases.
The fences seem to have succeeded in deterring grab-and-run thieves from brazenly crashing their way out of stores using their bulging carts full of un-paid groceries as battering rams. But the receipt scanners were less successful. In fact, many consumers were tragically confused – some outright sty-mied – by them. And flustered into immobility when the associated armoured gates locked up on them, ‘trapping’ them in the store.
Another recent scheme involving casino-like video surveillance and locking cart wheels also triggered customer ire…
Social media explodes
Now social media threads are boiling over with complaints about a new wave of foodlifting preven-tion attempts – the aforementioned human-based, COSTCO-like exit checks of shopping carts and receipt tracking. posters have reported a number of Loblaw’s-owned No Frills outlets in Ontario have started the checks…
Among the most vocal critics of the checks are – predicably – r/Loblawsisooutofcontrol Reddit group members:
“They are checking your bags,” a customer in Ontario wrote. “I couldn’t imagine shopping at No Frills now.” The poster went on to recount the experience of another shopper whose reusable fabric bags were all turned inside out during a check.
“This is time consuming,” another wrote, adding: “Are they going to start patting you down when you leave the stores now too?”
“This freaks me out when it happens to me, because it makes me feel like I have done something wrong, when I haven’t [done anything] at all,” a third huffed.
“I was offended by the interaction,” Another deeply hurt customer related. “Are [the staff members performing the checks] seated in a room and constantly told that everyone is stealing, so they treat everyone like a thief?”
A universal problem
Shoplifting across all retail sectors cost Canadian stores more than $5 billion last year, the Retail Council of Canada reported earlier this year. Theft of all kinds of retail goods has spiked due to abiding high prices and dwindling consumer buying power.
Meanwhile… Civil liberties advocates warn that the current No-Frills exit checks on carts and receipts may be an outright breach of Canadians’ Rights and Freedoms.
The Charter (and the law) specify, “‘Shopkeepers privilege’… is exercised after a theft is witnessed, not in anticipation of an imagined crime,” according to a 2019 post by The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). “After witnessing a theft, a shopkeeper can invite the customer to search the bag together with the shopkeeper. But the shopkeeper has no right to search without consent.”
Maybe that’s one reason Loblaw’s corporate, in a statement responding to inquiries about the new checks, has emphasized that the procedures are NOT official company policy. “That said, we have taken the feedback seriously and have shared it with our stores,” Loblaw’s told Yahoo! Canada, in a statement.
My take
There definitely problems with unjustified cart checks. It’s the same basic rights issue as police stopping motorists and demanding ID without any official offense alleged. They call it ‘carding’. But it’s not the same as carding at the Liquor Store, Beer Store or bar. Those establishments have not only the right but the responsibility ensure that underage customers are not admitted or served.
“What about COSTCO”? I hear you asking. Simple: COSTCO ‘members’ agree to the exit hecks when they sign their membership agreements.
I also hasten to point out that the tiny minority who steal groceries cause losses the stores have to make up out of their profits. Or by charging higher prices. Which is another significant contributor to abiding sky-high food prices.
As an old-school law-and-order believer, I do believe there’s a solution to the foodlifting crisis that is efficient, effective, dignified, fair and equitable to all. We just haven’t figured it out, yet…
~ Maggie J.