A Five Below shopper claims an employee bought items for herself on the shopper’s dime. Mali Monroe (@therealmalimonroe) is now warning shoppers against accepting help from Five Below workers.
Her video has over 131,000 views on the platform.
“Yeah, so I took my son to Five Below to pick his little friend out something for Valentine’s Day, right?” she explains.
She says the worker came over to help her check out.
“She ringing me out. I turn my head for a hot second. This [expletive] done rung up something for herself. On my [expletive]. And then when I go back, she want to act like she don’t know what … going on,” she says.
Taking advantage of new protocol?
Several commenters who responded to Monroe’s video speculated this may be a direct result of new product scanning practices.
“They have to check us out now because of thieves. But they’re the ones that are actually stealing,” one said.
Others shared their similar experiences at Five Below.
“It happened to my sister at the Suffolk, VA location,” another said.
“It happened to me one time at 5 below,” a third shared.
Self-scanning gone?
One Redditor who uploaded a post to the site’s r/FiveBelow sub wrote about a 2024 shopping experience there. According to them, a store worker scanned “the entirety of” their order at a self-checkout kiosk.
This user said they felt that their shopping experience was “aggravating.”
“It’s absolutely aggravating every single time. They never say a word, just come straight up into my business. And no signage was placed to indicate the change. I can’t be the only one peeved by this,” they expressed.
Consequently, the Five Below shopper said that this practice has made them not want to shop at the retailer any longer.
More assisted scanning
Additionally, other Five Below shoppers said that they, too, noticed self-scanning has seemingly disappeared from stores. A Retail Watchers forum contained posts delineating similar experiences to the one the aforementioned Reddit user penned.
“Five Below, has a policy in place that customers can no longer scan their own items or do anything on the self checkout screen. The store employee is to perform scanning of items, bagging of items, and all on screen functions. The only thing the customer can interact with is the pinpad,” a user on the site wrote.
Like commenters in the Reddit post, Retail Watchers users attributed this self-checkout change as a means of curbing theft. However, several stated they would prefer using traditional checkout lanes to this.
One shared, “I would be fine if they had several cashiers at regular check stands. Just make sure the registers are staffed, and I would gladly use a cashier.”
Sales woes
The Philadelphia Business Journal also wrote in March of 2024 that the store has “limited” its usage of self-checkout terminals. This plan was implemented after the store’s shares dropped over 15%—a response to the disappointing Q4 2023 results, the law firm KTMC states.
@therealmalimonroe #5below #fyp #bademployees #nashvilletn #viralvideo #beaware ♬ original sound – Mali Monroe
The Daily Dot has reached out to Five Below and Monroe via email for further comment.
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