I allow for a certain degree of realism when it comes to looting. If the characters want to pluck the baseball bat out of the cold, dead hands of the ganger - either as a trophy or for future use against other gangers/baseballs - then I won't charge them for it, nor will I make it electronically traceable by all the ganger's buddies. Go ahead and have your ¥20 bat.
I use a similar approach for purchasing gear. If you want a fake SIN or a magical lodge then you have to pay, but if you want something that could conceivably be hand-waved as something that would come out of lifestyle costs, or shoplifted, or acquired manually - say, some zip ties, or a bag of smooth rocks - then odds are I'll let you have it in exchange for a nice narration.
In both situations there are, of course, limits to how much you can carry, which prevents players from stuffing their pockets with every combat knife and box of NERPS that they can find.