'It is so bad right now': Supermarket shoplifters find reusable bags handy for theft
David P. Willis, Asbury Park Press
6 min read
Grocery stores around the Jersey Shore would rather you not use your reusable bags to carry around your bread, ice cream and jar of tomato sauce as you shop.
Why? Because some people are thieves.
Signs have gone up inside some stores urging customers to use hand baskets — if they're available — or shopping carts as they walk the aisles and fill up with groceries. Use your reusable bags to pack your items, after you pay, to take out to your car, they say.
Signs at Super Foodtown ask customers to not use reusable bags while shopping the aisles. Friday Oct. 20, 2023.
"Attention All Shoppers. While shopping in our store please place all items into your cart," states the signs on the revolving door at ShopRite in Neptune. "Do not place unpaid items into reusable bags."
"Please refrain from shopping in reusable bags prior to check out,” states one sign on the door at Super Foodtown in Red Bank. “Valued customers: Please empty contents from all reusable bags prior to checkout,” states signs inside the store.
Grocers say the rules are necessary to combat rising retail theft and battle shoplifting, which can cut into a store's razor thin profit margin and ultimately raise prices for consumers.
"In my career in this business, this is the worst I have ever seen," said Lou Scaduto Jr., chief executive officer of Middletown-based Food Circus Super Markets, which owns four Super Foodtown stores in Monmouth County. "It is so bad right now. It is going to continue to escalate."
A ShopRite spokesperson said the company has seen a "significant increase in retail theft."
Industry representatives say shoplifting is a problem nationwide.
In the National Retail Federation's 2023 National Retail Security Survey, what is politely called "retail shrink," which includes losses from shoplifting and employee theft, represented $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, when taken as a percentage of total retail sales.
While a figure of losses for grocers specifically is not available, industry sectors such as pharmacies, grocery and department stores have average shrink rates of over 2% of total sales, the report states.
"Unfortunately, it's increasing, dramatically increasing," said Doug Baker, vice president of industry relations at FMI, the Food Industry Association, a trade group. "When you're dealing with inflation and then you have theft on top of that, it compounds the cost of doing business, going up exponentially."
Signs at Super Foodtown in Red Bank ask customers to remove items from reusable bags before they check out. Friday Oct. 20, 2023.
Tricks of the shoplifting trade
Shoplifting can come in various forms, from people who purposely scan a less expensive item at the self-checkout register to thieves who walk out the door without paying for the goods.
Retailers also are dealing with sophisticated and organized criminal rings where thieves steal items at multiple stores to fuel fences who resell the items.
Baker said he watched a shoplifter take grocery items while using reusable bags and a shopping cart.
"They were shopping; they were filling the reusable bags," Baker said. "They walked to the front of the store and pulled their bags out of their cart and walked out of the store."
The relationship between stores and customers will have to get stronger to tackle the growing problem, he said.
"Retailers are asking consumers to partner with them and leave their reusable bags folded up in their grocery cart until they get to the register so they can more quickly and readily identify anybody that is there doing something distrustful."
At the self-checkout, thieves may scan an inexpensive item in place of something that has a higher price. For instance, Baker said, a shoplifter may use the barcode of a Kool-Aid package to cover a barcode for a more expensive steak.
"Unfortunately, bad actors are innovating themselves and they're figuring out ways to take advantage of the innovations that retailers are putting in to try to make customers' lives easier," Baker said.
Supermarkets fight back
Retailers also are using technology to help combat theft. For instance, cameras and screens that show you as you scan your items at the self-checkout register are not there for your amusement. They are there to remind you that someone is watching, Baker said.
They can also come equipped with facial recognition, so retailers can track thieves across multiple stores, he said.
Supermarkets also are using systems that can determine whether you are scanning the correct item at the self-checkout. It may give you an opportunity to scan the correct item before alerting a store employee to help, Baker said.
Nationwide, retailers are putting some items behind lock and key. Others are closing stores. For instance, last month Target announced that as of Oct. 21, it would shutter nine stores in the areas of New York City; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco/Oakland, California.
"In this case, we cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance," Target said in a statement on Sept. 26.
"We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all."
"You have people who are so brazen. They just walk out the door," said Foodtown's Scaduto. "It is a small handful of people that make it bad."
Foodtown also has seen some customers steal the store's hand baskets, taking them out of the store and not bringing them back, Scaduto said. Once they are stolen, the baskets are not replaced, he said.
Foodtown has taken measures to deter thieves, Scaduto said. "We have systems in place to help protect our business."
ShopRite has seen more customers who use their reusable bags to shop the store, ShopRite spokesperson Karen O'Shea wrote in a statement to What's Going There.
"Like many other retailers nationally and regionally, we have experienced a significant increase in retail theft," O'Shea said. "That’s why we believe encouraging shoppers to use shopping carts while they shop and bag groceries only at checkout is the best way to ensure a good shopping experience for all our customers."
Besides asking customers to not use their reusable bags while shopping the aisles, ShopRite alerts customers that it may check receipts too.
In a statement, Stop & Shop said it too is seeing increased thefts, but declined to comment on the measures it is taking to curb shoplifting.
"Like other retailers, Stop & Shop has seen increased instances of theft in recent months," spokesperson Daniel Wolk said. "We are continuously evaluating our approach to ensure we're creating a positive shopping experience for our loyal customers, while also protecting our product, customers, and associates."
David P. Willis, an award-winning business writer, has covered business and consumer news at the Asbury Park Press for 25 years. He writes APP.com's What's Going There column and can be reached at dwillis@gannettnj.com. Please sign up for his weekly newsletter and join his What's Going There page on Facebook for updates.
