Companies want insurance to pay for their losses, and it turns out the only thing the videos find on self-checkout stands is that customers are frustrated that the machine is calling them a thief, when the shoplifters, big surprise, don't stand around in line for 15 minutes to walk out the door without paying.
The loss prevention person at the door is more likely to find items you left behind than to stop a shoplifter, but insurance demands it.
And the false positives on those little loss control tags is so high that most of the time workers aren't even going to look your direction if something sets it off. Once again, this is all crap required by insurance.
Shoplifters don't care about any of this. They just grab what they want and leave.
I work for a retailer and we certainly do not use a third party insurer, and I don't see why any other consumer retailer selling inexpensive merchandise would use insurance. It is priced in.
In fact, we use RFID tracking to know when goods are stolen, not to save money, not to catch shoplifters, but to improve inventory management and ensure that we get a replacement item on the shelf to avoid losing sales.
There's the other kind of shrink at self-checkout where somebody weighs their produce bag of fair trade, heirloom organic apples; and "accidentally" keys them in as the cheap variety. This is pretty common.
The loss prevention person at the door is more likely to find items you left behind than to stop a shoplifter, but insurance demands it.
And the false positives on those little loss control tags is so high that most of the time workers aren't even going to look your direction if something sets it off. Once again, this is all crap required by insurance.
Shoplifters don't care about any of this. They just grab what they want and leave.