I have gone to a local electronics store, Best Buy, several times in the last few years because I wanted something immediately only to be stopped at the last moment by a locked shelf and no one around to unlock it. What the fuck are you even supposed to do there? Scream and shout until someone arrives? Quietly stalk an employee until you find your moment to strike? I just fucking leave, I'll wait for shipping.
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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A simple solution would be a buzzer system that calls an employee to your aisle. But if an employee has the option of meeting shelf stocking or some other target, or spending time helping a customer, which isn’t as easily tracked and doesn’t look as good on a chart when bosses look at it, which do you think that they’ll choose?
My local petrol station has the same person stocking shelves as serving customers a lot of the time, it creates a right nightmare situation.
My walmart has buzzers but they ignore them.
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I just cut shit off the racks or tear the packaging. If it's in a cage I'm going somewhere else.
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Just recently, my wife wanted an eyebrow pencil, so we popped into a drugstore. All the makeup stuff was behind locked cabinets. We just turned around and went to a different store.
It seems like a particularly bad idea for anything that people might want to look at different versions of. If I wanted AA batteries that were locked, I might be okay saying, "Hey, can you grab me the batteries?" But for something that I want to look through the options, I'm not going to do that with the employee standing there tapping their foot.
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Last time I went to cvs (competitor to Walgreens), 3 different things I wanted were locked up. It took me too long to get someone 3 fucking different times to unlock it. On the last one I told the employee next time I’m just going to order online and might not be from cvs. Treat me like a kid or a criminal and I’ll take my business elsewhere
Lol what kind of sucker goes to cvs ;)
Not everyone is rich enough to pay 10x prices on everything
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Despite all the effort spent prosecuting it, there's virtually no concrete evidence that retail theft — organized or otherwise — is on the rise. Data on retail theft provided to law enforcement and lawmakers comes exclusively from corporate retailers, or organizations funded by them, and is not independently vetted. Last year, the National Retail Federation was forced to retract its claim that organized retail theft cost its members "nearly half" of the $94.5 billion in lost inventory in 2021. One researcher put the actual figure closer to 5%.
The store in my neighborhood thought it wise to lock up the fancy Italian coffee beans. I'm absolutely sure it will not stem theft and will absolutely decrease sales. The bags are big - these are the 1kg bags - so I'm fairly sure most of the theft that is happening is internal anyway.
Yeah, no shit. It's almost like the entire fucking world was telling you this when you embarked on this ridiculous plan.
Meanwhile, my local Walmart is expanding their caged goods selection and they have been removing call buttons.
Its time to invest in vending machines.
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article is paywalled. I found a similar article with no paywall: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/walgreens-shoplifting-retailer-james-kehoe/
paywalled
Headline is right.
'When you lock things up…you don't sell as many of them’
The irony…
I mean when you give things away you don’t sell as many of them either.
Selling stuff works best in an environment where the goods aren’t free but the people are.
People make money at roadside food stands based on the honor system. Anyone who just thinks “that’s naive” doesn’t know what they’re missing. A trust-based society that keeps accounts is the best society.
Reminder, using the reader function in Firefox skips almost all pay walls.
More and more sites are only partially loading the reader function info so that it cuts out at the same place as the preview part.
Used to be very helpful though!
Thank you! It wasn't paywalled on my end and I wonder if it activates on traffic.
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When your prices are significantly higher than your competition, you also sell fewer products. Walgreens and CVS are both stupid expensive.
I walked into Walgreens on last Christmas (365+days ago) to get something on the way to a gathering, a half gallon of milk was $7.99. They must have upped all the prices to be kind to their customers on Christmas day
I've known people who just do their regular shopping at those stores. I'll never understand why.
Exactly I gets over the counter kind cheaper at my local grocery store then at Walgreens.
I went to a Walgreens to buy nail clippers since I was nearby and had a bad hangnail.
Had to push a red button to wait for an employee to unlock the cabinet. After 10 minutes, I ran to find a random employee who was stocking and they got me what I needed.
That was the first and last time I ever went to Walgreens.
That's like years ago, like 2016, I went to Walmart for the last time. They closed all the self checkout lanes, but I guess forgot to rehire cashiers. So I waited 30 minutes in line on a random weekday to buy one 50ft extension cord.
I had a similar story. 2019 I went to the Walmart closest to where I live now and they had closed all the registers, and most of the self checks. I waited so long. I have a ton of stores close to me now so I was only going there on recommendation of a friend. "But they're so cheap!"
Not if your time has value.
In the Soviet Union, the shopper experience wasn’t vastly different. You would stand in different lines to select, pay and collect items, so it was a good idea to bring a chair and a book with you.
Wal Marts in Denver have been doing this a lot lately.
And nearly all of the stores and restaurants that I visited while in Denver locked their restrooms and you had to either get a key or a code to enter them. I'm guessing it is related to so called anti theft measures.
Yeah, I end up still using their pharmacy because the pharmacist is just a great guy and he takes care of people. But the rest of the store can fuck right off.
If you have good insurance you might not notice this, but drug prices at Walgreens and CVS are significantly more expensive than many other pharmacies, like Walmart, Costco, or HEB. Compare prices on Goodrx.com and see
I assume their entire business model is "Hope the boomers don't notice we jacked the price up significantly."
Truth.
More and more supermarkets are opening up pharmacies to compete. And in my town, private practices are now starting to also have a pharmacy.
I'm not supporting Walmart though.
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Durrrr