> “A year ago, America’s stores declared a shoplifting epidemic,” stated the CNN article. “This year, retailers are telling a very different story—or no story at all. It’s as if the shoplifting crisis suddenly vanished.”
Or maybe because they closed down a lot of stores which were the worst and then on the borderline stores, they put up all the locked cabinets. Maybe now the rates of shrink have been reduced. There's no data here to go either way on this, just pure speculation.
Exactly. Come to many parts of SF, Santa Monica and Venice and you'll see half the Target behind glass. Several pharmacies in Downtown LA got closed due to theft in the last few years, see 5th and Broadway.
People who don't live in those areas can pretend nothing is happening, but your lying eyes as a local tell a different story.
I have little sympathy for many of these big box stores because their policies have indirectly lead to an increase in shoplifting. Their official policy in many stores is to do nothing when spotting a shop lifter other than report it to police after it has happened. For a while some of these big box stores would hire a security guard whose only job was to stand next to a shoplifter in the hopes it would intimidate them into putting the item back, but they too were instructed to do nothing. In fact if they did do something it was a fireable offense. Eventually they stopped hiring these fake security guards because what is the point if they aren’t doing anything.
And then a few years after that they throw up their hands and say shop lifting is out of control. Nothing can be done.
I mean, what should they do? Attempt to detain alleged shoplifters? Assault them? Shoot them? What do you think should be done?
Here in Seattle, all the worst-for-shoplifting stores are still open.
Mysteriously, a bunch of locations that were not bad for shoplifting, but were bad for overall sales (because of shitty layouts, small footprints, limited selection) ended up closed.
Perhaps shoplifting was just the excuse regional management gave for why they closed badly ran locations.
I've always wondered why all the big chains are closing stores, blaming shoplifting, to the point where Belltown no longer has a single pharmacy. But I haven't seen any of the small independant shops/bodegas close, including a small grocery shop right next to the 3rd/bell bus stop. I can't imagine that nobody is shoplifting from those. I'm no expert but it's never added up to me.
I steal a bunch of candybars from a convenience store. What am I going to do, sell them for $1-2/ea just like the bodega? The high-margin goods like beer and wine require licenses to sell; I lose any benefit of plausible deniability in where I got these goods when I try and fence these on the street or online. Selling them without proper license is always a crime and practically impossible online.
Meanwhile I steal a bunch of vitamins and OTC drugs I can sell at $10-20/bottle, packs of underwear at $10-20 a package. A lot of this can even be sold through Amazon at full retail pricing, I don't even have to try and sell it on the street.
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I certainly don't. I resent having to go find someone to unlock, and then being pressured to pick what I want when I haven't had a chance to review the product differences/prices etc.
The company near me that went long on this approach (Walgreens) also spent a small fortune recently on replacing glass refrigerator doors with giant screens to serve me adverts when what I want is a cool drink. It didn't work out well.
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/06/startups-tech-for-displa...
"Hey, let's attach a small heater to every refrigerated case, so we can annoy customers and waste energy efficiency all in one throw!"
Also in the 'solution to shop-lifting makes me shop elsewhere', there are two locally-owned independent hardware stores in walking distance from my home.
One has a 'buzz to enter' vestibule with two doors whose locks are controlled by the cashier. You ring the exterior bell, the cashier buzzes you through the first door, and only after it closes will they buzz open the second door -- so you're trapped. The same is true on the exit. No one can run out of the store with an expensive power tool they didn't pay for. But even though I'm not stealing anything but I find the whole experience so deeply unpleasant that I've stopped going there at all.
The second independent hardware store now has multiple security people at the front, and a mandatory bag-check policy. Except the bag check line is the customer service line, and I've literally waited 30 minutes total to drop off and then pick up my bag, stuck behind people with elaborate customer service requests. They have a bunch of staff on the floor, but they often don't actually know where stuff is, whether they carry X, etc. It becomes impossible to make a quick purchase of a single item.
So more and more, I'm apt to buy whatever it was online. I don't want the extra amazon packaging. I tried going literally out of my way to buy at the local independent business. But they made it such a crap waste-of-time experience.
> but they often don't actually know where stuff is, whether they carry X
That's the standard at all of the Home-Depots / Walmarts / Lowe's around here. If you ask the location of something the associate just looks it up on their devices.
If you ask a question about an item the associate reads the description on the website and can't provide an answer, because I just read the description... and couldn't find the answer. That's why I asked the associate.
If they really trap you (and there is no manual override, which could have an alarm), this would be a violation of fire codes in the US.
> But even though I'm not stealing anything but I find the whole experience so deeply unpleasant that I've stopped going there at all.
You're offended just for being buzzed in and out? Why?
That's about the least offensive thing a business can do.
If they were selling jewelry instead of hardware, everybody would consider it a mark of being upscale.
I'm not offended. I'm uncomfortable being trapped in an enclosed box in which I'm reliant on another person (who clearly distrusts me) taking 4 separate actions for me to enter and exit. The article points out that shoppers at Walgreens would rather go to another store than ask and wait for for a staff person to unlock their razor cartridges or whatever. This hardware store has effectively wrapped their business in such a barrier, and I would rather go to another store than ask and wait for a staff person to unlock 4 doors for me.
Also, implicit in all of this is that:
- you are submitting yourself for judgement based on how you look for them to decide whether you're likely to be a paying customer. I doubt whether any set criteria are used, but I fully expect that race, age, gender, and a range of class markers are involved.
- though they the business are distrustful and unwelcoming of you the prospective customer, you the customer are forced to be entirely trusting of their staff. They start the interaction off by broadcasting the presumption that you may be a threat, and establishing unilateral physical control to restrain people on entry or exit. I read this as both hostile and inequitable.
Talk about a downward spiral of terrible decisions. Cut staff and add checkout machines to save money. Customers start stealing (legit or not) so they lock down items behind glass, but have no staff to help customers so they see less sales! Wild.
I hope the shareholders who accepted these changes feel pain.
In civilized, high-trust societies self-checkout works well and is very convenient.
Of course if you refuse to prosecute crime you will have everything locked.
The problem with self-checkouts is that (1) it shifts the work to me without any benefit to me. I don't get a % off (and often asks you to tip [0]). And (2) it actually presents a legal risk. If I genuinely forget to scan I can still be banned from a store, or worse, charged, because I am doing a job I am not trained for, or because of a glitch in the system.
[0]: https://nypost.com/2023/05/15/self-checkout-machines-now-ask...
> In civilized, high-trust societies self-checkout works well and is very convenient.
There's nothing convenient about me having to do the cashier's job, but badly, while having a tiny space to do my bagging in, while a computer yells at me.
Maybe for someone with truly crippling social anxiety, this is preferable to an actually functional check-out counter, but I'm blessed to not be afflicted by it.
And someone with truly crippling social anxiety isn't going to be standing there in the store with a line of people staring at them while a computer yells at them. They are gonna be sitting at home waiting for the gig worker to drop off their stuff.
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yes, people are stealing because of cut staff at checkout machines.
Walmart locks their spraypaint now. Lowes does not. I'll go to lowes since it's easier than tracking down a associate at Walmart.
I would assume that is more tied to vandalism then theft though
How so?
My assumption was that they are looking to stop kids from spraying the cans; in-store vandalism
Ok, that makes sense
At least in my jurisdiction, you have to be 18 or 21 to buy spray paint in an attempt to stop kids from spraying graffiti so the store legally has to check id before selling spray paint.
> Dworsky acknowledged that the results might be skewing high because it was an opt-in survey that readers took rather than a random one, and said his audience tends to be “interested in consumer matters,” which may mean they have a lower threshold for consumer inconvenience.
Well, I'm not a reader of his survey and my general solution to inconveniences is to do something else also. That said, if my purpose of going to the store was to get that item I would try to find an employee to open it.
However, I might not go to that store again if I thought items I wanted were going to be locked. Nothings lock online :/
What should the stores do? Honestly, not too sure. I don't find getting receipt checked at costco a big deal so that's definitely an approach.
> What should the stores do? Honestly, not too sure. I don't find getting receipt checked at costco a big deal so that's definitely an approach.
In some of these stores, its not about someone putting one or two items extra in their bag. Its people filling up trash bags full of merchandise and walking out the store.
People here will say it doesn't happen or it happens rarely. I've only been to San Francisco one time for a week, and I saw it happen in front of me at a Target. I've seen it happen in Austin a few times.
It’s near impossible to buy those things. I live in a region of the world where condoms are locked up at the local mega chemist. Absolutely no embarrassment here on buying them of course. It’s just that pressing the button does nothing. None of the minimum wage staff give a fuck (can’t blame them). You’ll just be standing there waiting in an almost empty store. The sole clerk at the counter can’t really leave their post and there’s no one else around. Not to mention not being able to look at the boxes first so you’re going to have to take 10mins of someone’s time at least while they stand there with the display open for a sale that nets $.50 profit.
I buy online. Would suck to be a kid in that situation though.
I think this gets to the real reason of why people say they won't buy from the locked cabinets.
As someone whose job was to carry that key in an office supply store, I can say that it's awful. We have other things to do, and even if you're acknowledged, you have no idea when that clerk will get to you. (And the clerk doesn't know either.)
Aside: I once had a customer snap their fingers at me while I was walking another customer to a product because they wanted in the case. I looked at them, but was so thrown off that I didn't nod or anything, and just kept helping that customer. By the time I got to the case, they were gone. Later, I found I had a complaint issued against me for ignoring them, which I hadn't actually done. It just wasn't their turn yet. Management tried to turn it into a big thing in a meeting with the entire store, singling me out (not the first time). Someone else stood up for the situation and said they wouldn't help someone that snapped their fingers... Management started to rebut, but then a guy from furniture said, "Yeah! And I won't help people that whistle at me like a dog, either!" and management quickly changed the topic. Ah, such fun memories.
Good coworkers, standing up for each other and dignity.
They basically need a store full of vending machines. Then the items would be locked up AND you could actually buy them.
I recently went to a store and they had no Apple products on display. It looked like they only sold accessories for iPhones. There weren’t even placeholders or signs. You had to ask the right employee for the specific product and you had to pay for it at a specific register before you could have it.
The only reason I thought to ask was because their website said they had plenty in stock.
> National chains including Target have put much of their inventory behind glass in recent years as a response to what they call organized retail crime
The Target personnel around here are usually nice, but the stores have the most conspicuous Loss Prevention activity in recent years, especially (besides the locked shelves) with what comes off as LP soft interventions.
As a result, despite being a non-shoplifter, I've become self-conscious whenever I go into a Target (which is pretty often, lately, for location convenience reasons), unlike most other stores.
I really wonder whether Target has considered how various measures intended to thwart shoplifters -- not only the locked shelves -- have negative implications for genuine customers.
For example, take subtle signaling intended for shoplifters: it's not like shoplifters are the only ones who pick up on that. (Some people don't notice, but some people do.)
I thought Target was supposed to be like Walmart, but with more designer style, and relatively upscale pretense. Yet lately it's like they're insinuating that shoppers are in a bad neighborhood, that ordinary individual shoppers are suspect, and they've got their eye on you.
But also 99 of 100 thieves won’t steal products in locked display cases.
This being an opt in survey definitely makes the numbers suspect, but I agree with the sentiment at least.
What people say they won't do and what they actually won't do are not the same thing
You can buy a hundred shaving razors for like $10, as of 2016, the last time I bought. They will last you a long time, if you bought them. But you can’t buy them at any supermarket that I know of. They only sell Gillette or Wilkinson’s, which, at around 2,5 each, are a bad deal.
These blades must be held behind display cases because consumers would rather risk their honour than paying the deal.
Other products that are behind supermarket locked glass are alcohol bottles (overtly expensive poisonous water), perfume (ditto), and I don’t know what else.
So, at the end of the day, supermarket locked display cases show overtly expensive products which are not worth their money; so why bother?
Alcohol and perfume are literally among the oldest luxury items imaginable.
My local big-box home store had measurement devices (e.g. laser range finder; fancy tape measures) in a locked glass-fronted case. But the gap between the shelf above and the top of the glass was wide enough for me to fish around in there and get the one I wanted.
Which I proceeded to checkout to buy, without incident.
I wonder if they later had some inventory issue. No I guess I don't wonder; that's all on them.
“The whole thing has a whiff of pawnshop, which might actually be unfair to pawnshops.”
Totally unfair to pawnshops: small stores typically have good service. Goods are behind the counter, but there is a person staffing that counter typically every minute that the store is open. The liquor store keeps expensive beverages behind the counter. I don't hesitate to go there, because the clerk is always there to retrieve items behind the counter.
Go to Target, Home Depot, or CVS, and good luck finding anyone to help. I'm pushing a button and standing around helplessly, or asking a nearby employee who looks up quizzically and says "I don't have the key." If someone finally unlocks it, then they might have to escort the item across the huge store, where a cashier now has to get it and ring me up.
Unlike tiny stores, big box stores are based on self service. Remove the self-service and the whole concept falls apart.
I was in a CVS where they had all the Tylenol/Advil behind a locked glass display, and all the CVS headache relief on the shelf. I mentioned to an employee that this seemed unfair/illegal, and they responded that "people only steal the brand name Advil, so that's what we lock up". Seems unlikely to me.
Anyone else see something like this at CVS?
This makes perfect sense: Advil might have resale value, CVS brand certainly doesn't.
Tide also has brand currency and is stolen a lot.
What law would this be breaking?
Unlikely that its problematic, brands/stores know that positioning/caging on shelves matter and negotiate accordingly. Eye level sells more than top/floor shelf.
I ran into that at a CVS a few years ago and stopped shopping at CVS.
People buy Tylenol off Amazon all the time. Who buys CVS brand acetaminophen on Amazon?
You really think the market for CVS brand acetaminophen is as big as Tylenol?
> For 55% of respondents, it’s a lost sale, because when a product is locked up, they try to buy it elsewhere.
It's wild to me that someone would rather go back to their car, drive somewhere else, HOPE it's not locked up there also, and THEN finally purchase the item at the new store instead of just waiting for someone to come unlock it at the current store you're at. I've personally never had to wait more than a few minutes for someone to come unlock a locked display. I find it very hard to believe anyone would rather add 30+ mins to their overall trip than just wait at the current store.
My hunch is 2 things:
1) This is a case of "wishful" thinking rather than what they actually do. For a survey like this, people probably just unintentionally lied rather than what they would ACTUALLY do (wait for it to be unlocked).
2) The study would be much more accurate if you could actually somehow track what they did rather than just survey them on what they think they would do.
Also, I could see this being a case of not purchasing impulse items. However, if you go to the store for toothpaste that you need, and all the toothpaste is locked up, then again, I find it hard to believe you don't wait.
As someone else said in another comment: "What people say they won't do and what they actually won't do are not the same thing"
Presumably this depends a lot on what the item is. I’ve definitely thought about and decided against an impulse purchase because of a locked case. It turns “ooh I need that” into “ah, but I have to find someone and delay things”.
Yeah, I have no doubt about this stat for an impulse item. I agree that I wouldn't wait on an impulse item. But for an item you "need" or specifically came for, I don't believe anyone would not wait.
I think it’s true for two reasons:
1. We generally go into multiple stores anyways. If there isn’t someone around, I won’t bother waiting around. Those razors at Walgreens are genearlly available at the Costco I goto once per week.
2. I generally will just order something online if there is any amount of friction. Amazon Prime and Target Circle 360 are easy.
I didn’t upgrade my iPhone this year, because they canceled the Apple Leather case and getting a Leather case was a huge pain last year when I upgraded and I don’t want to bother this year while case manufacturers work out their camera button. I bet Apple executives would be shocked how just introducing a tiny bit of friction stops people from spending $1,500 to upgrade their device.
I have ordered things to be delivered more than one time recently rather than wait for an employee because I didn’t need it urgently, but it was on my grocery list.
I recently tried to buy a single button cell battery at my local store. They're in a locked case near the entrance. I told the attendant which one I wanted, they handed it to me, I tried to putting it in my basket and was immediately told "no, you can't do that, do your shopping first and then come back for this".
I went home and ordered it online. With free shipping. It ended up being cheaper than the one in the store to boot.
Play stupid games, lose paying customers.
Same goes with shops that refuse entry to people with bags (even a small backpack! but a purse is OK for some reason). I just won't shop there. Goodbye.
> Mentions of “shrink” on earnings calls for the first two quarters of 2024 were down 20% compared to the same period a year ago according to a FactSet analysis cited by CNN.
> “A year ago, America’s stores declared a shoplifting epidemic,” stated the CNN article. “This year, retailers are telling a very different story—or no story at all. It’s as if the shoplifting crisis suddenly vanished.”
Kind of disingenuous of CNN here to declare that a 20% reduction in mentions is equivalent with "vanishing".
I'm torn on this. First, yes, I find locked items obnoxious. Still not happy that the easy to find nasal medicine in many stores was found to be garbage.
That said, by the numbers here, it isn't clear how often people succeed at buying the item in another store. For a truly hilarious spin, you could think that having the item out where folks can touch things is itself the dark pattern that is encouraging people to buy things they don't need.
> Still not happy that the easy to find nasal medicine in many stores was found to be garbage.
At least with pseudoephedrine you can just walk up to the pharmacy and say ‘sell me as many generic pseudoephedrine tablets as I’m allowed to purchase’, sign the FDA log, and pay for it.
I just wait and get it elsewhere.
> “If I encounter a locked case, I’m not going to start looking for a store clerk going up and down every aisle or pressing the button and waiting for someone to come over,” Dworsky told Retail Brew. “But the fact that it was over 50% of people that felt the way I did? I was really surprised.”
You're surprised that bad customer service leads people away from the business providing it? This was a 101 problem. If you lock it, you need someone around to quickly unlock it, to satisfy your shoppers.
To me, locking it up was _never_ about shoplifting, but about reducing customer service to it's bare minimum while still utilizing monopoly control and government interference and mismanagement to maintain a position without any actual competition.
I mean, who _else_ but someone unconcerned with competition would even _think_ to lock up their products, as an _opening move_?
If there wasn't any shoplifting, would they still put things in cabinets?
No?
So how is this action not related to shoplifting?
Like, how does putting it in a locked cabinet reduce their customer service needs? Doesn't this increase their customer service needs, as now they need more people to constantly help unlock cabinets and escort people around the store? Wouldn't they just prefer to have a store with no employees in it, if shoplifting wasn't a thing?
> If there wasn't any shoplifting, would they still put things in cabinets?
The article points this out. The problem was likely overblown in the first place or it has magically disappeared without any effort. So, "organized shoplifting" almost certainly _wasn't_ the real reason they did this.
> No?
Obviously, yes, because it looks very much like that's what they did.
> Doesn't this increase their customer service needs
Yea, that's _exactly_ what I meant by this being a "101 problem." The question you _should_ be asking is, why didn't they hire _more_ people when they put the locked cases in?
They obviously didn't. Do you have an explanation for this?
> if shoplifting wasn't a thing?
It's about removing competition, particularly from smaller stores, that can offer better service even if they don't have the variety and hours that the large chain stores do.
No coincidence that in my town Walgreen's then closed 3 of it's major central locations and pushed everyone out to their more favorable and less expensive locations.
These companies want to extract the maximum value from your city at the least cost to themselves. You are now seeing the very long tail of decades of their mostly illegal strategies being allowed to play out unchecked against the population.
> It's about removing competition, particularly from smaller stores
How does putting things in locked cabinets remove competition? How do big companies reducing locations make things worse for the smaller, more local stores? You're still not making any sense to me on this point.
We want to eliminate the competition! I know, we'll make our customer experience worse, that'll definitely force those smaller stores to be less competitive! We'll close many of our stores to leave market voids where other stores can come in...that'll show those smaller stores that are now suddenly far more convenient!
And you still haven't actually answered my original question. If shoplifting just didn't happen, would they still put things in these cases?
> How does putting things in locked cabinets remove competition?
You've taken my points backwards, again, for some reason. They don't _experience_ competition so they feel _comfortable_ doing this. I'm talking about the chicken, you're looking for the egg, which hatched already, years ago, the evidence this occurred is _the existence of the chicken_.
> We want to eliminate the competition!
"We already did that part. Now we're just taking advantage of it."
> We'll close many of our stores to leave market voids
You didn't bother to ask _when_ any of this happened. That would be a critical detail that may aid your understanding; however, you don't seem particularly interested in exploring a different point of view than the one you already have.
> If shoplifting just didn't happen, would they still put things in these cases?
Obviously, yes, and I've suggested a reason and a historical mechanism. I get that you disagree with them. Was there anything else you wanted to actually discuss?
> You've taken my points backwards, again, for some reason.
Because your entire premise makes little sense to me. You're acting like these things save money somehow outside of shoplifting (which according to you just doesn't happen).
> They don't _experience_ competition so they feel _comfortable_ doing this.
But _why_ would they do it? You say "reducing customer service to it's bare minimum", but this increases customer service needs. Once again, why would they do this since it increases customer service needs and increases costs of managing the store?
Wouldn't it be cheaper to not have these cabinets and just have people check themselves out without having to interact with a store employee at all?
> You didn't bother to ask _when_ any of this happened.
It doesn't really matter in the end. New stores can be opened, clearly you feel there's a market need for those stores and obviously shoplifting just never happens, so there should be no problem for a new market entrant to move in there. If Walgreens left, CVS can go in there. If both left, well now the grocer nearby has more of a reason to build out their pharmacy.
> Obviously, yes, and I've suggested a reason
You haven't other than some weird conspiracy theory that it somehow reduces their customer service needs despite it obviously increasing their customer service needs. Before the cabinet I could just take the thing off the shelf and go to a self checkout. Now I have to have a customer service agent free in the store to come to the cabinet and unlock it to give it to me. Potentially also then having to have them either check me out or watch me check out. Customer service costs increase with the cabinets!
You’re premise doesn’t make sense. When Walgreens left the local retailers should have had no problem picking up the business.
But the issue is they can’t because they are also subject to shoplifting problems, shocker.
The premise of “this business drove itself into the ground to force itself to eventually have to close” is risible. Why wouldn’t they just close the business and skip all of the loss in between of going to locked down mode?
> When Walgreens left the local retailers should have had no problem picking up the business.
They already closed.
> But the issue is they can’t because they are also subject to shoplifting problems, shocker.
No, they just don't exist, bad COVID policies and mismanagement of PPP helped with that the most.
> The premise of “this business drove itself into the ground to force itself to eventually have to close” is risible.
That's your premise, not mine. I agree, that is risible.
> Why wouldn’t they just close the business and skip all of the loss in between of going to locked down mode?
You've watched the news? So you know what happens in a neighborhood when one of these stores tries to close because of simple economics?
Wouldn't it be very useful for them to have a socially accepted excuse as to why they just _had_ to close?
Anyways, so many of you are so eager to shout down what I'm saying, which doesn't bother me, but I do have to ask, what value calculation goes into you using your time in this way? Do you honestly think my words are that problematic that they must be addressed in this absurd rhetorical style? Or is it some other reason?
> so many of you are so eager to shout down what I'm saying
Because what you're saying makes little sense. Cabinets increase costs. Why would the retailer willingly increase their costs when they could just not have cabinets and enjoy a better margin and not risk losing customers to internet retailers?
> If there wasn't any shoplifting, would they still put things in cabinets?
If your insurance company tells you to do something in order to retain your nice rates, (or your policy) you do that thing. So, yeah, there totally can be a disconnect between the situation on the ground and what the suits think is going on.
Also, you might not be aware of how out of touch C-level employees can be with what's actually going on inside the company they theoretically oversee. Anyone who has worked at a BigCo for more than a handful of years should be quite familiar with the sight of incredibly stupid CRASH-priority projects hurled down from the C-suite. If you're a line worker, it doesn't matter how stupid it is; you don't sign the paychecks, so you shut the hell up and do it.
> If your insurance company tells you to do something in order to retain your nice rates
Yeah because insurance companies never actually look at real data and just go by their gut feelings on everything.
If insurance rates are increasing in areas which don't have these cabinets, it's probably because there are more claims due to shrink in those areas from stores which don't have cabinets. If it truly is because of insurance rates I'd say that'd be excellent data (or that they have that data) to point out it is because of shrink.
>while still utilizing monopoly control and government interference and mismanagement to maintain a position without any actual competition.
What the hell are you talking about? These stores absolutely get crushed by competition when they do this. They have to compete with online stores.
That’s why a bunch of these in high theft areas ended up closing completely. This dynamic has been around a long time and is what leads to “food deserts”.
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