Quintin Jardine's blog

I was in a clothing store yesterday in which the payment point staff have been replaced by automatic tills, in an area that the customer can only exit by scanning their receipt. The one humanstaff member there explained that the new system was introduced to cut down on theft. She told me that they had caught significant numbers of miscreants. People in their 30s in mobility chairs are disproportionately high among them apparently,

I’m all for that. The system is easy to use and thieves should be deterred. However it still means that jobs have been lost. Will those overhead savings, and the reduction in pilfered stock be passed on to customers in lowered prices, or passed on to the shareholders in increased profits?

What do you think?