Stores Ask Shoppers to Use the Honor System
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The only thing keeping the stores in the article in business is that they stock only a relatively small amount of cheap merchandise with no secondary market. Their total liability is so low that it's cheaper than hiring staff.
Giant Eagle, which is a huge grocery store recently started the exact same thing: https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20190222/zap-giant-eagle-...
They've been doing it for a year, and have added stores, so contrary to what you say, clearly it works.
*added as an edit
I think petty theft is far more instinctive than you may realize. I personally have to fight the urge to steal my daughter’s holloween candy, even though I can easily afford my own, and she would give me some if I just asked. I don’t know where the urge comes from but I know it’s there, and I doubt it’s an uncommon type of urge.
Social interactions can really help to bolster behaviors we prefer in ourselves. I can see them being useful in keeping honest people honest. In the same way a gym buddy makes it harder to skip a workout.
In any case, someone raising questions about emergent behavior in the general population shouldn't invite questions about that specific person's imminent ethical lapse.
I've heard of willpower being an expendable resource, but not conscience. I don't feel like it places a burden on my conscience to do the right thing, in fact, the opposite is true - doing things against my conscience causes a mental burden or strain, maybe explainable by cognitive dissonance (I am a moral person // I just did something I consider immoral).
I think what distinguishes this situation from most others is that it is generally rational to follow your conscience. It makes sense to me to follow my conscience and not steal from BestBuy because there are people at the door who may catch me, there are security tags on products, and there are probably cameras. If all of those things disappeared, it is not so rational for me to not steal. In those cases, every time I listen to my conscience, it is with reluctance. In time, I may steal, or I may alter my behavior to not be put in that situation (I'll shop somewhere with those checks). Again, this is a thought exercise, so it may be different in practice.
At least in the US, there are so many opportunities to steal. In so many stores, it's so easy to just walk out with merchandise. So many private properties have items that aren't bolted down.
(Someone could steal about $1000 of firewood from my backyard, for example, plus the nice racks.)
Somehow, I don't think your prediction will come true.
If I walk past it all the time though, and I
- don't have other ties to you (like knowing you or living in the same neighborhood)
- am not at risk of getting caught (you're blind and deaf for example, and there are no neighbors to see)
- need firewood
it's not obvious to me that I won't steal. There are probably a lot more checks in place that are involved that don't come to mind, but having shoppers rely on themselves simply make theft more likely I think.
A social system can rely on the goodwill of its participants for quite some time. But as that system grows and becomes more well known, it inevitably becomes a honeypot for bad actors to exploit. Once those bad actors take advantage of it and experience the lack of consequences, that behavior is reinforced and shared with other bad actors.
The system will either need to change to flush them out, or it will cease to function even for good actors.
Since it hasn't been tried at scale, this is an unfounded proposition.
Shops already deal with routine pilfering. My partner's secondhand bookshop had an estimated 5%+ loss rate from petty theft. Large department stores deal with almost continuous shoplifting.
Yes, theft is ubiquitous in a small part of the population. No, this does not mean the honour system cannot work "at scale"
As for the other issue of theft, most places with self-checkout do have a few staffers, but no real security, and are taught to not bother people who are stealing. This leads to food deserts which is quite sad. I'd rather have automated payments, with real security at the door that makes sure that you pay. And no, not like Costco/Sams digging through your stuff, more an automated system or at most flashing your phone at them.
This newer idea seems to be small markets with no staff at all on site. Though it's not that new, we've had Avanti Markets at my workplace for a number of years now, and it's an honor system.
We got them at my workplace a couple years ago.
In the case of Avanti, I feel it's different. Getting caught stealing from Avanti could cost you your job. I wouldn't risk my job for a ham sandwich.
It felt a little odd to realize that I didn't feel like I owed Walgreens anything in that moment, not even to report what I saw. At the time, I really identified with the scene in the 2002 Spider-Man movie when PP steps aside for the wrestling venue robber. Go on, li'l Robin Hood; stick it to The Man and be well. My relationship with Walgreens has always been purely transactional; they did once have an opportunity to upgrade it, back when I lived in Chicago, but chose not to.
The money that goes into their registers gets sent to Deerfield, and from there on to the shareholders. The merchandise that walks out the door presumably stays local. So why should the cashiers care? They're only hurt if the whole store shuts down.
An entity like that would not do well on the honor system, I think. Walgreens isn't even a person to me. If they won't support my community at even a minimal level, by hiring one local to mind the store, I don't feel particularly motivated to keep their operating costs low out of some sense of goodwill. And I don't have qualms against stealing from robots. If you want me to not steal, on the basis of my own honor, you need to show me the person that would be harmed if I did. If they are all anonymous, and far away, it just doesn't feel as much like stealing. But that real live employee, who may be getting only $10/hour, suffices entirely, even if they just sit there and watch as I check myself out at a kiosk. If I steal, and the store shuts down, that real person loses a part of their livelihood.
Like corporate loyalty, "honor" is a two-edged sword. To benefit from the honor of others, the business must cultivate honor of its own. Walgreens hasn't build up enough for me to care. And they did bribe government customers with kickbacks, and murder that homeless guy in Hollywood, and back Theranos.
The mirrors are an interesting idea. I was recently reading Schneier's book on trust and he makes reference to an experiment where theft rates were reduced when there were portraits of eyes facing shoppers.
I'm sure they still need some token security, and the article mentions some kind of basic camera. I imagine scanning your credit card to enter would also be highly effective (though possibly have other downsides).
> People scan everything themselves
> Customers are trusted to use their phones
There certainly are cameras, sensors, and software expenses; it's just some of that burden is paid by the customers.
Cameras, sensors, and software are likely 1-time purchases. There may be cloud storage costs if your cameras are storing videos off-prem, and maybe the software is a monthly license fee, but I'd wager those costs are cheaper than a cashier.
I was impressed with The Home Depot's new self-checkout "machine", which is basically a touch-screen monitor sitting on a big table with a handheld wireless barcode scanner and a regular old receipt printer sitting beside it. Importantly, they ditched the weigh scales which are far too sensitive.
And I agree about Home Depot, that system, while imperfect, is pretty great. No more having to lift heavy awkward items over a small scanner!