With Christmas on Tuesday, the last-minute holiday shopping this weekend should make for some of the biggest spending all year. Those busy stores are also going to be on the lookout for shoplifters, especially in self-checkout lanes, where it is a big problem.
At a supermarket in Sedalia, Mo., people are stocking up for their traditional holiday dinners. Employees help customers at the store's four self-service lanes, but every so often they catch items that customers did not scan.
With a smile and a helping hand, the employees are there to make sure all of a customer's items get scanned and paid for.
"That is what we call aggressive hospitality," says Doug Haworth, who is in charge of loss prevention at Wood's Supermarkets. He says the aggressive hospitality is a tactic to reduce theft.
"At self-checkout, if the intent is to leave the store without paying for anything, what we've seen is they usually make it worth their while," he says.