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Apple Arrest Puts Heat On Mobile Checkout Policies
Let’s do a quick list of the ways this situation was handled in the worst possible way.
First, a store never wants to accuse a shopper of stealing unless the store is quite confident that the shopper was, in fact, stealing. If there’s any reasonable doubt at all, commonsense dictates that it’s better to let 10 possible shoplifters go than to arrest one innocent customer.
In this case, though, it’s not even an issue of letting the customer go. You don’t let him or her leave. You simply ask that the customer complete the transaction. For a nice touch of class, the LP person could even apologize; as in, “I am so sorry. This is a new app and it can be confusing at times. If you just click here and then here, you should be fine. My apologies for the inconvenience.”
Second—and this is potentially a much bigger corporate issue—this is a new form of payment. As news of this arrest has spread across the country—and it has spread—how do you think that will impact other Apple shoppers who had been thinking about trying this app? “They arrested somebody for inadvertently not processing the purchase properly? There’s no way I am going to try it. I’ll either wait in line or check out these new Androids.”
The problem with the mobile app is that the lack of intent cuts both ways. It makes it easy to pretend to pay for the product. But if LP asks to see everyone’s receipt—in the way, for example, Costco does—or at least asks to see the receipt for anyone trying to leave with an RFID-tagged product the system doesn’t think was paid for, that’s a shoplift that won’t succeed. And if customers are routinely made to go back and pay or to leave the product behind, minimal losses should result. (Customers can always slip by, especially if the store is crowded. Do you think the Apple Store in NYC won’t be, say around December 15?)
StorefrontBacktalk Legal Columnist—and former federal prosecutor—Mark Rasch has argued before that mobile will force shoplifting processes to be rethought. But looking at the Apple incident raises new questions. “If you go to the grocery store and the clerk fails to ring up an item—or an item doesn’t scan properly—are you guilty of theft when you pay the amount on the register?” Rasch asked. “Is there a legal obligation to report the undercharge to the associate? Does it matter if you know the item hasn’t been rung up? Is the intent non-existent if you weren’t really paying attention?”
What about glitches? What if a customer does everything properly but the app doesn’t properly show a receipt? Or the receipt arrived and then was either deleted by accident or it deleted itself via a glitch? Will LP just follow orders and have everyone arrested?
This is not just an Apple issue. Walmart is trying out in-store mobile checkout, JCPenney is saying it will do so and many other stores are being pushed by PayPal, Google Wallet and others to do the same. Shoplifting policies need to be radically reworked in a mobile self-checkout world, unless chains want to discover what massive customer alienation feels like.
-Marc
September 7th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Mobile check-out has the same challenges as self-checkout stations by putting trust on the customer to pick from inventory,conduct the transaction and walk out the store without interaction.
Most shoplifters believe they are smarter than the retail security system and the shoplifter game goal is to outsmart the retailer with the prize of the shoplifted item. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the case, which was a very expensive pair of headphones.
September 7th, 2012 at 10:56 am
Good point, Ed, but as the story points out, the security issues involving mobile go beyond self-checkout security. ‘Tis not the same issues in the sense that self-checkout transactions are observed in one place, by the associate managing those SCO lanes. In the Walmart story this week, the associate merely sees the shopper scan the single barcode from her phone. This robs her of the ability to notice if she deliberately does NOT scan several items. (Granted, that can be detected with in-aisle cameras, but it’s much more complicated. The system–or associates–needs to notice that a specific customer is using mobile and then notice she doesn’t scan certain items in certain aisles.) In the Apple Store example, a scan can happen but the process may not be properly completed–deliberately or inadvertently.
None of these issues are unsolvable, but the belief that mobile self-checkout presents no security issues beyond traditional POS self-checkout is a very dangerous thought.