this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 20 hours ago

Not just that, but I'll avoid shopping at your store.

[–] Zugyuk 7 points 22 hours ago
[–] RememberTheApollo_ 17 points 1 day ago

When you run bare minimum staffing so there’s nobody on the floor to help a customer and the customer has to hunt around for and wait for an employee to unlock something, yeah. Many are just going to pass on the item.

It’s not a shoplifting problem. It’s a nobody to help the customer problem.

[–] jordanlund 60 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Something as simple as nailclippers stunned me. $3 item, locked behind glass.

"Welp, they don't want my money I guess..." moving on.

[–] andrewta 4 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

The problem isn't locking up a high theft item, they have to do something.

The problem is not having the staff to unlock the item when you need it.

[–] Dearth 6 points 19 hours ago

I was in a cvs yesterday. The deodorant was behind glass. There was a "lift here" sticker for each shelf. When i opened my shelf for my choice it chimed loud enough to be heard across the store. I guess that's better than needing to chase down an employee

[–] Wogi 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The problem is locking up the item.

I'm not gonna fuckin steal it, don't treat me like I will.

[–] andrewta 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah no kidding you won't. That is not the point.

If the store has a theft problem then they have to do something. It's either that or close the store. It ain't about you.

[–] Wogi 4 points 17 hours ago

Except, as they've learned, they didn't actually have a theft problem. That was a lie to disguise low sales numbers. It's no better or worse than it's always been.

The real issue is and remains, the relentless pursuit of number must always go up.

[–] jordanlund 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

If $3 nail clippers are "high theft", there are larger issues.

[–] andrewta 1 points 20 hours ago

That may or may not be but the store still has to do something.

[–] SmilingSolaris 9 points 1 day ago

Should ban you from the store for having an anti owner opinion.

[–] ohlaph 101 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's not even that, it's their ultra short staffing that drives people away. I'm not going to go hunt for an employee and wait another twn minutes for someone with a key to open it up.

Home Depot does that and I get tired of waiting and order it from somewhere else.

[–] Drunemeton 46 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Exactly! I’ve zero issues with this type of loss prevention. I have 10,000 issues having to find the call button, pressing it and then waiting upwards of TWENTY MINUTES for the Key Master to show up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago

The CVS nearest me announces "cashier needed at [item]" over the intercom on loop until they show up when you hit the call button. In related news, I've now discovered the most awkward way possible to buy condoms.

[–] LovingHippieCat 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I once did that at Meijer for a switch pro controller, waited 30 minutes only for the person, who was supposed to have the key, just come over and rip the cardboard to get it off the locked hook. We only stayed because we had a Meijer gift card. Insane how long this kind of thing takes.

[–] halcyoncmdr 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't understand why they don't just use a pickup ticket system. Costco does it for some smaller high end electronic products now. Hell, Toys R US did it decades ago with all of their video games and consoles. You just take the paper ticket to the cashier to pay and then the receipt to a pickup window where ALL of those products are kept.

Instead they choose the objectively worst option, extra hardware spread randomly around the store for each product, and spreading already shaky customer service even more thin with large waiting times for a manager with the keys to arrive.

[–] AA5B 7 points 1 day ago

Anyone else remember Service Merchandise? The whole store was just one display model of each thing. You got a ticket and waited for the item to come up a conveyor. I thought it was a great approach

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've had this problem at Microcenter and Best Buy too. All the salespeople have a key but there are only two and they're both tied up helping some grandma who doesn't know what she wants. After waiting over 20 minutes, I'm like I just need to get this one thing out of the cabinet.

I know you can order ahead and pick up but I like to sometimes pay fully or partially in cash so I get less grief about expensive purchases from my spouse. According to my credit card charge, when I bought my 4070ti the day they came out, it was only $380.

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You are using Best Buy to facilitate spousal fraud for gaming purposes!

I like the cut of your jib.

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[–] FlyingSquid 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The difference between Home Depot and Menard's in terms of finding an employee is amazing. I can find an employee in Menard's within a couple of minutes wherever I am in the store. Good luck ever finding a Home Depot employee, and if you do, good luck getting anything useful from them.

[–] makyo 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I worked at a store similar to Home Depot in college and let me tell you, they don't prepare you at all for the kind of questions people have. If they cared at all about investing in the customer experience (which they don't) they'd hire some retired handymen or something. I seriously did everything I could to limit my voyages from the checkout counter to the employee area because there was a 90% chance I'd disappoint someone on the way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

They can't hire old handymen when they pay just a few cents over minimum wage.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

There's a bit in Neal Stephenson's early novel, Zodiac, that has always stuck with me. At a hardware store, everything has a specific purpose. The young guys working at the store can point you to that purpose. What you want is to find the old guy, who knows that everything there has a million alternative purposes.

[–] FlyingSquid 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What, giving you a pamphlet and showing you a video wasn't enough to make you a hardware expert? (Menial jobs for massive corporations suck so much.)

[–] makyo 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah it's awful. I feel bad for those people when I go in there now. Sure they could take it upon themselves to learn everything but let's be honest, for the amount they get paid it's only worth doing the bare minimum to not get fired.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This astounding revelation brought to you by the guy that got paid $13,282,800.00 in 2024.

[–] TonyOstrich 10 points 1 day ago

All brought to by corporate wage theftᵀᴹ!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You'd think a guy like that would understand how theives work more. Perhaps the disconnect comes from him not thinking he is one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're correct. His crime is purely white-collar, done with a stroke of a pen, no dirtying of hands at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Funny how when you rob or even kill people with a spreadsheet, it just doesn't count.

[–] distantsounds 2 points 1 day ago

When you’re paid that much, you can outsource the thinking.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago (12 children)

This is what happens when 100% of shoppers are treated like the 1-4% who steal.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

In general, society spends an awful lot of extra effort just because a few percent might abuse it. Sometimes, it's completely hypothetical abuse.

Healthcare? Someone might overuse it, and therefore everyone has to pay out the nose.

Unions? They let some people slack off at work.

Child tax credits? Some parents might use it to buy drugs (this was an actual argument from Joe Manchin, and it's completely made up).

Reduce the military? What if China invades the US?

[–] makyo 8 points 1 day ago

Not to mention that employees are responsible for some of the theft too

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago

Went to Walmart on a whim and saw everything locked up in pharmacy aisles (even deodorant) and I decided to pass. I hate shopping there.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Whenever a store locks up something I need that I could buy in 2023 off the shelf, I pull out my phone and order it from another store.

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[–] thisorthatorwhatever 1 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Stores should lock everything behind cabinets to prevent shop lifting. Police should never investigate any shoplifting if a store does not lock up merchandise. Stores should have enough staff to hand you things from behind a counter.

Walmart has download police to municipalities, it costs tax payers billions a year. Socialism for the rich. We need fewer police.

Historically stores have looked like this https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/ARHMCUO6N7MRYV8S everything locked up, a clerk serving people. Police grew, as stores decided to not lock up stuff. They didn't lock up stuff because they could cut back on staff and rely on public police.

[–] FireTower 4 points 18 hours ago

If any store decides I need to ask an employee to read the nutritional facts on the back of a can of soup I will never shop there.

The solution isn't locks it's fixing the underlying problem.

[–] Wogi 5 points 20 hours ago

Notably, those stores fell out of fashion pretty quickly when someone decided to just throw stuff out on shelves and have people get it themselves.

I'm not asking a clerk to get me shit. I can either find it quickly and get it myself or I'm getting it elsewhere.

[–] BigTrout75 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yep, I bought some caged jeans a couple years ago and was not digging the hassle of finding somebody with a key. Basically doubled the try on time.

Sweatpants forever!

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