12 BULLETIi!^ 1044, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



in a service store, others that it is no more in the former than in the 

 latter, and some dealers believe that it exists in self-service to such 

 an extent as to make the plan entirely impracticable. It is almost 

 impossible to determine the exact percentage of loss from this cause 

 in any store. Therefore the views held are practically the result of 

 supposition and incomplete observation. 



"Don't you lose a great deal of merchandise under this plan? " is 

 the first question usualh' put to operators of self-serve stores. Under 

 all other methods of distribution the potential customers have become 

 so accustomed to having restrictions imposed upon them as to their 

 movements while in any store that they do not seem to be able to 

 grasp the feasibility of allowing free access to all merchandise. 

 Assuming that one of the impressions of the average customer in 

 first coming into a self-service store is the ease with which small 

 articles could be taken from the store without detection, since by far 

 the greater majority of people are honest in practice, no action 

 would result from it. This leaves only a small percentage who might 

 be influenced by the thought. Is it not fair to assume that a large 

 proportion of these would not put their impulses into action because 

 of their fear of detection in passing the cashier? Simultaneously 

 with the thought of stealing comes the fear of detection, and this 

 fear would overcome the impulse to steal in a majoritj- of cases. 



This leaves a very small percentage who might actually put their 

 impulses into action, but the percentage is large enough to receive 

 considerable attention. The composition of this small group, the 

 extent to which they pilfer, and the nature of their pilfering are 

 matters about which little is known. From the experience of nu- 

 merous operators, it seems that the persons who attempt to pilfer 

 are by no means confined to the poorer classes and that the articles 

 taken are not those which would be classed as necessities. The 

 articles taken are necessarily usually small and more or less high 

 priced, such as fancy sardines, anchovy paste, potted chicken, and 

 small bottles of olive oil. 



The actual extent of losses specifically from petty thievery has 

 been variously estimated from almost nothing to 4 or 5 per cent 

 of the total sales. A more common estimate is around 1 per cent. 

 Through a system of retail stock control, which will be taken up in 

 detail later, it is possible to determine rather accurately the shrink- 

 age in the merchandise from all causes. This shrinkage is the differ- 

 ence between the value at selling price of the stock placed on sale 

 and the money which is taken in, and is the result of various causes, 

 including loss through overweight, evaporation, spoilage, deteriora- 

 tion, errors made by the cashier or clerk, and petty thievery, both on 

 the part of employees and customers. It is impossible to segregate 



