SweetHeart Syndrome at checkouts

The question was, if there was any way in terms of an innovative technology solution to avoid the "Sweetheart Syndrome" at the tills. The SweetHeart Syndrome is defined as cashiers who give their friends and family items either "not scanned" or scanned at lower values. My response was that this is indeed a problem faced by all retail businesses worldwide. There have been several methods to try and manage the situation. While some methods rely on new technology, most  successful methods use the psychological power of the Big Brother Syndrome effectively . If cashiers are made aware of the fact that they are being watched and that their actions have definite consequences, they will think twice before attempting to to defraud their employer.  Listed below are some of the prevention strategies available.

We will probably achieve the best result with a solution that uses a combination of some or all of the following techniques. 

Strategy One 

We will ask you to create an independent  security division that examines all video footage after the fact with the audit trail of all items scanned. This assessment will be done at faster than realtime speeds so the security crew will be able to examine a days recording in an hour or so. 

Every days footage will be transferred after hours to this new division and they will maintain a roster to make sure that every cashier gets audited at least once a week. The audit will be guided by a list of behaviours that are not allowed. Examples of transgressions would be dress code violations, unprofessional behaviour, unhygienic habits, and security breaches, with regards passwords, discounts, and items not scanned. Each cashier will routinely get a pink slip with a list of violations, together with date and time of offence. This will soon create the atmosphere of "being watched" and the resulting accountability will over a short period reduce the extent of the problem. Strategy TwoThe security guards at the exit point would be asked  to select every tenth customers goods to be rescanned. This overt procedure will dramatically increase the dishonest customer's  chances of getting caught. This will lead to the reduction of the theft, as the risk would appear too high. Strategy ThreeWe would use the rotational stock adjustment method to create a dynamic hot list of high risk items. Assessed daily.This list could then be used to assess the success of the various strategies. Examples of strategies to reduce risk would be the relocation of high risk items, to safer locations, and the hiring of more staff to secure high loss items. The system would be used to assess the success of any strategy, in that an item that has been secured should no longer be on the "high risk" list. One might even assess the fall in sales agains the rise in security and find a balance between the two that yields the best turnover, at the lowest acceptable theft risk. 

Finally. The introduction of average mass of products and the average mass of basket based on the known mass of individual products is a very intricate and costly affair. NCR's Self checkout systems are a good example of how the technology can help reduce loss from either not scanning products, or scanning the wrong barcodes. These solutions will prove costly in terms of the hardware and infrastructure investment one will need to bring into play. As I mentioned earlier, we will have to find a solution that uses all or a mix of the above

Feb 2013