US Edition
Shoplifting is “creeping in” among the middle classes because of faulty self-checkouts, the chairman of Marks & Spencer has said.
Archie Norman said well-off shoppers were being tempted to walk out without paying for items when self-checkout scanners failed to properly register all their items.
Mr Norman said: “Nobody quite understands why this has happened, but shoplifting has become a global problem. We’re seeing this rise.
“It’s too easy to say it’s a cost of living problem. Some of this shoplifting is gangs. Then you get the middle class.
“With the reduction of service you get in a lot of shops, a lot of people think: ‘This didn’t scan properly, or it’s very difficult to scan these things through and I shop here all the time. It’s not my fault, I’m owed it’.”
Speaking on LBC’s Money with David Buik and Michael Wilson, the M&S chairman said: “You see it with the self-checkouts, there’s a little bit of that creeping in.”
The comments come as supermarkets struggle with a surge in crime. Policing Minister Chris Philp said last month that shoplifting had become “a blight on our highstreets and communities”, with gangs increasingly stealing to order from shops.
Mr Norman, a former Conservative MP, said M&S stores were not “as attractive” as for criminal gangs who prefer to steal branded spirits and beauty products to sell on. M&S sells more own-brand products than its rivals.
While much of the crime wave has been driven by people walking out of shops without attempting to pay, supermarkets are also cracking down on people who dupe their self-scanning systems.
Waitrose has trained its staff to spot people putting items through as cheaper alternatives when they scan them. Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, meanwhile, have rolled out security gates after self-scan tills in some stores, requiring shoppers to scan their receipts before they can leave the store.
Mr Norman said M&S was not taking this approach, saying adding barriers and more cameras was similar to turning its shops into “prison camps”.
He said: “Our approach is to be open and welcome. We do little things like make sure the steak is positioned in the right place so people can keep an eye on it.”
M&S has been investing in self-checkouts and earlier this year vowed to push on with adding more of these tills to make its stores more efficient.
The retailer is pressing ahead even as some others rethink their reliance on the technology. Earlier this month northern supermarket chain Booths said it would axe self-checkouts and replace them with human cashiers after a backlash from customers.
In the US, some retailers are considering reducing self-checkouts to try to curb crime rates.
Retailers have complained that police are failing to crackdown on an epidemic of shoplifting, forcing them to take matters into their own hands.
Shops have spent an extra £700m on security staff, CCTV, security tags and other anti-crime measures to try to tackle shoplifting, according to the British Retail Consortium.
However, rates of theft are still on the rise. New figures earlier this month from Co-op showed that its stores have been hit by 300,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour so far this year – 43pc more than a year ago.
Co-op’s figures revealed that police are failing to show up to almost four-fifths of cases where shop workers detained criminals who were looting from its stores.