To battle self-scanning theft, Australian chain Coles is about to trial a 12-item limit on self-service checkouts. The test will roll-out at a small number of stores.
According to Australian researchers, one-third of shoppers deliberately swipe the wrong barcode or don’t swipe at all. Even though the introduction of self-service checkouts hasn’t led to an increase in the overall rate of shoplifting, it has made it a little easier. Proof of this is that nearly half of shoplifters caught at Coles in 2015 used a self-service checkout, and most of them were customers who started shoplifting routinely after discovering how easy it was.
