Saturday, March 2, 2013

Reduce, reuse, recheck inventory

For one Seattle store, a ban on plastic bags has meant more groceries leaving the store without payment.
Mike Duke, who operates the Lake City Grocery Outlet with his wife, said that since the plastic-bag ban started last July, he's lost at least $5,000 in produce and between $3,000 and $4,000 in frozen food.
Bring your own bag and sneak something out. Or take something meant to be reused and find it trashed.
The Lake City Grocery Outlet also saw a dramatic increase in the number of hand baskets stolen after Seattle's plastic bag ban was initiated.
Shoplifters would fill up their baskets – some with purchased items and others with stolen groceries – and walk out of the store at 3020 N.E. 127th St. Duke would see the hand baskets discarded around Lake City and said the losses from the baskets and merchandise are in the thousands of dollars.
So last fall, the store did away with the remaining hand baskets to try and curb theft. But that frustrated some customers, and hasn't substantially stopped losses.
Need to recheck the policy.

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