Tesco has installed artificial intelligence-style locked security cabinets in the alcohol aisles to stop shoplifters nicking booze. The technology works by asking shoppers to use a digital touchscreen and complete a 'four-step process' to open the cabinets, which contain premium spirits.
All because the police and justice system have been too lenient for too long....
It is understood to have been rolled out across a handful of larger Tesco stores, including Purley, Croydon, south London.
And no doubt soon to come to my local store.
Recent research from the British Retail Consortium's (BRC) annual survey found the amount lost to shoplifting in the latest year was the highest ever recorded. Shoplifting cost retailers about £1.8 billion in the latest year, the first time it has surpassed the £1 billion mark, the BRC said.
But then, why is it still treated as a petty offence?
Martyn James, an independent consumer champion, said: ' Is there a sadder indictment of society than this - the fact that buying a bottle of booze is now like getting into a high-end luxury jewellers?
'If the epidemic of shoplifting and aggressive customer behavior is not dealt with firmly and definitively, then we face a future where everything we buy is behind bars or plastic screens.
'That's not a future I want to live in.'
Me neither, but it seems we're heading that way regardless.
3 comments:
I'm not sure I get it. Unless the four step process involves inserting your card and paying for the booze before the cabinet opens, I don't see how it will stop shoplifting. If shoplifters are allowed to just walk out of the store unchallenged, it surely doesn't matter how they get the item off the shelf
"Everything we buy is behind bars or plastic screens"
Sainsbury's have introduced plastic barriers at the entrances of their stores. Usually two which open to let you in, and one small one to let you out. This latter barrier takes an eternity to detect anyone approaching, and I'm not prepared to stand around waiting like a naughty school boy. So (like many others) I just time my leaving with that of someone entering, because those barriers are 1) faster reacting, and 2) stay open quite long enough to walk through the other way! if there's actually a security guard "On Duty" he just watches and never says a word. In any case these barriers are only strips of plexiglass, and would easily be defeated by a determined shoplifting crew with a trolley full of heavy items...
Some years ago, a shop in France, subjected to regular thefts, installed locked exit doors, which opened when the bar code at the bottom of the receipt was scanned. No receipt, the doors remained locked. This door was also physically monitored by security to stop thieves shadowing a customer. It seemed to work until complaints were made by Muslim groups that people of their faith were being 'unlawfully' prevented from leaving the store.
The thefts continued once this system was stopped.
Who would have thought it?
Penseivat
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