If you’ve seen someone steal from the SPAR supermarket on campus, you are not alone. A poll on our Instagram shows that 24% out of 451 voters have witnessed theft there, while another 9% claim to have done it themselves.
Supermarket theft
Our Instagram poll results are very similar to research by consultancy firm Q&A Retail, with an identical 9% admitting to shoplifting and 29% having witnessed it – showing customers on campus are neither more nor less likely to shoplift than the average supermarket customer. We were not able to ask SPAR to react, as they denied our request for an interview.
Form of resistance
One of the self-confessed shoplifters (the identity of all interviewed people is known to the editors), follows the History and International Studies programme at VU. He says he used to steal cookies, bread, chocolate bars and drinks from the campus supermarket. “It sounds like I’m a serial thief or something, but it’s not that bad. It was once every three or four weeks.”
He explains that his petty theft feels like a small form of resistance. “I don’t feel guilty because they’re mega companies with mega profits, so I don’t think it’s much of a problem for me to take something.” The history student says he comes from a poor family, always worked half of a full-time job next to his studies and finds supermarket prices too expensive.
Two others that sometimes steal from the supermarket have similar motivations. “I’m kind of a low-key communist who does not like these big industries that overprice their products and steal business from local producers”, says a law student. A philosophy student claims he’s just a poor student who wants to save money. The three students have stolen from other supermarkets as well.
Big sleeves
It doesn’t take a criminal mastermind to steal something at the self-checkout of a supermarket. The most basic technique is simply not scanning all items. And if there’s a random check? “I play the victim card and blame it on stress or not understanding how the system works”, says the law student. “If you say the right things, it’ll be fine”, says the philosophy student. The history student also has an excuse up his sleeve: he would say he wanted to pay the unscanned item with a different bank account.
Speaking of sleeves, another tactic for stealing is to hide the items altogether. The law student says she wears shirts with big sleeves to perform a slick vanishing act. She also says that one of the two items she stole on campus was a piece of fruit, because that can easily pass off as your own.
Inside job
While many shoplifters have a strategy for talking their way out of a fine, it may not be their charm or wit that gets them off easy, but rather the supermarket staff cutting them a break. Many employees at the campus SPAR are students too, and they don’t typically fine anyone. “Normally, we would have to fine them for 181 euros, but only the boss does that. The rest does the same as me”, says a SPAR employee who prefers to remain anonymous.
When they catch someone, she and her colleagues scan the items that people conveniently ‘forgot’ to scan to ensure it gets paid for. The employee was told things are taken without being scanned twenty to thirty times per day. At some point, the store management thought it was too much to just be ascribed to stealing customers. “They checked our bags to see if it wasn’t us”, says the employee.
The most expensive loot someone got away with? Eighty euros worth of liquor, sushi and chips. Although the most peculiar case of theft the employee experienced was the supermarket doormat being stolen.
Insufficient funds
VU student and campus supermarket employee Timothy Böhm says that a common trick is to pay with a card with insufficient balance. “By the time we find out the payment failed, they might already be outside.” To stop this, the supermarket does try to have at least one person by the checkout. But sometimes the customer has already run off before the staff catches on.
Customers also discovered a clever ‘life hack’ to get free coffee on campus. The SPAR University app allows people to save points to get a free coffee. But according to Böhm, some people take advantage of that by telling new supermarket employees about the special offer and then getting the coffee without scanning the one-time QR-code they’re supposed to use. They can then use that same code again the next day.
When the employees are not trying to stop snack- and doormat thieves, they apparently have plenty of other weird things to deal with. “Someone once walked in, threw up and then went out again”, says an employee. Apparently, there was also a bit of a rodent problem after the store was closed for two weeks during Christmas. “A costumer bought some milk bread that was eaten by a rat and contained rat residue. It was very disgusting and he got a refund. We do way more checkups now because of that”, says Böhm.