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
Has absolutely nothing to do with prices being too high
If they had more than 2 people working at a time it wouldn’t be a big deal
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.
I expect lighting, store position, lots of cameras, hidden security tags, diligent security and psychology would minimize losses and maximize the chances of catching people stealing items.
It’s organized theft rings with someone likely on the inside providing info. It’s not random people taking items because they’re broke.
There are organized groups, but they mainly operate through removing and slap-tagging (placing an adhesive barcode for a cheap product over an expensive one).
Some of them get very specific. When I worked at a major outdoors chain, they’d get a $3,000+ Hummingbird sonar unit and put on a tag for a $100 Hummingbird unit, so the cashier would see the correct brand name pop up on the screen.
Retail will migrate even more to online shopping where it can’t be shoplifted
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…
Exactly - you see the little lock thing on the display and you’re like, aww shit I have to go find an employee, nevermind.
My Walmart has a little button to summon an employee. The last time (as in, both the most recent time and the final time) I went there at night to try getting diaper rash cream for my baby I pressed the button, and waited.
And waited.
Pressed the button again.
And waited.
Sunk cost fallacy. I’ve already waited so long, what if as soon as I walk away to find an employee somebody shows up?
After 10 minutes I went to find an employee stocking the shelves and told them what I needed. Their answer was “yeah, we saw you buzzed but we don’t know who has the key. If we find out we’ll have them open it for you.”
So I left .
I hate Walmart so much.
“I don’t want to bother them, they’re busy”
And underpaid
And understaffed
Every single time I see it, I add it to my Amazon cart. It’s not great.
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.
Not brick and mortar but a couple of sports leagues I was involved in. “We shouldn’t make it hard for people to give us money”.
Honestly, the first thing i thought when hearing those measures was that it would only highlight how much more convenient online shopping is versus the store.
Now do one about the overworked pharmacists
I wish the pharmacy was still owned by the pharmacist
I wish doctors’ practices were still owned by doctors.
Can you imagine? That would be awesome. I could pay directly to the person providing me a service instead of dealing with all the middle men
They have played us all for absolute fools
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.
It’s the fucking worst. Say I need a toothbrush, new mascara, and cough syrup. That’s gonna be at least 10 minutes waiting for the one overworked staff member to unlock the case at each of them.
A toothbrush? In the U.K. they’re like 2 quid …we’re actually gonna end up with people using Amazon for their shop for everything. It won’t end up with your weekly shopping trip being from the same place either.
They’re super cheap here too, but Walgreens at almost every location I’ve been to locks up absolutely everything
Preventing people from stealing toothbrushes is just evil. Nobody chooses to be in a situation where they even think about stealing a freaking toothbrush.
To be fair Walgreens happily marks a $1 brush up to $5
To be fair ….i live in a small town. I don’t tend to go other places and buy tooth brushes, but at the same time only expensive items are locked up.
Deodorant is the thing here
Also for some reason laundry detergent? Like, just get purex and be done with it, like $10 for a year supply.
I found a wholesaler that sells a 5gal bucket of laundry detergent for $45, lasts probably 6 months.
We’re a small household with minimal laundry so 5 gallons is more like a 10 year supply for us… I’m here for it : D
From what I understand laundry detergent (especially Tide) is used as a black market currency because the value is relatively stable and everyone needs it eventually.
I read a few years ago that was because Tide was fairly high end as far as laundry detergents go.
That was pre-Tide pods too, so those must be like Louis Vuitton type shit these days.
This is more urban legend that fun fact.
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.
The wiz?
Man this might have been it. It fits with the time, and I remember the place having a red trade dress. I looked at some pictures of The Wiz but it didn’t strike me as I remember this place, with like everything being under lock and key. Google searches didn’t help.
De Kijkshop
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.
Took me 25 minutes to buy a $4 brake light bulb at wal mart one night. After tracking down an employee to track down another employee to meet me by the glass door. I’ll never buy car bulbs there again. That portion of store is dead to me.
I went looking for a new cabin air filter since I had a gift card. The auto employee had literally no clue what I was talking about and just pointed at the wall of air filters with a shrug. Five seconds in an O’Reilly and I was on the way home
I honestly wonder, is it illegal to simply unlock those things, if you have no intention of actually stealing from them? It’s not like they use particularly high security locks. You can probably buy some simple lock raking or cylinder lock tools.
Is it actually violating a law to unlock one of those cases if you don’t have any intention of actually stealing something?
lol that’s way too much effort to give your hard earned money to a shitty company
I avoid Best Buy like the plague, I can’t even remember the last time I went there, maybe 5 years ago? I went to buy a monitor and had to pass like 3 fucking security checks and a receipt checker.
The whole experience was so off putting, I just never went back.
I bought some Beats Solo Buds right after Christmas. I had a trip upcoming and couldn’t wait for shipping so I looked at Best Buy and they said my local store had them. After waiting 20min for them to not find the right model or colour I went across the street to Target and bought them there, which still took at too long.
I order everything usually and my trial back in brick and mortar revealed it’s only gotten worse now.
A few years back bought something at Best buy and they asked if I needed a receipt or was I ok with just getting it emailed. I said I didn’t need a receipt. Then I was stopped at the door because I didn’t have a receipt, and they had to get the cash register person to vouch for me.
To their credit, for a gift card so I bought something there this past weekend and it was pretty much frictionless. Walked by the guy at the door with the product and no receipt or anything and didn’t signal at me.
Walmart near me on the other hand has an interesting strategy. If I am carrying stuff in a bag, no problem. But if I skipped the bag, they ask to see my receipt. So guess you just need a plastic Walmart bag to shoplift…
The last thing I tried to buy at Best Buy they simply didn’t have in stock, despite their in store computer system and their web site insisting they had dozens of the damn things. Never mind getting someone to unlock the case; I couldn’t have bought it for any price no matter how badly I wanted it. I gave up. I haven’t been back since.
Microcenter is pretty much the only brick-and-mortar electronics/computers store left that’s worth a damn, which is convenient because they’re also pretty much the only one left, period. Too bad they have barely any locations compared to Best Buy.
You can actually just buy whatever keys you need online. When I worked in retail it was a major issue. Groups of thieves would come in and hand off the key to multiple people so each could go grab stuff from different areas.
Technically it would be trespassing, since you’re entering an area you’re not authorized to enter, but no damages, assuming you don’t like break the lock or something.
You’re not likely to get sued for nominal damages (one dollar) for a technical trespass. They might ask you to leave. If you have a key and nobody is around, go for it. The keys are generic.
Is it actually violating a law to unlock one of those cases if you don’t have any intention of actually stealing something?
It probably is.
My state has a definition in its shoplifting statute that includes tampering with packaging, removing tags, or defeating security devices even if the product does not leave the store. I’m sure others do as well. Technically they could probably bust you even if the very next thing you did was take the thing to the checkout and pay for it. Not worth it, in my opinion. Just buy from someone who doesn’t pull that shit and let that good old fashioned Free Market Economy these chucklefucks love so much take care of it.
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.
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 .
Several of the Walmart locations near me do this as well, now. One of them locks up diapers and baby formula, deodorant, shaving products, cough and allergy medications, basically all of their cosmetics department, the entirety of the tools department, most of paints, and all of electronics except for some reason the DVD’s. This is in addition to the usual stuff that’s under lock and key like the jewelry counter, ammo, and knives.
As a result, as if I didn’t already need a reason, I just don’t go there anymore.
Retailers have consistently made retail shit, and then they turn around and whine that they’re losing money because everyone is shopping online. Well, this is surely another part of it. What customer is going to stand around waiting for one of the three employees you have left in the store find the keys and unlock the cabinet to buy a fucking can of shaving cream and perp walk them to the checkout so they can pay right then and there versus just having Amazon deliver it tomorrow without the hassle?
And thus, Amazon takes over another few square feet of the world.
I’ve been thinking about opening a regular corner store, but without having a ton of superfluous junk like all these other stores have. Like one or two options for a toothbrush, a few options for toothpaste, etc. Basically just the more popular stuff that people want to buy and make it easy for them to actually buy it. Maybe even offer a drive up window so you can grab a few things on your way home. People will pay good money to avoid Walmart and also for convenience.
Do it, and call it “The Lockup”, because you only sell shit that’s locked up everywhere else.
