A Boring Dystopia

Many of "the stores closed by Target are smaller format locations, a concept the company started rolling out more in 2018." The report notes that "after making a big push into smaller format, Target has not discussed the initiative since 2020." According to the report, Target may be blaming increases in theft to "mask other issues." Walmart, the report notes, closed four smaller stores in Chicago in April 2023 and "did not blame crime or theft and rather acknowledged strategies like downsizing it (sic) footprint…underperformed expectations."

Apple opened something like five "mini" Apple Stores in the early-to-mid aughts. Those went away when they realized it was a bad strategy. Can't help thinking of that.

They seem to be having theft issues in the San Francisco region at least. All the stores in the area are locking up various areas of the store they never have before.

Target detergent aisle.

Do these corps pull shady stuff around unions? I'm sure. Are they also seeing extreme theft at the moment? Looks like it. Because those security boxes really tank your sales on anything in them as people refuse to wait. You don't do that unless you think you are losing significantly more than you are selling, and it's not a practice that really has anything to do with unions.

Wal-Mart did exactly the same thing. The CEO upfront threatened to close stores if they didn't clamp down on theft. Maybe if the idiot didn't build said stores in places where theft is prominent, there wouldn't have been much of an issue.

The article is pure speculation.

Target may be blaming increases in theft to "mask other issues."

It might also be assigning a pet parrot to every store. Doesn't mean that it's true.

I am not denying that the author could possibly be proven correct at a later date, but that date is not now because they didn't cite any evidence in their article. As it stands, this is an opinion piece. If you read it as fact (i.e. "it's all lies"), then you're consuming it as propaganda.

Personally watched people walk out with goods they stole all of the time in Santa Fe NM. Anything totalling under $100 estimate they had to let them walk.