It’s official. Shoppers prefer self-checkouts. Our exhaustive new survey shows 54% would rather use a self-checkout machine to buy their groceries. A further 16% aren’t bothered either way.

Whether it’s the speed, shorter queues, ability to avoid small talk and carry on with your own life, self-checkouts these days are not only accepted as a necessary irritant; in more cases than not, they’re positively welcomed.

But there’s one other advantage with self-checkouts no one really talks about: the ability steal with apparent impunity. There are numerous ways shoppers have found to expose the security weakness of self-checkouts: ignoring scan ‘failures’, omitting to scan loose items, inputting the wrong item or number of units – even scanning all the items but walking out without paying as assistants and security struggle to keep track of the simultaneous transactions (and tribulations) occurring.

Of course, shoplifting isn’t a new phenomenon. And part of the current retail crime epidemic has been rightly laid at the government’s door in encouraging organised crime gangs to steal to order without fear of recrimination.

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But supermarkets have played a part in this epidemic. It’s clear the wholesale adoption of self-checkout tills has created a new breed of shoplifter: one that wouldn’t dream of stashing a leg of lamb in an inside coat pocket or rucksack but doesn’t think twice about a little light larceny at the self-checkouts.

Part of the appeal is a sense among shoppers that they can get away with it, scot-free, play dumb, claim plausible deniability. And for many it’s just a ‘hack’. Indeed one shopper, after finding a way to use Sainsbury’s vouchers at the self-checkout machines to reduce their basket bills to practically zero, posted the hack on TikTok, resulting in a surge in fraud.

It seems civic, moral and legal considerations have given way to an increasing sense of entitlement. Various excuses are offered: that they’re doing the work of a checkout operator and save the supermarket money (ignoring the fact those savings are helping to fund lower prices and minimise the impact of inflation); that the technological glitches and failings of self-checkouts are justification enough. And, most pervasively, a sense that money’s tight in the cost of living crisis, and that large, “unscrupulous” supermarkets either deserve to be robbed or can afford it (p31). But the fact that more store-based job cuts have been announced this week (p5, p6) to minimise the impact of the Chancellor’s autumn budget demonstrates once again there’s no such thing as a victimless retail crime, whether it’s organised gangs or an investment banker.

So what’s to be done? Some supermarkets have reined in the number of self-checkouts in their stores, and offered commitments to maintain belted checkouts for the 29% of customers who want to use one. But there’s no going back now. And supermarkets have clearly taken a calculated decision in balancing the savings from the extra shrinkage.

New machines have also introduced extra security measures including built-in cameras to pry on pilfering shoppers. The deployment of extra self-checkout assistants simultaneously reduces shopper friction while increasing oversight of shoppers. But shoppers need to take responsibility for their actions too – though there’s no harm in reminding them in-store of the legal situation (and the store’s surveillance measures).

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