lola !!

first and foremost, always conceal in a blindspot! if there aren’t any natural ones, duck down to create one or, if you’re with a lifting buddy, have them stand between you and the camera.

♥ clothing rack

pick up an item and walk over to a clothing rack. go to a clothing rack and, with the same hand as the item, pretend to look through the clothes. as your hand is deep in the rack, either sleeve the item or drop it into your purse. this is a great, natural way to create a blindspot.

♥ double and sleeve

this is the most basic sleight-of-hand and is something every lifter needs to have in their tool belt. this works for long and small items, like lipgloss or mascara. grab two of the same item, hold them as if they’re one, and slide one into your sleeve. you can do this while swinging your arm to propel the item into your sleeve, or just put it subtly in with your fingers.

♥ drop

this works for bigger items. wedge several items between your elbow and ribs. “accidentally” drop one of them from your elbow into your bag as if you had too many items and one of them just fell into your bag accidentally.

♥ lightning conceal

this one is literally just putting something into your purse as quickly as possible. ONLY do this in a blindspot as it’s very obvious the intent is to steal the item.

♥ starbucks cup

get an opaque coffee cup, cut an X into the bottom, and shove little items (concealer, lip gloss, mascara etc) into it. if you do it properly they shouldn’t fall you. you can also pad the cup.

♥ food bag

get a bag of food from the mall food court. eat some and leave some food in there. drop items into your bag. if you get sussed, you can eat food out of the bag. an alternative of this is to put a hole in the side of the bag and put items through the hole rather than just through the top of the bag.

♥ armpit

tuck something under your armpit and either walk out with it there or walk to a blindspot and lightning conceal.

♥ long skirt

wear tight spandex and, when squatting in front of a low shelf at sephora or ulta, push your skirt up slightly and slide a small item into it. pallettes may fit in the waistband. make sure you practice this at home to make sure they’re tight enough and nothing will fall out.

♥ phone

hold something small between your hand and your phone and then put your phone and item back into your purse like you’re only holding your phone.

Source:

I usually pick them up together and hold them in one hand, then pull my hand back under something I was already carrying. Usually a jacket I came in with, so SAs wont try and take it from me when going into a fitting room. And yes, you CAN bring jackets around in the summer without looking weird. 

Here is an up to date 2026 se4uh masterlist I created.

My credentials: I used to work there, and I’ve successfully l1fted a shit ton of things from there. My hauls are kinda insane ngl.

The employees: -Every employee gets a training module about sh0pl1fters. We are told to just customer service them, offer a basket, and say something like “how is that sephora collection lip gloss working for you?” if we saw them conceal that exact item for example. We cannot chase you outside if you leave with merchandise. The modules say not to stereotype people and do not make assumptions based on appearance but…more on that later.

-We cannot accuse people of st3@aling however sometimes managers will do it anyways. There was an incident: 3 girls came in and were rushing right up to expensive perfume gift boxes and dior. They started taking stuff rapidly. The manager said over the headset “we are being r0bbed” even tho thats not allowed as told by our training modules. WE WERE NOT ALLOWED to call police as they left. However one of them did slightly push a team member as she was rushing to leave and that made my manager very excited: that meant se4uh could press more charges and count that as “assalt”. A few days later manager informed us that LP identified one of them as she had a previous record of lifting and she was arrested. Moral of the story: Dont be obvious and rushing to the expensive stuff. And DO NOTTTT touch employees or push them or anything. I know that sounds obvious but seriously it was just a light brush of the shoulder and the girl got more charges against her. 

-We used to call known l1fters that we see on the floor “Nora's” as a code word to communicate through our headsets but not anymore. 

-Some stores hire private security but they are not police. Those ppl will clearly be labeled just security and hang near the front. They get bored and essentially stand around all day. If you are ever caught by one tho, and they tell you to come to the back with them. DO NOT. JUST KEEP WALKING. NO COP=NO STOP. You should know this.

-We offer baskets to everyone so if you are offered one that doesn't automatically mean we are sussing you out. However if you start getting constantly customer serviced, you’ve been caught and you need to GFTO. 

SHIFTS: Every hour we would change “Zones” **which were just areas we were assigned to walk around and provide customer service to clients. Register is called Cashwrap, so if you hear someone being told to go to Cashwrap they are going to the register. **good time to lift as everyone is moving zones and getting adjusted. Some employees go to lunch as well**

-Some employees unfortunately are plain racist. A fellow employee pulled me aside and said she knew a couple was “planning to sh0pl1ft” so she immediately greeted them and started talking to them and following them around. They were POC and I guarantee you if they where white, she would not have done that. So very sadly and unfortunately, it is harder for POC to not be sussed out in the store. (This of course depends on each employees personal biases.)

-We do keep an eye on what you have in hand and if that goes missing from your hands.

-We do check inventory on the spot sometimes, one time a manager said that 15 l@neigeee lip moisturizers were stolen after checking the count on the floor vs the amount sold

-“Shrink” is the name of overall loss of product from lifting.

-We are told about other stores in the area who experience incidents of heavy th3ft. For example, one store had two girls wearing large skirts who would open the drawers, cover it with their skirts and take a bunch of product and put them in their pockets of pants they wore under the skirts. We are given descriptions of these people and are told to be on the lookout.

The Managers/LP:

-There is a computer monitor with live camera footage in the back, in the manager's office. 

-Regional LP makes occasional visits and will talk with managers. Ive seen them go through footage together especially after known incidents of th3ft.

-Internal th3ft is taken very seriously. We cannot leave the building without our bags and pockets being checked by management. 

-LP is mostly worried about internal th3ft, ORC (organized ret@il cr1me), and larger incidents of th3ft. They case build. If you keep coming to the same store, or the same storeS in the same region, they will know. 

The store:

-Tagged items: Fragrances are 99% of the time always tagged with an EAS 58khz barcode tag. We deactivate the tag by sliding it across the counter which has some type of magnetic field under it that deactivates it. But you can peel off the tag pretty easily. However the issue is most stores do not have fragrances out and you will have to ask an employee to get one for you, which sometimes they will give it to you or hold it behind the counter. Not much advice here unfortunately regarding that. The drawers underneath the shelves hold the fragrances and are always locked unless someone forgets to do it. If we see a client trying to open the drawers obviously we gotta tell them not to do it and offer to help them.

Other than fragrances, nothing else is tagged (DEPENDING ON THE STORE). If they are tagged, its always going to be an obvious barcode tag or something like that. But usually stores only tag fragrances.

-Assume all cameras are real. For my store atleast, they were. 90% of the time these cameras are placed over fragrances, d10r/ch@nel, the entrance and over cashwrap.

-The front door has a sensor to determine foot traffic and how many people enter but it is not itself a camera. It was used as a metric for seeing how many people come in and actually buy stuff vs just browsing. We were encouraged highly to keep the ratio good and were discouraged from leaving the store too much as to not mess with that number. 

-If we find empty boxes, we put them in a container labeled “KT”(Known Th3ft) and the manager will collect those and log those in the system. LP may or may not look over camera footage around those areas depending on how much loss was found. Meaning for you; DO NOT LEAVE EMPTY BOXES. Just take the whole damn product. A manager one time told us over the headsets that she found alot of KT’s around the store, and that we need to be greeting more people and being on the lookout.