I went to a Walgreens to buy nail clippers since I was nearby and had a bad hangnail.
Had to push a red button to wait for an employee to unlock the cabinet. After 10 minutes, I ran to find a random employee who was stocking and they got me what I needed.
That was the first and last time I ever went to Walgreens.
Yeah, I end up still using their pharmacy because the pharmacist is just a great guy and he takes care of people. But the rest of the store can fuck right off.
If you have good insurance you might not notice this, but drug prices at Walgreens and CVS are significantly more expensive than many other pharmacies, like Walmart, Costco, or HEB. Compare prices on Goodrx.com and see
Truth.
More and more supermarkets are opening up pharmacies to compete. And in my town, private practices are now starting to also have a pharmacy.
I’m not supporting Walmart though.
I assume their entire business model is “Hope the boomers don’t notice we jacked the price up significantly.”
That’s like years ago, like 2016, I went to Walmart for the last time. They closed all the self checkout lanes, but I guess forgot to rehire cashiers. So I waited 30 minutes in line on a random weekday to buy one 50ft extension cord.
In the Soviet Union, the shopper experience wasn’t vastly different. You would stand in different lines to select, pay and collect items, so it was a good idea to bring a chair and a book with you.
Wal Marts in Denver have been doing this a lot lately.
And nearly all of the stores and restaurants that I visited while in Denver locked their restrooms and you had to either get a key or a code to enter them. I’m guessing it is related to so called anti theft measures.
I had a similar story. 2019 I went to the Walmart closest to where I live now and they had closed all the registers, and most of the self checks. I waited so long. I have a ton of stores close to me now so I was only going there on recommendation of a friend. “But they’re so cheap!”
Not if your time has value.
Despite all the effort spent prosecuting it, there’s virtually no concrete evidence that retail theft — organized or otherwise — is on the rise. Data on retail theft provided to law enforcement and lawmakers comes exclusively from corporate retailers, or organizations funded by them, and is not independently vetted. Last year, the National Retail Federation was forced to retract its claim that organized retail theft cost its members “nearly half” of the $94.5 billion in lost inventory in 2021. One researcher put the actual figure closer to 5%.
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.
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.
I honestly wonder, is it illegal to simply unlock those things, if you have no intention of actually stealing 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.
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.
article is paywalled. I found a similar article with no paywall: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/walgreens-shoplifting-retailer-james-kehoe/
paywalled
Headline is right.
'When you lock things up…you don’t sell as many of them’The irony…
I mean when you give things away you don’t sell as many of them either.
Selling stuff works best in an environment where the goods aren’t free but the people are.
People make money at roadside food stands based on the honor system. Anyone who just thinks “that’s naive” doesn’t know what they’re missing. A trust-based society that keeps accounts is the best society.
Reminder, using the reader function in Firefox skips almost all pay walls.
More and more sites are only partially loading the reader function info so that it cuts out at the same place as the preview part.
Used to be very helpful though!
Archive copy of the Fortune article: https://archive.is/PoraP
Thank you! It wasn’t paywalled on my end and I wonder if it activates on traffic.
When your prices are significantly higher than your competition, you also sell fewer products. Walgreens and CVS are both stupid expensive.
I’ve known people who just do their regular shopping at those stores. I’ll never understand why.
Exactly I gets over the counter kind cheaper at my local grocery store then at Walgreens.
Meanwhile, my local Walmart is expanding their caged goods selection and they have been removing call buttons.
Its time to invest in vending machines.
Yeah, no shit. It’s almost like the entire fucking world was telling you this when you embarked on this ridiculous plan.
The store in my neighborhood thought it wise to lock up the fancy Italian coffee beans. I’m absolutely sure it will not stem theft and will absolutely decrease sales. The bags are big - these are the 1kg bags - so I’m fairly sure most of the theft that is happening is internal anyway.
@makyo It might have been done for that reason, to help track shrinkage. A kind of trouble-shooting.
Ah I hadn’t thought about that but that’s a good point
Just recently, my wife wanted an eyebrow pencil, so we popped into a drugstore. All the makeup stuff was behind locked cabinets. We just turned around and went to a different store.
It seems like a particularly bad idea for anything that people might want to look at different versions of. If I wanted AA batteries that were locked, I might be okay saying, “Hey, can you grab me the batteries?” But for something that I want to look through the options, I’m not going to do that with the employee standing there tapping their foot.
Reminds me of getting the guy to unlock the video game and he hands me the game thinking we are gonna go ring it up, and I am just standing reading the back of the case, only to put it back and ask for another one.
Just ends up being me and Walmart bro shopping for a game together
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 .
Last time I went to cvs (competitor to Walgreens), 3 different things I wanted were locked up. It took me too long to get someone 3 fucking different times to unlock it. On the last one I told the employee next time I’m just going to order online and might not be from cvs. Treat me like a kid or a criminal and I’ll take my business elsewhere
That’s horrible and CVS deserves to lose your business, butI promise you that, unless it was the store manager you told, that employee absolutely did not care and didn’t tell anyone who did care. That’s just a consequence of divorcing ownership of businesses from employment. I swear to you that no normal employee of a national chain has ever been impacted by being told by a customer that they’re taking their business elsewhere. If anything people should write letters to corporate, not let a low level employee with no interest in the company know.
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.
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.
Okay, change it how? Give people homes? Give them more money? Better education? Hold their hands and guide them in life? How exactly do you think we should change everything so that it benefits criminals?
hey the definition of criminal is set by fallible people so don’t pretend it’s the be all end all!
“criminal” is such an encompassing term that seems to put murderers, rapists, drug peddlers who sell to children vs. some weed smokers, falsely accused people, white collar criminals, petty criminals including shoplifters, jaywalkers, etc.
You can’t seriously think someone who steals an apple from a shop needs the same treatment as a violent unrepentant murderer?
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that this “soft on crime” and “it’s not their fault” victim mentality isn’t working… I’ve seen retail workers CRY because people are constantly stealing and berating them if they try and get involved… it’s a very frustrating issue.
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.
Has absolutely nothing to do with prices being too high
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?
I wonder if anyone considered installing a camera and a remote-triggered lock so a cashier, manager, or security person could just buzz someone in. All that crap is SUPER cheap now.
I’ve seen convenience stores that have a buzzer that turns on (very, VERY annoying buzzer) whenever someone opens up the liquor fridge in their store. This signals that someone is picking up some beer. It cannot be avoided. You want to be quick to get what you want and not have your ears buzzed off, but shoplifting alcohol is really hard that way. You can get it quick anyway.
e a buzzer that turns on
I’ve seen that before, but it was a LONG time ago. Very effective for small stores.
I only know one guy who does it. The selection is weak so I don’t go there much.
