気ままなリライト２６

「買い物カゴ持ち去り」泣き寝入り　レジ袋有料化で多発

Customers’ pent-up frustration has been turning themselves into guilt-free store shopping basket thieves, especially since the supermarket stores charged customers for plastic bags in July 2020. For many customers taking plastic bags as freebies for granted, the paid service for plastic bags is making penny-pinching customers feel overcharged, leaving them feeling unhappy about the checks. Their frustration fed by a financial funk is running deep enough to justify what they are doing as rule breakers. In most cases, they are getting away with it, anticipating supermarket stores’ weak-kneed approach to the problem.
 
The loss of store shopping plastic baskets is giving supermarket managers a headache as customers are taking the baskets and walking out the doors with them without a sense of guilt. With an increase in the number of the baskets lost after the paid service for plastic bags, many supermarkets are having a hard time dealing with basket thieves unhappy about buying plastic bags.
 
Although the loss of store baskets isn’t a laughing matter to supermarkets, few supermarkets are willing to file a police report about basket theft. The loss of store baskets costs stores about 300 yen each. Many supermarkets, however, tend to overlook their customers’ misdemeanors. A store manager in Nerima Ward, Tokyo says, “Talking regular customers out of taking away the baskets is an awkward job. I know, and they know that some rules run deeper than the ones on paper. We don’t want to treat them in the same way as shoplifters.” A store manager in Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture says, “More than 200 baskets have been stolen since a charge for plastic bags was imposed. When I stopped a customer trying to take a store basket through the exit doors, the customer said that he would give it back later and lending a regular customer like him a basket was bothering me?”
 
Behind the basket losses supermarket chains are suffering is a growing number of store customers reduced to imposing a restraint in outing on themselves due to the pandemic scare. Stores with a lot of customers make it hard for store employees to keep an eye on basket thieves. Moreover, it is difficult to judge whether customers are stealing store baskets or not as some customers are putting groceries in their own baskets bought at other supermarket chains. While sales in supermarkets across the country are increasing, basket theft cases exposed by police investigations are increasing in number.
 
Some grocery stores are taking a measure to prevent customers from leaving with store baskets. A grocery store in Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture is making cashiers replace the baskets with two carrying handles customers use during shopping with the baskets without handles at the checkout counters. The store manager says, “Despite the warnings against basket theft posted in the store, more than ten baskets are lost every month. They get nowhere, but it is better than doing nothing.”