Coles staff told to ‘assist’ shoppers in scanning bulky items to stem theft

Coles is instructing staff to “assist” customers with scanning larger items before other groceries at its self-serve checkouts as part of a series of measures designed to help prevent theft amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

The supermarket chain has been rolling out upgrades to in-store technology to stem rising rates of shoplifting, which increased 20 per cent in the 2022-23 financial year. The measures include upgrading self-checkout terminals to embed “bottom of trolley” technology, which detects when a customer has a larger item and prompts them to scan it. The technology has been rolled out across at least 187 stores.

Coles says its staff are encouraged to help shoppers wherever possible.

Skip-scan technology, which detects and shows a top-down video recording of a customer scanning or failing to scan an item, has also been implemented in 346 stores. Meanwhile, smart gates, which slide open when a customer has paid for their groceries, have been rolled out in 286 stores, according to Coles’ latest quarterly documents.

Multiple Coles workers confirmed to the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union that team members were “expected” to offer customers help with scanning bulky items first and that the expectations are tied to company metrics.

“They have an expectation of 50 per cent [assistance] for team members,” said one worker who requested anonymity. Another said: “They have a matrix that they are comparing to other stores. Our store is always in trouble for having the lowest compliance.”

A different Coles staffer said some co-workers were feeling additional pressure and “guilt-tripped” from failing to meet these targets. “The service manager posts daily updates in the group chat of bulk-scan results percentages. Daily reports. This way, one can find out if they were the person working when ‘bulk’ percentages were low,” they said.

“Sometimes, bulk will be going through at two [check-out] machines at the same time, and it’s impossible to be in two places at once. So, in that case, bulk is missed, and the report that gets posted doesn’t recognise this.”

Coles said in a statement that its team members were encouraged to help customers where possible.

Union secretary Josh Cullinan in 2022.Credit: Cameron Atfield

“When a customer has certain items, this may include bulky or heavy items, our team will offer to assist them in scanning the items when checking out,” said a spokesperson.

“This is all about providing great service to our customers and helping them get through the checkouts quickly and efficiently.”

However, Retail and Fast Food Workers Union national secretary Josh Cullinan said it was understandable if Coles workers felt reticent to intervene and ask a customer if they wanted help checking out groceries.

“There’s a dishonesty from Coles because Coles is presenting it as assistance, support, help. No one sees it that way,” he told this masthead. “This is about stock loss. That just increases the chances of confrontation and conflict, and that’s what we don’t like.”

Rival supermarket Woolworths does not instruct staff to assist with scanning bulky items and is not embedding technology to do so.

Shoplifting and organised retail crime have become an increasingly concerning issue amid the cost-of-living crisis, with Australian retailers losing an estimated $15 million a day.

Often organised criminals are targeting high-value items, such as red meat, baby formula, vitamins and electronics.

Retail staff are also dealing with higher rates of aggression by customers: 60 per cent of in-store thefts are conducted by the same 10 per cent of people, with organised criminals four times more likely to be aggressive, according to data from retail crime intelligence platform Auror.

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