Sainsbury's brings in new self-service measures which shoppers say 'are ridiculous'

Sainsbury’s anti-fraud efforts are causing friction at self-service tills. The supermarket giant, which is rivalled by Tesco, Morrisons, Asda, Lidl and Aldi, wants to clamp down on fake discount coupons is causing friction at self-service checkouts.

Sainsbury's has been rolling out new anti-fraud measures to its self-service tills in response to a surge in the use of fake coupons across its stores. Self-checkouts are now unable to process the yellow barcodes added to reduced-to-clear items as a result.

“We have range of security measure in place in our stores, including processes to prevent fraud. We continue to accept genuine coupons, vouchers and reductions and are sorry for the inconvenience this slightly longer checkout process may cause,” a Sainsbury’s spokeswoman told The Grocer.

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One shopper fumed: "The self service till area at my 'big' Sainsbury's is hideously cramped, and there is never a 'normal' till open anymore. I get that there is theft and it affects the bottom line, but inconveniencing the 99% of honest shopper's for the actions of the few is the wrong way to go about it."

Another shopper shared on Mumsnet, a popular parenting forum: "I picked up some reduced smoked salmon in Sainsbo's today, but at the self-checkout, it came up as full price. An assistant altered it and told me they have to do it manually as people are able to make their own yellow sticker barcodes and are using them on self-checkouts. Unbelievable!"

And another customer commented: "Yes, yellow reduced stickers don’t work in Sainsbury's anymore, which is really annoying when you self-checkout." Sainsbury's is rivalled by the likes of Asda, Morrisons, Lidl, Aldi and more.

It operates stores across Birmingham and throughout the wider West Midlands region, and is one of the so called Big Four retailers and grocery chains in the UK.