“Ridiculous”: Coles new scheme outrages shoppers
A Coles shopper has sparked a debate on social media after she shared a photo of pre-packaged meat with a security tag attached to it.
The man from Griffith, NSW took to Facebook to post a photo of $30 lamb cutlets featuring a lock symbol on the top left-hand side of a packaging.
“Not a mark down but the things retailers have to do to stop theft and protect profit.”
The post garnered close to 500 comments from baffled consumers.
“Well if it wasn’t so expensive it wouldn’t be a target,” wrote one user.
“I’m not really surprised at $30 for 12 bites of meat … it’s bloody ridiculous …” said another.
“No wonder they put alarms on them at $30 pkt. They are almost same as a packet of ciggies.”
The tags are designed to set off an alarm if they are removed from the premises, but despite the outrage, there are still people who are defending the supermarket.
“Seriously though, I wouldn’t be advertising that my product has an anti-theft warning. Let the thief be caught and dealt with,” wrote one user.
“It’s ridiculously expensive but there is NO excuse for stealing! There are heaps of charities running grocery shops. Some people are too lazy to look for bargains/markdowns and don’t know how to budget,” said another.
“It wouldn’t be so expensive if we had rain all across the country and the farmers had grass and water for their stock. Guess you haven’t been in the outback to see how the animals are struggling to live,” wrote a Facebook user in response to the tags.
A spokesperson for Coles told news.com.au that while most customers do the right thing, “it’s not fair that a small number of people get away with doing the wrong thing”.
“Like a number of retailers, we work with police to reduce shoplifting. There are also trained covert security officers in our store nationally and they’re catching hundreds of thieves every week and reporting them to the police.
According to the spokesperson, the security tags is a small step to help prevent theft.