Didn't we finally realize that the whole "shoplifting epidemic" was all bullshit to cover up inept corprate management?

Yes. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html

I have the same reaction whenever i find what i need... Locked away..

I leave

Yup. My local Safeway has 2 security guards on duty at all times and one by one the aisles are starting to get locked up.

We started shopping elsewhere.

It's not just a convenience thing. Although it's really shitty to wait for a person to unlock it and then feel pressured while they stand there as I'm reading the labels and comparing items. It also just feels icky. Like I'm being punished for something. Probably for not being rich.

I walked into walmart to buy underwear and socks, they were all in lockup. I opened the amazon app on my phone, matched up the exact thing I wanted that was behind glass and it showed up at my house the next for for approximately the same price.

How much of this shit is managers embezzling goods from their own stores and labelling it stolen or being barcodejacked at the self checkout? They also didn't note the cabinets successfully reduced thefts

Exactly - you see the little lock thing on the display and you're like, aww shit I have to go find an employee, nevermind.

edit: Urban Anarchy idea - get some of those locks and randomly stick them on display cases!

Almost like if a middle class existed, many ancillary problems wouldn’t exist.

I ran out to Walmart to grab my kid some cough medicine. It was locked behind the cabinet and since it was later than 6pm they couldn't unlock it and told me to come back tomorrow.

I will never go back to Walmart for medicine...

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.

It was never about "theft." That hyped "theft" up as a cover to hide their own inept management.

If they had more than 2 people working at a time it wouldn't be a big deal

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.

I've tried asking for help, but the person I find doesn't work in that department and the assigned person doesn't show up for like 30 minutes. It's faster to drive across town to the store that doesn't have my item behind glass.

Sounds like his job should be converted to an AI bot. This fucker makes how much money, and didn’t identify any of the problems that regular people in this thread easily identified? Turn his role into AI. Save the share holders his salary.

Well yeah… if you’ve got everything locked up you need to find one of the few staff left who is under far too much pressure to deal with customers.

No shit.

No better way to kill brick and mortar than to make people interact more just to be able to pay you money for something.

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%.

https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-war-organized-retail-crime-target-cvs-victorias-secret-2024-9

Has absolutely nothing to do with prices being too high

Especially when you have one employee trying to cover the entire 16,000 square foot store. She isn't able to stop checking people out to come help me get allergy medicine? It's pretty bad when Walmart provides a better experience .

Stopped at my local Best Buy the other day. Needed an SSD that was locked behind glass. After attempting to get help for a half hour I ordered one on eBay from the parking lot and drove home. I've honestly tried to support brick and mortar where I can but I give up.

article is paywalled. I found a similar article with no paywall: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/walgreens-shoplifting-retailer-james-kehoe/

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.

Meanwhile, my local Walmart is expanding their caged goods selection and they have been removing call buttons.

Its time to invest in vending machines.

When your prices are significantly higher than your competition, you also sell fewer products. Walgreens and CVS are both stupid expensive.

Now do one about the overworked pharmacists

Yeah, no shit. It's almost like the entire fucking world was telling you this when you embarked on this ridiculous plan.

No shit. There was briefly an electronics store in the 90s where literally everything was priced low, but it was allllll locked up, either behind glass or held to the countertop with a security wire. I can't even remember the name of it. It was like grand opening, grand closing.

When asked for an inventory of items stolen, the CEO said "it's still printing."