I don’t know if any of you have experienced bag checkers in stores. You know… the ones that ask for your receipt upon leaving the store. Some of these people are rather impolite and somewhat bossy, but you may not know that this procedure is entirely voluntary. Upon purchasing your stuff, you are not obligated to show your receipt to the bag checker. The procedure is, in my opinion, primarily beneficial to the business and not to the customer. This procedure exists to deter or to catch shrinkage/theft. Now many people feel that since they don’t have anything to hide, there isn’t any real harm in complying, and I would agree for the most part. What a bag checker shouldn’t do is actually detain you if you refuse to comply. A story that influenced this little post was about a gentleman’s experience at Best Buy. Although this experience probably isn’t the norm, it happens enough. This ties in to a belief of mine that big corporations are inherently ineffiecient. A lot of the points rased by the Best Buy response, like the one below, can easily be answered with three words. NOT MY PROBLEM!

In dealing with the larger issue of why we verify receipts, I will ask a question: Have you ever worked retail sales? How long ago? The unpleasant reality facing retailers today is that “the customer” will lie, cheat, and steal at the slightest opportunity. They will invent fairy tales in attempts to get lower prices, and if you have the gall to debate their logic, they will insult, threaten, and even assault you. This Christmas we had a customer, a 39 year old, 6-2 200lb man, grab a 16 year old slip of a female cashier by the front of her shirt, pull her across the counter to his face, and scream at her because she would not honor an ad price that had been out of effect for two weeks. I personally had a customer, an intelligent, middle-aged man, tell me that a sign I had made ($9.99 after $5.00 mail-in-rebate) was misleading. I could go on, but I won’t. Simply put, that is “the customer”. All the old sayings about “the customer being the reason we’re here”, etc…don’t apply as much as you might like them to. The reality is that customers don’t come to Best Buy because they want to do their part to keep us in business. They want to buy a computer and they come to Best Buy because we have a lower price than Circuit City. That may be simplifying things a bit, but it illustrates the fact that “the customer” will put up with alot to save 10% How else do you explain the continued existence ofKmart?

It is because of these facts that , while we try to serve the customer, we must take steps to protect ourselves from “the customer” It is distasteful to be sure, but if we didn’t do it one of two things would happen: we would have to raise prices to compensate or we would soon go out of business. Kmart doesn’t protect itself the way Best Buy does and each store loses about 5% of its sales to theft and waste. At my Best Buy a similar level of inefficiency would be about $5,000,000 in loss. As it is, we’ll lose about $120,000. I’m sure there was an uproar when stores first began to run personal checks through the various time consuming verification systems, but people soon grasped the truth that other people write bad checks and stores had a reasonable right to protect themselves from that. Receipt verification follows a similar logic. The attitude of “How dare they? Do I look like a thief” comes my way in a lot of the people I check off, and I sense a bit of that in you. Frankly, it’s a natural reaction. But, just as we cannot tell a bogus check writer by looks, we cannot differentiate shoplifters either.

- [Name deleted]

Why do I say “not my problem?” If you want to go into business fine, but that isn’t my problem. If you have $5,000,000 in loss a year, again this is not my problem. I didn’t take it so I shouldn’t be assumed a thief the moment I walk into the store. If corporations are going to whine about being in business, then don’t be a business anymore. Many really big corporations get special tax breaks, frequently break labor laws, pollute the environment, put many small businesses in bankruptcy, have huge amounts of lobbying power which later influences many laws in their favor (the recent bankruptcy laws come to mind, all the while businesses retain their meager bankruptcy laws) etc… and then have the gall to complain about the woes of business? The fact that these businesses are having so many troubles are a testament to their ineffieciency. The only real advantage that bigger businesses have is their ability to buy in bulk, but the costs in overhead management alone offset this. The only way some of the bigger retail chains manage to make profits is through paying employees peanuts while limiting health insurance participation (those not under any coverage either go to hospitals or are eligible for some type of medicaid. Either way the taxpayer foots the bill) all the while recieving a tax break. Couple that with the ability to buy in bulk, and of course smaller places will be hard-pressed to make ends meet. Now are all big businesses this unethical. Fortunately no. Costco is one of the better examples of where employees are treated better in a retail environment and is profitable. Now as opticians trying to get work in Costco is difficult. There’s a freakin’ waiting list! Note that such a list does not exist in say LensCrafters, et al. Now don’t mistake this rant as I don’t care about the people who are abused by others while working. I’ve been yelled and harassed at work by enough people to not wish that on anyone, but I can not take the plight of big retail corporations seriously. If you get harassed by some bag checker and and you do not feel you want to show them your receipt, feel free to tell them “not my problem, I am not a thief.” Lastly there is this site that has more on this and may be worth reading.