Japan supermarkets grapple with shoplifters as self-checkout machines plug staff shortages

Japanese supermarkets have been caught by surprise over an unpleasant side effect of self-checkout systems installed to plug staff shortages – soaring cases of shoplifting.

The Mainichi newspaper reported that the first self-checkouts were introduced in Japan in 2003, with an estimated 14.3 per cent of all supermarkets operating the system in 2019. That figure jumped to around 30 per cent in 2022, in part as supermarkets sought new ways to limit interactions between staff and customers during the coronavirus pandemic.

And while the National Supermarket Association is reluctant to provide statistics on shoplifting, it is believed that around 80 per cent of such cases occur when customers fail to scan their purchases at the self-service checkouts and that some stores are experiencing a 30 per cent increase in losses, according to media reports.

Shinichi Ishizuka, director of the criminology research centre at Kyoto’s Ryukoku University, noted that the scanners made shoplifting an “easy” crime.

“It would be so easy not to scan something and just put it in [a] bag,” he said.

Makoto Watanabe, a professor of media and communications at Hokkaido Bunkyo University in Sapporo, said fundamental changes in Japanese society were enabling people to make the conscious decision to steal.

“The economy has been weak for 30 years now and it has become substantially worse since the coronavirus outbreak. Now we have prices for everyday items rising, salaries static and no signs that situation is going to change any time soon,” he said. “People simply have less to spend, and for those who are struggling, this is an easy opportunity.”

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He suggested youth mischief was another factor.

“A separate problem is the young people who no longer have a sense of what is right or wrong and who do not think stealing is a big problem,” he said.

Concerned at the scale of their losses, supermarket operators are deploying countermeasures that include training staff to look out for the signs of shoplifting at the self-checkout machines and installing monitors that are clearly marked as antitheft measures.

Some stores are also posting pictures of people who have been caught stealing, a powerful deterrent in a country where loss of face is very important.