Scan your receipt to exit? Loblaw facing backlash as it tests receipt scanners at self-checkout

In an attempt to combat theft at its stores, Loblaw is testing receipt scanners at four of its locations, the grocery giant told CBC News. 

Customers who go through self-checkout must use the device to scan their receipt's barcode — confirming that they paid something — which opens a metal gate, letting them leave. 

Loblaw didn't provide any further details, but CBC discovered the devices in a Loblaw-owned Zehrs and two Superstore supermarkets in southern Ontario.

Several shoppers were unhappy about them. 

"It's very intrusive. It makes you feel like a thief," said Paul Zemaitis, who recently discovered a scanner at his local Zehrs in Woodstock, Ont., some 70 kilometres west of Hamilton.

He said when leaving the self-checkout area, he didn't notice the scanner, so he pushed open the exit gate, prompting a loud alarm to go off. 

"I said, 'What the hell's going on? I paid already.'"

Zemaitis said a store employee helped him scan his receipt so he could leave without setting off the alarm again. 

"It's just not a customer-friendly tactic," he said. 

Jonathan Hayes says he also had a bad experience with the receipt scanner at the same store.

"It just introduced so much extra chaos," he said. 

"You had some people, especially a lot of elderly folks, were completely unaware this was a new thing, and were just pushing their carts through the closed gate," said Hayes. "It would trigger alarms. There were alarms going off maybe every one to two minutes."

He said using the scanner delayed the time it took for shoppers to exit the store. He was happy to see, when he returned a week later, that the device was out of commission — at least temporarily. 

"Times are tough right now," said Hayes, referring to grocery prices which have risen 22.5 per cent since 2020, according to Statistics Canada.