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Imagine showing up at a grocery store late at night, only to find it completely unstaffed. In Tel Aviv, that's exactly what happened when the cashier left unexpectedly, leaving the store unlocked and unattended. Instead of taking advantage of the situation, customers treated the shop like a “self-checkout” store, taking charge and manning the register themselves, the Times of Israel reports. The owner was shocked and encouraged by the customers’ honesty.
An accidental honor system
The incident occurred on a Friday night, the store’s peak shopping hours, at a market on Even Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv. The cashier who had been assigned to manned the register took ill and left suddenly, without letting the owners know. The owner, Shiko Altid, didn’t find out that the store was unmanned for an entire hour, until one customer called the shop’s security, who alerted the owner.
Altid told Ynet he had initially panicked on hearing that the store was left unattended and open. “ “In a panic, I immediately checked the security cameras, expecting to see chaos with tens of thousands of shekels in products scattered throughout the store, Altid explained. “To my surprise, just minutes after [the cashier] left, the customers began to scan the products themselves.”
"Two or three customers took charge, helping each other scan items,” Altid continued. “They even tried to figure out how to work the credit card machine, and every time the cash drawer opened, they quickly shut it to avoid any misunderstandings or theft. They even gave each other the correct change from the register. It was incredible.”
Altid said that one of his regular customers even appointed themselves as volunteer cashier, and that not a penny was stolen in the entire hour the store had been left open.
"One customer stayed at the register for 15 minutes, checking out one person after another and leaving the money in the register with receipts. It was amazing,” Altid said. We later checked both the registers and the cameras, and nothing was missing! No one stole anything, and no one left without paying. I was in shock—this was Friday night in the center of Tel Aviv, with the store completely open. It could have been a disaster."
Later, Altid hung up a sign in his store thanking his honest clientele. Altid told ynet that the notice read,"We want to thank each and every one of you for your loyalty, integrity, and dedicated actions. We’d appreciate it if those who were at the register could contact us so we can properly thank you and reward your efforts."
However, only one customer — the one who had been in touch with security – reached out to Altid and received a thank-you voucher. The rest of the honest customers simply paid and left, not expecting or seeking any thanks for their laudable actions.
High-trust societies
Such heartwarming stories are inspiring, but not out of place for high-trust societies. In 2018, in Israel, Israel Today shares that a grocery lost power as they were checking out dozens of customers before a busy holiday. Not wanting to send the shoppers home empty handed, the store manager, Tzvi Abraham, told the customers, “Take your groceries and go home. Come back and pay next week.”
Sure enough, after the weekend, all the customers returned back to pay in full, having made their own lists and accountings of the full shopping carts they had walked away from the store with.
In Japan, another high-trust society, Japan Today reports on a used electronics store, called GO12, selling expensive items like refrigerators and computers, that operates completely on the honor system.
It’s these cultures and these circumstances that demonstrates that most people are honest and will rise to the occasion if given the chance. During an era when many stores are replacing human cashiers with self-checkout, there are apparently some circumstances where no checkout monitor is needed.
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