Walmart loses a lot of money each year to theft, close to $3 billion a year in theft. There are many reasons that this can possibly happen. One major reason that this can take place is that they have door greeters that are not capable within the company policy to detain shoplifters. Another reason that the company loses $3 billion a year to theft is not having the proper staffing available to watch the entrances and exits. The only thing a door greeter can do is ask for the person’s receipt and if they did pay for an item, they either can ask the person to go pay for it or get a manager to handle the situation.

This leaves Walmart at a huge disadvantage. With an increasing amount of risk takers in the country, it is a huge dilemma that the company is looking to fix. They are trying to have more people guard the door when a normal door greeter is on lunch or has the day off. They are also trying to fix the problem by having “younger” people at the door and having two people at the door at a time instead of just one. In that case, people sometimes go out the “enter” and in the “out” entrances. The Asset Protection associates, the associates who try to prevent theft from happening, are not allowed to tackle someone and they also cannot go out into the parking lot. The reason they are not allowed to physically touch an assailant is so Walmart or the associate has the chance to face assault charges.

Another major problem of the theft issue is the attitude of the associates working for Walmart. The main problem of their attitude is them not caring about the issue. If a non-greeter is guarding the door to cover the greeter on their lunch or on the greeters day off, the alarm typically goes off quite a few times a day. The associate at the door will take a quick glance at the receipt and give it back to the shoppers. This dispassionate attitude is one of the reasons that Walmart is losing so much. Half the time, the associate just lets them walk out anyway. What you are supposed to do is check “BOB” items and “LISA” items. BOB stands for “bottom of basket” and LISA stands for “look inside always.” It is mandatory that you check most items like this and mandatory that they check all if the alarm happens to go off. This is one of the main issues that is going on in the Walmart stores.

It will take some time for the company to resolve the issue of the lost money and the increasing amount of theft. But in the meantime, they have approached the issue at hand over the next few years to a decade possibly.