The number of supermarket thefts has increased drastically in the past year. Bert Andriessen advises supermarkets on how to deal with shoplifters. He sees that stealing has become easier due to the rise of self-scanning.
More was stolen at Jumbo last year (100 million) than it made profit (80 million), the chain announced on Wednesday. Things go wrong especially at the self-checkout. Whether consciously or unconsciously: many people do not pay for their products there.
Business as usual for Bert Andriessen from Midlaren, he helps supermarkets with training aimed at preventing theft at the self-checkout.
He has a fairly specific method for this with his Andriessen Crime Prevention: “We go undercover for a day and steal as many products as possible from the store. We make video recordings of this that we discuss with the staff during the training.” Remarkable: In the eight years that Andriessen has been doing this, he has never been caught.
“Stealing things from the supermarket can be very easy, but it does matter how the employees deal with it. If they pay close attention and the employee gives full attention to the customer, it becomes a lot more difficult.”
It is also more difficult to stop people at the self-checkout points, according to Andriessen. “If you used to take things with you from the store, you could simply be stopped. At the self-checkout this is more complicated. People only scan half of their things. At the check they then say that they have forgotten and then an employee said: ‘it can happen’. The chance of being caught has therefore become smaller.”
According to Andriessen, it can already help to greet customers when they enter the store. “Eighty percent of shoplifting incidents are not planned in advance. When no attention is paid to them in the store, they think: ‘I don’t actually have that much to spend this month, let me take some stuff with me’.” According to Andriessen, paying attention to the customer is important in preventing shoplifting.
In addition to greeting customers, employees can also be more attentive to customer behavior. “For example, if you see someone looking around, it could be a customer who is looking for something, but also a shoplifter. You can then simply approach the customer and ask what this person is looking for. Pay particular attention to the behavior and not on the appearance of the person.”
2024-01-05 19:03:56
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