The other day, I was carrying around a big reuseable shopping bag full of all kinds of things. There were a few bottles of wine, several bottles of hair products, and a couple of library books. It was close to full, awkwardly-shaped, heavy, and rattling. When I put it in a small shopping cart at Dominion, it took up nearly the whole cart.
Then it occurred to me that it would be the easiest thing ever to shoplift with that thing. I select something off the shelf, put it in my cart with no particular care, it could easily end up in the bag by accident. It wouldn't be readily noticeable to myself or others, and it could totally plausibly happen by accident. I could go through the checkout with an assortment of cheap groceries, have one or two expensive things accidentally fall into my bag, and claim "Oh, shit, terribly sorry, it was a total accident, of course I'll pay for those!" if called out on it.
If you're using one of those stiffer rectangular bags that stores keep trying to sell you for a dollar, you could totally walk around with it heavy and full, put it down on the ground as you browse the cosmetics shelf, then accidentally knock things over and have one or two of them land in the bag. The bag is there, wide open. Putting it down is perfectly natural if it's heavy. And I don't know about you, but I accidentally knock stuff down half the time I shop for make-up.
I wonder if stores have noticed a difference in shoplifting rates since people started carrying around these behemoths.
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