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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.
What do you suggest the stores do to curb theft? I'm being serious too? Just ignore it?
You’re gonna roll eyes on the answer or already know what needs to be done. We need to change the system so people are less inclined to shoplift.
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.
I have the same reaction whenever i find what i need... Locked away..
I leave
The one employee in the entire store is busy at checkout. I'm just gonna order it on Amazon.
Yeah, "I'll just Amazon it" is becoming a more common phrase. It's cheap. The delivery is surprisingly fast.
Downside is you're making one of our wealthiest oligarchs even more powerful.
And, of course, it could be stolen off your doorstep before you can even get to it.
Ehh, I mean if you were gonna buy it from CVS/Walgreen's, they aren't exactly an altruistic alternative...
I agree, best to avoid the wealthy oligarchs, but sometimes you need medicated allergy eye drops and Bob's Corner Store doesn't have them.
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
Not as much as you would guess. Managers are the most likely source of serious theft, but at the same time, they are usually being paid $70k-$100k a year and typically have bonus agreements where if the stores profits go up in a financial quarter they get a payout, and there's a lot of store managers getting more money from their bonus than their payroll, so to motivate theft you need a VERY greedy manager who is going to get more than 6 figures from the scheme or he's risking his job for less money than his job pays anyway. The most common method is falsified sales, that's gonna get him his bonus when he knows he's not hitting metrics and was really expecting the payout. I've seen a few managers get caught on this. Next you have the more complex attempts, like filling in fake data for large ticket item deliveries or printing out delivery sheets with no sale in the system at all, then you have the delivery to a known place and you keep the high ticket items and sell them out otherwise profit off the delivery, this can go on for some time before it becomes evident. Sometimes there's smaller scams like the Walmart managers that were cashing out giftcards, putting them back on the shelf and 100% getting away with it because Walmarts system was probably out of date with modern standards. Then you have the wild schemes like getting free mech from vendors, returning that mech in the system before inventory and getting yourself fired for petty theft before anyone figures out you have stolen several million dollars in comped merchandise that never existed in the first place so no one's even looking for it. Being fired for theft is a nice master touch, because it caused a ton of confusion when they bring the charges to police. Who are easily confused. But you know. It's not ALL management and a lot of high theft items are too cheap to be internal theft, spray paint, exacto knives, cheap earbuds, usually it's a ''I can't get past the ID check'' type of theft.
Its funny because I now recall talking to somebody who worked at an electronics store and they would throw items in the trash, report them as damaged and recover them later when taking out garbage.
Its so funny to think now he'd have the keys to the shelves and the same strategy would probably still work.
Almost like if a middle class existed, many ancillary problems wouldn’t exist.
Hey now. Don't you dare put our oligarch's wealth in even the slightest bit of jeopardy.
Shoot, mea culpa, I'll go back to working off my medical debt like a good peasant.
It was never about "theft." That hyped "theft" up as a cover to hide their own inept management.
Idk, theft was pretty rampant at some of my local stores, not quite as bad lately. I've personally witnessed a few people steal from my local grocery store in the last year or two. My local Home Depot was even worse until their security guard shot a guy and they rearranged the checkout lanes. Now in order to go through the exit you have to go through a long corridor of self checkout lanes with several employees. And I'd probably be less likely to rob a place if I'd heard their security guard shot a guy.
Around here that just means they'd shoot the security guy first. That's why so few banks have visible armed security anymore.
The current SOP is to just let the perps take whatever, don't offer any resistance, and let the cops track them down, and make an insurance claim. And optionally slip a dye pack in the proverbial money bag. If you're a bank or a big enough business the cops will be falling all over themselves to chase the robbers on your behalf. If you're an independent business owner... probably not so much.
Our local Walmart has two (2) in-uniform and on the clock state policemen posted there at all times. On our dime -- that is, the taxpayers. Meanwhile in the 'hood you can't even get the cops to show up for a shooting in less than four hours.
It's definitely about theft. Hard to manage that away.
Walmarts are doing this with things like cosmetics in some areas too, though at least in the one I frequent they have a checkout counter and clerk in the immediate vicinity. Not sure it won't still frustrate the honest people who have lots of other options.
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
ny times links are cancer.
They overbuilt because if a competitor opened a store, they'd open on right next to it...
That strategy was never going to be profitable, they were trying to run competitors out of business.
Most of those stores were going. To close for one reason or another, the growth wasn't sustainable but it made stock prices go up and then they had to invent a reason to close store that would keep stock prices high.
Case in point, my Nephew once worked for Target in what used to be their flagship store in the area. Several years ago they opened a new flagship store literally 2.9 miles up the road. As the crow flies I think it's closer to 1.5. This wasn't a move. They left both stores open. They're still both open to this day.
Management immediately started bitching at all the low level employees that they weren't "hitting numbers" anymore as if the cashiers or stockers had anything to do with this. Uh, dickhead, you cannibalized your own business because now 100% of the people who live in the direction of the new store aren't going to drive right past it to come here; they're going to go to the new store instead. You didn't make the pie any bigger, all you did was take the same pie and slice it in half.
I don't know how many millions of dollars it cost them to build, stock, and staff that new store for no goddamn reason whatsoever.
I can't read what that article says, I don't pay for news.
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.
The fuck? I understand locking up stuff like booze, since that shit do be quite expensive, but fucking underwear?
underwear, deodorant, and toothpaste are commonly locked up where I'm from. it's the most stolen stuff as it's a basic need for the homeless
It's almost as if we should be providing these for free to less fortunate folks.
I remember one time finding a posting on marketplace looking for a tent as someone ruined theirs the night before. I had extra camp gear so I contacted them and hooked em up with a tent, sleeping bag and an air mattress. They were so sweet, I felt so bad for them and wish I could of helped them more.
I think it's just the next iteration of the detergent theft crap. Everyone needs socks and underwear; they're stocked in bulk and are easy to resell.
Well I mean I wasn't buying disposable razors for $40 anyway, but TBH nobody should be. Even if that wasn't a profit-driven overprice, it's still a stupidly wasteful use of titanium.
Now I wonder if the current popularity of beards hasn't been at least partially due to this policy.
Perhaps somewhat
When asked for an inventory of items stolen, the CEO said "it's still printing."
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.
That's what happens when you make so much money you no longer remember what it's like to shop for necessities.
I can make thr same dumbass decisions for half the price.
Has absolutely nothing to do with prices being too high
There's a retail strategy of putting products at your fingertips in the checkout aisle in order to entice you to buy it. Candy right next to you, so you're munching on it when you leave the store. You feel good, they get money, no additional load on the staff.
This is, effectively, the opposite strategy. Make getting your hands on anything annoying and difficult, increase the number of floor clerks you need to constantly unlock the shelf, and generally make the retail experience slower and more unpleasant.
Both are correct. It's too expensive AND it doesn't help sales. There are no reps around to unlock the doors, why would you wait to buy?
Target near me has all the booze locked up. They have a button you can press to get an employee to open the cases for you to buy something. I waited 10 minutes for someone to come and open up the case to buy a bottle of Campari. Nobody ever showed up. I wrote Target to tell them I'll be looking elsewhere from now on for any item they keep in a case.
If they had more than 2 people working at a time it wouldn't be a big deal
If they had more than 2 people working at a time
I don't live in America but judging from what I heard, what is up with American stores manning the shops at bare minimum? Like, I heard so many complaints of self-service checkouts having no one staff looking after them, which leads to customers going to manned tills instead, because they couldn't deal with technical issues especially for the seniors. Then when a senior is asked if they want to use automated checkouts instead, they reply with the snarky response "I don't work here." You can't blame people for being reluctant to use the self-service checkouts, if there are no help! Where I live, there is always a staff looking after the self-service checkouts because of the inevitable technical issues or customers not knowing how to use them.
My guess for this poor implementation of technology is because bosses think machines are meant to replace humans as workers, when realistically machines should help people with work. We don't live in yet in a world where there are robots with the artifical intelligence as good as the human intelligence. And we are still way far from having robots with good dexterity skills as humans to completely replace us.
what is up with American stores manning the shops at bare minimum
Before covid, they were just starving support staff slowly. A few automated checkouts, less hands on the floor than in the 90's and the 00's. You'd often have someone re-folding, re-organizing, and restocking at all times. in the 10's it became more like staff during busy periods only.
When covid hit, the stores went to absolute operation bare minimum or even less. They figured out that they could literally put no one on the floor, stock and refill at night and profits boom. We're seeing that across almost all industries. It's like someone said, hey, have you tried just not providing any service at all AND raising prices. (e.g. health insurance) We should all be in the streets for blood, but we're not. The idiots are bringing back the right wing, expecting them to care at all about their plight.
We are in a rather self-destructive area of capitalism. The top is expanding as fast and hard as they can. They are bleeding the lower and middle classes harder than they ever have before. I give it a year top before everything crashes and inflation puts us about on par with the lesser economies.
what is up with American stores manning the shops at bare minimum?
It all comes back to money > humans in this fucked up country.
The business leaders don’t care about their customers. They will sell out the people they depend on if it makes the numbers 1% better. And then COVID taught them how they could make things even worse.
But then the rest of the people don’t have enough respect for the employees, other customers, or themselves to demand better.
I was gonna say, this level of theft is possible because of the number of people in the store that care if that store is stolen from.
At a Mom&Pop shop, there's only one person behind the counter, but they have free time to ask how someone's doing when they pick up something they intend to steal. Plus, any other customers in the place are relatively loyal, and not of the "stand around" variety. At a big chain store, there's two employees doing the job of five that can barely even point someone to an aisle, and not a single customer cares if the CEO bleeds out in an alleyway.
It's a catch 22... literally. If they don't lock it up, half the shit would be gone within days. I've seen it. I work part time in merchandising, my CVS and Walgreens stores have people coming in ALL THE TIME, grabbing shit from the shelves and running out. It's fucking frustrating.
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.