This is all a ploy from Big Grocery to psychologically pressure you to buy something.
In Australia at Coles supermarkets, you get frequently blocked by the stupid new AI monitored smart gates if you have not purchased anything and it requires a staff member to open the gates. All done in an attempt to address increasing instances of shoplifting. A better approach, in a cost of living crisis, to reduce shoplifting is to not keep raising grocery prices constantly and advertising now proven misleading discounts. Coles and Woolworths have been making record profits during this time. The real theft is happening in the stores but not by the shoppers.
Fire code allows the gate to stop you?
Sure there are fire codes, but this is about property rights. Which one is more important?
Not sure about this gate here, but in my company we do have gates and need to scan our company ID to enter or leave the building. If there’s a fire and the alert is on, then the gate will just automatically open up and let you out
Happened to me last week. Went inside to buy a snack, they didn’t have my favorite, so I decided against a snack. I left the store by crawling under the gate :) (nl, not australia)
The trick is to steal shit then buy something.
Easier than ever with self-checkout
I have literally been waved through by overwhelmed employees managing 6+ kiosks on their own with scales calibrated too sensitive and no human checkout for people with booze and produce.
The funnier one of these that I’ve done a handful of times is leaving the drive thru without purchasing anything.
I wanted breakfast or nothing, McDonald’s.
As anyone who’s ever worked in fast food will tell you, they don’t give a fuck.
The old man at the door is asking for a receipt.
RUN!!!
I always just saw NO. My wife ignores them. Motherfuckers make us check ourselves out and have enough cameras on me to count my nose hairs. Fuckers aren’t going stop me after I am done shopping.
For anyone reading in the US just know that a Costco membership does consent this searching before leaving, so don’t be an asshole to the checkers while leaving Costco.
Its terrible how inconvenient shops have made it nowadays to leave if you haven’t bought anything.
Some shops you’ve got to walk the entire loop around, some shops you’ve got to awkwardly squeeze through the till queues, and some you have get staff to let you out.
Its frankly ridiculous. I’m thankful for shops that don’t block off their exit. Requires more trust in shoppers, but that trust is appreciated and keeps me wanting to come back in the future.
I only go to those ones. It means their actual security, if they have it, is going to be flooded with false positives.
I miss Amazon Fresh, the physical store near me.
When they started up I’d just scan a barcode, walk in, and the whole idea was to just grab what you want off the shelf and walk out.
They had a LOT of cameras everywhere, and they claimed it was some AI thing checking what everyone is picking up, which then charges your account etc. (later found out it was just a bunch of guys in India looking at the cameras lol).I got so many free things they just didn’t notice. I don’t know if it was the large jacket I was wearing, or something else, but I managed to get free meals almost every time I visited.
No guilt since it’s Amazon, and they replaced that store with a Tesco Express so everything worked out.
As someone who has worked in a grocery store. Absolutely no one who noticed it cared unless you came in like 5minutes before closing, take 20+ minutes walking around and then walk out without buying anything, now that would be annoying as fuck.
I feel this in my yesterday, when I went to the freakin’ WAL*MART for something they had but no one else did in the area – and yes, this means I supported the local staff at a local store working for a local manager who eventually pays something to a guy living far away who never lived here, vs supporting local staff at a local store working for a local owner who lives far away in a sunny place. Fuck me, right?
Anyway, they had it. It was under glass. I couldn’t find anyone with a key and a desire to help. I left. But, yeah, on the way out, I was hyper-aware that I’d browsed for a bit, I was wearing a backpack, and I didn’t have a receipt for anything. I was expecting to be challenged every moment until I’d left.
I hate that thieves have made them paranoid, and we’re accustomed to expecting a hassle in response.
I’m a real estate photographer, and one rule of the job is not to use the bathroom in the house we’re shooting. So, I often find myself going into gas stations and grocery stores to use theirs, often without buying anything. I’m quickly getting over the feeling in the meme!
The rule makes sense, as almost all of the houses I shoot have just been deep-cleaned and possibly staged in preparation for an open house and showings. Vacant houses are common, too, so there are no supplies like towels or toilet paper.
i thought i was paranoid for feeling this way. it if isn’t the obvious surveillance, it’s the security guard standing near the front or the employees scrutinizing you.
this phenomena is most extreme at stores like burlington/marshalls, where they’ll often rope off the entrance and have an employee dressed up like a swat team member to discourage criminal activity.
old man take: you used to only see this bullshit at stores in the worst neighborhoods and that only started popping up around the crash of 2008.
This reminds me of a story when I was a student. A girl/young woman I know was looking for her friend. Mobile phones was not really something we had but she arranged meeting him at some bar/pub but she didn’t know which one in town. So she then went through town checking one after the other. This was a small town with not that many but it took her much longer than it should. Later she explained she had ordered a drink in each one of the establishments as she felt uncomfortable entering and exiting looking for her friend without ordering something.
Learning to be okay making others, especially ownersz uncomfortable. Best skill.
what has consumerism done to people…
Some of us are just naturally anxious all the time.
Not being a farmer, I need to go to a place and buy my food from that place. I’m sorry to derail your cause.
you… don’t understand what im refering to, im refering to the feeling of needing to buy things and feeling weird leaving a store empty handed.
I remembered one incident that happened to me, I did not choose anything, because there was no necessary product in the store, I went to the exit from the store, but before leaving, the security guard grabbed me by the wrist.
I ended up having to turn out all my pockets and partially take off my clothes damn, I’m so ashamed that I remembered it. Apparently, my behavior turned out to be suspicious.
Since then, I no longer leave the store empty-handed.
Sounds like the security guard was just a knob
If this was in the US, you didn’t have to do that. The most they can do is detain you until the police arrive if they have probable cause under shopkeeper’s privilege. They would have to be able to articulate which behavior rose to that level. It may make things easier to comply, but removing clothing is unreasonable.
That security guard should be ashamed!
(edit: Yes, and arrested for assault!)
Ashamed and arrested for assault. Being a “gaurd” doesn’t give you right to grab someone and coerces them into stripping.
don’t be.
I do it all the time. I walk back to get something specific and more often than not they are out these days. Its usually a sale item and I missed it.
