Is Hiding an Item to Wait for a Sale Against Texas Law?

It is just about "Go Time" for Texas retail warriors, you know the people, okay the women, who keep our state's economic engine moving by purchasing goods and services for the upcoming holidays. In stores from Lewisville to Laredo and Paris to Palestine shoppers will be searching Texas store shelves to find the best bargains that fulfill the needs of their holiday shopping lists.

If someone tells you there isn't an art to shopping and saving money, then that someone is totally wrong. Savvy shoppers have learned the tricks of the trade when it comes to getting the best deals from local retailers as well as the big box stores. Sometimes the key to lower prices is understanding the "code of the price tag".  

Once you decipher that code you can tell by looking just how cheap an item will eventually become and when that lower price is most likely to be posted. Now, knowing that bit of information poses a bit of a conundrum for shoppers and retailers alike. Here's the scenario.

You see an item you want to buy. Based on what you've learned from cracking the price tag code on the item, you can see that it will be priced lower in a few days. If you take that item and "hide it" on a store shelf and then come back and purchase it at the reduced price, have you committed a crime?

Believe it or not, in most states you have. In Texas, the statutes suggest that Shoplifting is much more than walking out of a store without paying for an item it also "specifically involves targeting an establishment that sells goods, with the individual attempting to deceive the merchant". That bit of knowledge is courtesy of the John D & Eric G Johnson Law Firm. 

So technically concealing an item on a shelf inside the store so that no other customer might find it and then returning to the same store and purchasing the item at a reduced price would be a violation of the spirit of Texas' shoplifting laws.

Proving that's what you were going to do or attempting to do, is a different subject altogether and that's why you very seldom hear of this "crime" being punished. But if a retailer could prove that your intent to deceive you could face charges of shoplifting.
But in most cases, since proof is difficult a retailer will likely just ban you from shopping at their establishment.

And if you're wondering, almost all major retail chains have entire crews that go through the shelves every night restocking and rearranging misplaced items. So even if you did "hide" an item for attempted purchase later, there is a pretty good chance it won't be where you left it. And if it was where you left it, then chances are the stocking crew didn't get the chance to adjust the price tag to reflect the lower price.