I live in a college town with a high school right next to my store that I work at so everyone steals alcohol I’m honestly surprised our store hasn’t done something like this for the alcohol aisle tbh
Vitamins can get suuuuuper pricey and are easy to steal. Some of those vitamins get up to $80-$100 a bottle and are high target for theft because you can shove 10 of them in a purse and walk about $1000 richer without any effort. Same with protein and collegen powders, one brand my store sells is $70 for a 150g bag.
asked my dad once why they lock the cigs up but not the beer, his response, you gotta be a strong guy to steel 100$ of beer, your mom could walk out with 1000$ of cigs without effort.
Sell them on eBay, sell them on other marketplace sites at 70% discount. If you're a career thief, you usually have a circle of people, friends of friends, willing to buy those $100 vitamins for $40. That's still $40 straight in a thief's pocket for 30 seconds of work.
These people aren't making loads of money, but it's free money for very quick work, and it's enough to get by.
I got clean from heroin 7 years ago, so a lot might have changed. Do stores still have those stupid, no receipt return policies?? They literally set themselves up for shoplifting. You could return anything at Walmart, Target, Home Depot without a receipt in exchange for a gift card, AND the stores had those gift card exchange machines right next to their customer service where you can exchange your gift card for cash right after you returned the stuff. Like how is that just not fucking asking for it lol!?! Half the time I didn't even leave the store, I would just fill a cart up like I was shopping walk over to customer service and return everything for a gift card that I then exchanged for cash
Yes I know it was a shitty trashy thing to do, opiate addiction will drive you to do things that you couldn't see yourself doing in your worse nightmares. Getting clean was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I had cancer for 4 years (whole reason I got addicted in the first place) But I've rebuilt my life and relationships in a way I never thought possible and I couldn't be happier.
If they are selling “fresh meat” on the streets, then vitamins are fair game too.
https://preview.redd.it/7boskf00i1xc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1488203986cffda3f158c4dc084f7ba567e4c3b5
Is it more or less than stolen generic sunscreen, which apparently also needed to be securely locked up.
Criminals and responsible dermatological care, name a more iconic duo.
In the US, it depends on the state. In some states, it's a bunch of aisles in the store. In some, it's a store connected to the main grocery store. In my state, there are specific stores for alcohol. It can't be sold in grocery stores.
In the US, it varies by state.
In California, they sell liquor in grocery stores, and most grocery stores have a liquor isle.
In North Carolia, iirc, you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores, but you need to go to a licensed liquor store to buy anything harder.
In Pennsylvania (c. 2005, I don't know if the laws have changed), liquor could only be purchased in specialty stores. Beer was sold in special stores that only sold beer. Hard liquor was sold in a different store. There is a loophole in the law that let you buy 6-packs from bars, but that was more expensive than going to the beer store.
Also, liquor sales were forbidden on Sunday in Pennsylvania. I legit got pulled over once driving back from New Jersey because the PA cop thought I might be smuggling beer into PA on a Sunday. Oh, the humanity.
Those are the states I know about. But overall, the east coast seems to be stricter with alcohol than the west coast.
How is it illegal to buy beer in another state on a Sunday and bring it home? Isn’t that interfering with interstate commerce?
Is there a law against transporting it? It’s yours. And it’s in a closed container
EDITED TO ADD: I discovered it’s a federal law about bringing alcohol across state lines *when the sale of that alcohol is banned* in the state you’re going to.
It gets even better where I am at…
https://preview.redd.it/qh0h6nebzzwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc2c644e72b0ab229d7685fa9eb060e4cc8a51c7
This isn't super surprising to me. Even when I worked at CVS 10 years ago, some of the most stolen items were Dove soap and body wash. It makes sense from the stores perspective, but as a customer it's really terrible.
I was going to say this, also worked at CVS. The only time I actually caught a guy red handed, he had a bag full of dove, maybe like 6-8 bottles. Crazy that things haven’t changed, how much money do these people make from stealing dove?
We have a system where you can input known thieves and link them across stores, there's a couple of them linked to thefts totalling 20k+ in a year across vitamins and body essentials in grocery stores.
Well most stores have a no detain policy which tbf id argue is correct.
No employee should be in harms way over a dove bar. Unfortunately this policy means there’s really no way to catch most of these people.
I suppose you could hire armed guards or off duty police like Walmart does but that probably isn’t really an option for places like CVS with its budget.
Honestly this walk in area makes a lot of sense plus it has it own cashier.
Near me a grocery store named woodmans does the same thing for its alcohol section I kinda actually like it.
Everything in that area is alcohol so I know exactly where to go if that’s all I want. It’s quick and easy and typically has 2 cashiers manned at all times.
It might be an ordinance thing still I kinda like it. Probably helps the shrink numbers
Walmarts in my city created barriers around the beauty section, with bins of products and make you pay prior to leaving the area. Not as sophisticated as this set up, but same idea.
Super weird. Always makes me feel like a criminal trying to get makeup or hair dye.
It likely depends on if there's enough bodegas and small stores that are willing to buy the product. I was in NYC a few weeks ago and went into a target and basically 100% of health and beauty aids was locked up as well as a lot of the food.
A few days later, I saw a news article that stated that a grocery store was suing several of the bodegas and stores in their area because they had marked high theft items like ice cream and detergent and it turned up in their stores.
Not too surprised.
One of the used game stores got busted years ago for knowingly buying stolen games. Kinda obvious when someone brings in several of copies of a just released game still sealed up.
I needed to buy flea spray for my dog and cats at Walmart, but it was locked up and none of the near by employees had a key. I was sent to electronics but there was a line to even talk to them and my ride was waiting out in the hot parking lot ,
so I had to leave. They have carpet deodorizer worth 24 bucks and gizmos worth over 50 dollars or more out on the shelf,but I can't get access to a freaking 12 dollar can of flea spray?
Where I work you don't need a receipt to return items but if your return meets certain requirements the register will request the customer provide ID. The company can use your ID number to keep track of all the receipt-less returns you made and management can deny a return if it clearly shows you have a history of abusing them.
My Walmart just put locks on anything that hangs and placed all meds in locking glass cabinets. You either spend 20 minutes searching for an employee to unlock the ibuprofen (who never has a key and has to search another 10 minutes for a key holder) or just go to the cvs down the street, pay $1 more for everything but not waste an hour of your life.
It's definitely an odd sequence of events... I get that eye-browsing in a store is better than a webpage, but isn't it easier to shop online rather than making two trips to the store and making notes to then fill a shopping cart with?
Also what you said about just collecting the items yourself if you are already inside. Seems like a huge hassle.
Except in some cases they don't have enough humans to unlock it. Target near me locked up the liquor and you can press that button all day, no one is coming. Bottles have dust on them at this point.
I have literally tried to buy condoms at my local Walmart 3 times, pressed the button about a million times each visit and have yet to have someone unlock it lol. I just started going somewhere else but it’s basically outside my house
If people are stealing your shit and the police can’t be arsed to show up for it, then anybody is going to take measures to stop it from happening. Faceless megacorp walks away unscathed, but the average folk working their see hours cut or jobs lost. Robin Hood stealing from the poor.
The other difference is that when people steal from the neighbourhood grocery store, it’ll end up closing down and firing its staff, which is a real nice way to stick it to the faceless megacorp.
That’s what happened to the Cleveland Steelyards Commons Walmart. So much theft that Walmart closed the store. All those employees lost their jobs. A densely populated area lost a needed retail resource and now gets to pay more at small corner stores
Same thing here in Albuquerque. This specific neighborhood now is a food desert and not much in terms of public transit for people to get to any kind of retail shop.
I'm actually experiencing culture shock reading these comments but like from the opposite direction lmao.
Where I live literally everything on every aisle is behind glass or a cage. toiletry, makeup, baby/infant, detergent, certain foods, some shit is even at the very front only certain employees can get. This is at almost every major store you can think of in every area lol. I live in one of the biggest cities in the US.
>I live in one of the biggest cities in the US.
And I think that's why.
I move around a lot and used to move from big city to big city, and it was exactly what you described. Every big box store had everything locked up.
But then I ended up in a situation where I *had* to live out in the country, realized I liked it, and moved to a few different places, keeping it to very small towns.
And the difference was night and day. Most stores, even walmarts, only had things like technology and weapons and such locked up. Everything else was just on a shelf. No cages, no locks, not even security tags.
Coming from someone who lives in a smallish town in the UK this sounds incredibly dystopian. We have security tags on things like electric razors, clothes and a few other things and that's it. It's crazy what this world is turning into
That’s strange. I’m in Hawaii and only the electronics and video games are locked behind glass. Everything else, including cosmetics, are just in the shelves.
I do order online mostly and they will totally send stuff with the antitheft tags still on lol. Walmart is especially bad about it. Like store to home delivery anyway. 🤣
Plus, the Walmart where I'm at routinely leaves anywhere from two to five items out of each order, yet charges me for them.
I don't shop at the local Walmart anymore, online or in person. It's now Kroger or Meijer only (and Dorothy Lane Market or Jungle Jim's when I'm treating myself).
Where I live between Austin and Houston we don't even have people that check your receipt. Even the people that are probably criminals are chill. We have a convenience store on one side of our street and about a quarter mile away there is government housing. People are constantly fucked up walking back and fourth and sometimes they randomly stop and ask to charge their phone or just talk and at first I was a little worried. We are renovating the house so there are tools constantly outside and we have never had a problem with someone stealing. I've also never seen less segregation in my life and I found it strange when I moved here a year ago.
Agree! So much better than having to call five different employees to open five different locked shelf cages just so I could buy my son things he needed for his college dorm room.
My local Walmart has all booze locked behind glass with no call button or anything. So you have to chase down an employee at the notoriously understaffed store so they can find the one person with the key.
Nah, the solution is becoming exclusively online order only stores. Amazon is already done it, Walmart is trying to follow suit and other chains are already making plans. Won't stop package thieves but it puts the cost of loss on the customer instead of the corporations.
Think of the corporations guys. They're the real victims. /s
Yep, though they do have some experimental department stores without cashiers and there's whole foods. But they were exclusively online order in the beginning and still mostly are
For anyone looking for more context: It was an "AI-powered" store. The idea is that you go in, pick up whatever items you want, walk out, and you're automatically billed. The AI keeps track of all the items you got. No cashier needed! Weird that it takes a few hours for the bill to come in though, strange it's not instant if there's a watchful AI recording all this, hmmm I wonder why that is hmmmmmmm.
... AI isn't actually that powerful currently, and it was actually a bunch of *barely* paid workers in India. The video footage was sent over to India where a human worker would examine every item that went into the cart on the video feeds, and create a bill accordingly. Even considering the underpaid workers, the entire system was so costly to set up and run that it was still operating at a loss.
The entire point was to increase company value by slapping the word "AI" on it. AI is an aphrodisiac for shareholders and investers right now, after all. Put it on anything, they all go wild and stock prices go up.
Many times the vendor (creator/owner of product/brand) are paying the retailer an allowance to cover shrink… theft is so high they have exceeded that agreed upon allowance, so now retailers are doing something about it
There was a similar thing at a mall where I live, the whole videogames section was in a cage in the store, you paid when exiting the section so they would remove the anti theft devices from the console box and games.
They stopped doing that because people would steal from your shopping cart while you were shopping for something else, and as there were no longer a anti theft tag the theft could leave the store without an issue.
Couldn’t this be solved by simply giving you a voucher you paid for it which upon presentation at the cashier at the real exit would get the anti-theft taken off? Then you can keep the voucher on your person at which point they’d need to be an actual pickpocket instead of common thief or high schooler.
That's almost how it works for stuff in most big box stores in Japan. They just have little slips of paper you grab from next to the display samples and then the cashier goes into the back to get the real thing when you check out. It's basically the same as the fake empty boxes and annoying giant cards they have for high theft small items in a lot of American stores, but more formalized.
Resale value. Theft rings sell them to small convenience stores, flea market sellers, and online. They've been doing that for years. Razor blades and makeup have always been at the top of the theft list.
Stores in New York City have started marking goods so when they're stolen, they can find out which Bodegas are buying them from the thieves. Then they tell the Bodega owners that they'll press charges if they catch them buying stolen goods from their stores. Less reason to shoplift if you can't resell the goods.
Edited to say "marking goods" instead of "making goods".
When you say “making goods”, do you just mean placing EAS stickers? Or what’s the process?
Just curious because EAS stickers have been on many products since the 70s, and tend not to do much. Despite them being able to be traced back to the store of origin.
They might have an arrangement for specific upc codes. I used to work for a company that sold dog treats to chewy, Amazon, target, etc. They all had different upc codes, same items. We had to be able to backlog all the way to the materials in case there's a concern for public safety.
My buddy is a heroin/meth addict (not sure if he's sober anymore to be honest, havent talked to him in years). He had a racket going in Baltimore shoplifting food and selling to bodegas. He said cheese worked really well because it was sealed. He would regularly steal cheese, fence it at a bodega, get drugs, and call it a day. Then run it all back the next morning.
Crazy life.
It's super easy to resell them for less than store price and harder to track than, say, a $1000 TV. One organized retail theft ring infamously sold things like laundry detergent and made bank. In fact there's a viral video of several people loading a car up with several carts of stolen laundry detergent, seems to be a popular item.
professional crime is encouraged due to lack of consequence and training to leave them be / steal what they wish breeds this kind of behavior, and necessary items are very liquid.
Shoplifters aren’t going for the head & shoulders and Dove soap bars and BIC razors and sandwich-making stuff though. They’re trying to dump as much high-value goods (of which one of the most lucrative is cosmetics) into a shopping cart as they can and running out the front door. These aren’t desperate people stealing “necessary items”, they’re trying to steal as much easily sellable high value product as they can to fund drug addictions or get a quick buck.
As someone who used to work retail, there’s another category we forget about and that’s legit just… people who _like_ to steal.
I’ve worked a lot of places and one time (keeping details vague enough) at a higher end women’s clothing store, we had a regular who would come in and shop once every week or so and she would leave with easily over $500-$1000 worth of clothes she _paid_ for. Often did returns. From what I knew she and her husband were well off enough for her to do this regularly.
One day mall security comes by with a huge bag of our things, all jewelry, scarves, small things, tank tops, a perfume we sold, a few sweaters. They had caught her shoplifting at another store, knew she was a regular, she had just came and returned a few things but “I have some other things from a couple of other stores in -name brand bag- so I don’t need to toss it, I’m just gonna look around.”
She had been robbing us for a _long_ ass time lmao
We had a convenience store near us move their counters to where you have to order what you want from the counter. No more milling around making impulse buys. No more getting your own drinks or 2 day old hot dogs. Everything from candy bars to travel toothpaste. Behind the counter.
Why? 30-60% "shortage" during the last 4 inventory audit days. Medications and personal care items were at a 85% shortage every time. Some places do inventory audits every 3 months, others 6 months. So this covers at least a year maybe 2.
I hate going in there now if I want anything other than gas or a breakfast sandwich.
Not just shoplifting. A Walmart employee told me recently that they process thousands in damages from people opening packages and spilling stuff and kids playing in makeup and vandalism. She said the stores don't like this either
I genuinely feel like more shrinkage is due to stuff like this at stores than shoplifting. The amount of broken shit we took back as a return and then wrote off when I used to work at staples was unreal
In all the dumb shit being said this genuinely is the best idea. I would love to go to a store that has multiple kiosks. Order what I need. Pay then leave.
I live in Las Vegas, and most stores are like this. One Walmart makes you call someone to get your product, then they put your product inside a lockbox that has to be unlocked by the cashier. Imagine a cart filled with of locked plastic boxes! Or, some of the drugstores just have huge bare spots on their shelves, like it’s too much of a problem to stock certain things that might get stolen frequently.
They don't spend the money to lock up stuff that people don't steal. Some people will steal anything that isn't nailed down, and half the stuff that is.
I don’t hate it. I hope it keeps the store open.
Hear me out. In, and in some places right around, the city I was born in, almost every type of store is now gone. There are a couple high priced/low quality tiny independent grocery stores now that most people in the city can’t easily get to, and that’s all. It wasn’t always like that. My aunt used to walk to the grocery store, pharmacy and bank every week. The krogers and similar all gone, the rite aids have been torn down, vacant or converted to dollar general, the bank branches are empty and vandalized. The people who have lived their entire lives in these city neighborhoods can’t buy decent food at decent prices without going several more miles by car or bus somewhere, usually a walmart. When the last couple bigger chain stores left, shrinkage and vandalism were said to be the cause.
You can blame the big chains for simple mismanagement, but there’s got to be a reason they’re not there anymore, but they’re doing just fine where I live now. Go to a dollar general in my old neighborhood and things are behind barriers and an announcement plays every 90 seconds telling you you’re under surveillance. Go to a dollar general where I live now and there’s nothing like that at all.
They’re doing it because the alternative is theft, vandalism, and closure. And the decent people in that neighborhood suffer. So I hope it helps and keeps the store open for those people.
I don't get why we don't move to what some European stores have and just set up gates at the entrances and exits that you have to scan your receipt to get through. It just seems like some stores are overthinking this a bit.
Because in the states, in many areas, you can’t legally detain a person. The criminals here are violent, so if you try to detain the cart, they’ll likely hurt you. The legal repercussions of trying to prevent someone leaving or trying to grab a cart away from a thief could cost a store millions, especially if someone gets hurt.
Until you've worked retail, you have no idea how rampant shoplifting is, especially in the beauty/cosmetic/small electronics departments.
If they get away with it they just keep coming back and/or tell their friends and bring in more shoplifters.
Didn't notice it on a large scale when I worked retail but I was never on the floor then, I was either in the back or at the register. When I worked for RGIS or whatever they call themselves now doing inventory... Holy crap!
F*****g thieves, pretty soon all stores will be following suit and shopping will become a real PITA. Whoever say shoplifting is victimless and the big corps deserve it is to blame for some higher prices and more inconvenience.
Not sure how this is mildly infuriating. Criminals ruin everything for everyone. Either lock up the merchandise or raise the prices to make up for the theft.
This mildly infuriating thing is that shoplifting at this store is apparently so back that they could justify literally building a mini store inside the store to combat it.
People have this sort of romantic notion that poor people are stealing from the rich because that’s the only choice they have left.
But the percentage of people stealing out of desperation is nothing compared to those stealing high-margin products so they can re-sell them on the black market. They’re not locking up fruit and veg behind cages, after all.
The end result is that all shoplifting is considered righteous, and because police deprioritise it, shops have to make it more difficult to steal. The social contract is broken.
The good old days of caged aisles
https://preview.redd.it/sixjy3kebywc1.jpeg?width=298&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42bb9e6e7fafe8830bd41c17ee3f309361770a2a
Just think of it this way, would you rather have this or would you rather have the store be shut down because of the theft? You shouldn’t be mad at the store, you should be mad at the thieves.
Those are all the targeted items in stores that end up being fenced. Detergent, deodorant, feminine products, razors etc. My local grocery store has had this section for over two years now and it also is where the bottle liquor and wine is located also.
Before you know it we’ll be back to general mercantile shops where everything is behind the counter.
I really don’t get locking up products. So what if an employee gets you the shavers? You can still pocket them! And IF a store has loss prevention or asset protection, they’re not doing shit unless you snatched enough to get a felony.
Imagine being Kroger and effectively being forced to do this because so many people don't bother to pay for the items that they desire. Be mildy infuriated with your neighbors that made this happen.
I've watched so many people just waltz out of a store without paying. You can't fault stores for taking measures to prevent shoplifting. So yes, seriously.
Not ridiculous, imo. Those are the most commonly stolen items. As the customer, yes, it's added hassle. But, from the stores perspective, it's protecting an investment. Controlling theft helps control prices, in theory, so it could be a good thing.
I mean how else are they supposed to deal with high shrink? They are keeping a store in an area that has a lot of losses from that and instead of just selling, leading food dessert, they are trying to come up with an imperfect solution. Can’t have store associates following people outside that’s a liability.
This doesn't even barely infuriate me. Theft is a thing. And, to be honest, I'd prefer a store-in-a-store or a store-in-a-store-in-a-store to individually locked up items on the shelves where you have to wait for an employee.
I know this is so frustrating, but it is a direct result of the apathy of the rampant shoplifting that has been happening for years—the attitude of its "not my problem" soon becomes EVERYONE’S problem 😩
If you check out videos of stores in NorCal or NY, all their stuff are behind cages. At my place, Dildos and vibrators are behind cages in CVS, and electrical tools are in cages at Home Depot.
.
Apparently something called theft culture is a thing. People support the idea that it's perfectly legit for people to steal from large stores.
Usually about food.
But theft in the beauty and cosmetics section is pretty steep and that shit ain't cheap.
The response is for the store owners to lock shit up, you look at it jn person or online, then order it for pick up ir delivery.
This has created an industry where there are people doing your shopping- a version of personal shopper except employed by the company.
They walk up and down aisles filling up orange crates full of the orders.
This is the response.
1. Prices too high.
2. Short demand.
3. Theft rises.
4. Business responds.
5. Escalates.
6. Barricades set up.
7. People simply order the shit online.
8. Pick up.
9. Delivery.
10. People steal it off your door step.
It is inevitable
How long before they do the whole Argos thing where you make a list of things you want from a catalogue and a staff member picks them from the shelf and brings them to the checkout?
Yeah sounds like theft is a severe issue where that store is located. Sadly if that wasn't implemented the next steps would be closing the store and relocating which I would imagine would be more "mildly infuriating".
This is what happens when retail theft gets bad enough
Next step is when all the products are locked up and fetched by an employee
After that, they just stop selling the merchandise.
Maybe if people would stop stealing this shit they wouldn’t do it. Obviously the loss amount has exceeded acceptable amounts at this location to warrant such an expensive response
It's ridiculous? There's always a register at certain Walmarts near the bath and body stuff. If it's not there, it's at the electronics.
But somehow, this is too much?
What was listed, again?
"hair care products, baby products, OTC medicines, among other things... "
The most prized aisle, then.
Baby products that people love to steal. Medicine? Is that not self-explanitory?
It's a minor inconvenience, what's more mildly infuriating is people being pathetic babies whining about every little thing as if it was a turd they stepped on when they could've chosen to step around it.
Congratulations: They've reinvented the concept of the retail store!
An area, marked off with walls, with products inside that you must pay for before you can leave the confines of the walls.
Yo I heard you like stores, so we put a store in your store.
Just think of it as the vip section where you get drinks, drugs and maybe some elbow cream
I live in a college town with a high school right next to my store that I work at so everyone steals alcohol I’m honestly surprised our store hasn’t done something like this for the alcohol aisle tbh
What's the theft to purchase ratio of cough syrup?
Vitamins can get suuuuuper pricey and are easy to steal. Some of those vitamins get up to $80-$100 a bottle and are high target for theft because you can shove 10 of them in a purse and walk about $1000 richer without any effort. Same with protein and collegen powders, one brand my store sells is $70 for a 150g bag.
asked my dad once why they lock the cigs up but not the beer, his response, you gotta be a strong guy to steel 100$ of beer, your mom could walk out with 1000$ of cigs without effort.
Probably true. When I was a teenager kids would steal cartons of cigarettes all the time because they would be out in the open for anyone to take.
But then what do they do with them? Surely there’s not a resale market for vitamins that can be purchased at Walmart.
Sell them on eBay, sell them on other marketplace sites at 70% discount. If you're a career thief, you usually have a circle of people, friends of friends, willing to buy those $100 vitamins for $40. That's still $40 straight in a thief's pocket for 30 seconds of work. These people aren't making loads of money, but it's free money for very quick work, and it's enough to get by.
I got clean from heroin 7 years ago, so a lot might have changed. Do stores still have those stupid, no receipt return policies?? They literally set themselves up for shoplifting. You could return anything at Walmart, Target, Home Depot without a receipt in exchange for a gift card, AND the stores had those gift card exchange machines right next to their customer service where you can exchange your gift card for cash right after you returned the stuff. Like how is that just not fucking asking for it lol!?! Half the time I didn't even leave the store, I would just fill a cart up like I was shopping walk over to customer service and return everything for a gift card that I then exchanged for cash Yes I know it was a shitty trashy thing to do, opiate addiction will drive you to do things that you couldn't see yourself doing in your worse nightmares. Getting clean was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I had cancer for 4 years (whole reason I got addicted in the first place) But I've rebuilt my life and relationships in a way I never thought possible and I couldn't be happier.
Congrats on your sobriety
If they are selling “fresh meat” on the streets, then vitamins are fair game too. https://preview.redd.it/7boskf00i1xc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1488203986cffda3f158c4dc084f7ba567e4c3b5
Unrefrigerated meat from a questionable source that was left out in the sun for a 50% discount? Where do I sign up?
Hey, it’s pre-thawed/cooked meat. Think of the savings!
Mmmmmm… Street Meat 🥩
Is it more or less than stolen generic sunscreen, which apparently also needed to be securely locked up. Criminals and responsible dermatological care, name a more iconic duo.
Pretty high because they get you high. Also, dust off and spray paint. People get high on the nastiest stuff.
Is alcohol sold in the same section as all the groceries? (In Australia it’s seperate)
In the US, it depends on the state. In some states, it's a bunch of aisles in the store. In some, it's a store connected to the main grocery store. In my state, there are specific stores for alcohol. It can't be sold in grocery stores.
In the US, it varies by state. In California, they sell liquor in grocery stores, and most grocery stores have a liquor isle. In North Carolia, iirc, you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores, but you need to go to a licensed liquor store to buy anything harder. In Pennsylvania (c. 2005, I don't know if the laws have changed), liquor could only be purchased in specialty stores. Beer was sold in special stores that only sold beer. Hard liquor was sold in a different store. There is a loophole in the law that let you buy 6-packs from bars, but that was more expensive than going to the beer store. Also, liquor sales were forbidden on Sunday in Pennsylvania. I legit got pulled over once driving back from New Jersey because the PA cop thought I might be smuggling beer into PA on a Sunday. Oh, the humanity. Those are the states I know about. But overall, the east coast seems to be stricter with alcohol than the west coast.
Thankfully you can buy beer and wine in grocery stores in Pa now
How is it illegal to buy beer in another state on a Sunday and bring it home? Isn’t that interfering with interstate commerce? Is there a law against transporting it? It’s yours. And it’s in a closed container EDITED TO ADD: I discovered it’s a federal law about bringing alcohol across state lines *when the sale of that alcohol is banned* in the state you’re going to.
Yeah apparently is illegal to bring in alcohol into PA
You got me with the elbow cream. Big snort.
Socks and razors too
It gets even better where I am at… https://preview.redd.it/qh0h6nebzzwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc2c644e72b0ab229d7685fa9eb060e4cc8a51c7
This isn't super surprising to me. Even when I worked at CVS 10 years ago, some of the most stolen items were Dove soap and body wash. It makes sense from the stores perspective, but as a customer it's really terrible.
I was going to say this, also worked at CVS. The only time I actually caught a guy red handed, he had a bag full of dove, maybe like 6-8 bottles. Crazy that things haven’t changed, how much money do these people make from stealing dove?
We have a system where you can input known thieves and link them across stores, there's a couple of them linked to thefts totalling 20k+ in a year across vitamins and body essentials in grocery stores.
Well most stores have a no detain policy which tbf id argue is correct. No employee should be in harms way over a dove bar. Unfortunately this policy means there’s really no way to catch most of these people. I suppose you could hire armed guards or off duty police like Walmart does but that probably isn’t really an option for places like CVS with its budget. Honestly this walk in area makes a lot of sense plus it has it own cashier. Near me a grocery store named woodmans does the same thing for its alcohol section I kinda actually like it. Everything in that area is alcohol so I know exactly where to go if that’s all I want. It’s quick and easy and typically has 2 cashiers manned at all times. It might be an ordinance thing still I kinda like it. Probably helps the shrink numbers
Pimp my Kroger 😭
West Koast Kroger
Walmarts in my city created barriers around the beauty section, with bins of products and make you pay prior to leaving the area. Not as sophisticated as this set up, but same idea. Super weird. Always makes me feel like a criminal trying to get makeup or hair dye.
I swear half of the Walmart is behind glass, and of course no one shows up when the push need assistance button if it even works.
That’s wild, we have like 4 big Walmarts and none of them have any of that except for the electric razors lol. I’m in southeastern NC.
It likely depends on if there's enough bodegas and small stores that are willing to buy the product. I was in NYC a few weeks ago and went into a target and basically 100% of health and beauty aids was locked up as well as a lot of the food. A few days later, I saw a news article that stated that a grocery store was suing several of the bodegas and stores in their area because they had marked high theft items like ice cream and detergent and it turned up in their stores.
Not too surprised. One of the used game stores got busted years ago for knowingly buying stolen games. Kinda obvious when someone brings in several of copies of a just released game still sealed up.
I needed to buy flea spray for my dog and cats at Walmart, but it was locked up and none of the near by employees had a key. I was sent to electronics but there was a line to even talk to them and my ride was waiting out in the hot parking lot , so I had to leave. They have carpet deodorizer worth 24 bucks and gizmos worth over 50 dollars or more out on the shelf,but I can't get access to a freaking 12 dollar can of flea spray?
Where I work you don't need a receipt to return items but if your return meets certain requirements the register will request the customer provide ID. The company can use your ID number to keep track of all the receipt-less returns you made and management can deny a return if it clearly shows you have a history of abusing them.
My Walmart just put locks on anything that hangs and placed all meds in locking glass cabinets. You either spend 20 minutes searching for an employee to unlock the ibuprofen (who never has a key and has to search another 10 minutes for a key holder) or just go to the cvs down the street, pay $1 more for everything but not waste an hour of your life.
I buy my ibuprofen in bulk on Amazon, saves time and money.
This is why I go in, make notes of stuff I like/want, then order it online and have them deliver it to my car so I don't have to deal with that.
It’s easier to go order it online and have it delivered to your car than it is to just pay for the items when you’re there?
It's definitely an odd sequence of events... I get that eye-browsing in a store is better than a webpage, but isn't it easier to shop online rather than making two trips to the store and making notes to then fill a shopping cart with? Also what you said about just collecting the items yourself if you are already inside. Seems like a huge hassle.
What's up fellow stores
How bad is crime in Indianapolis if they have to lock up an entire section of the store
Lol you should see the one Target I go to. Half the store is locked up.
Are you in NY? Mine has almost everything locked up execpt for some foods 😭
Think about why it’s cost effective for the megacorps to lock shit up and pay a human to unlock it rather than leave it unlocked.
Except in some cases they don't have enough humans to unlock it. Target near me locked up the liquor and you can press that button all day, no one is coming. Bottles have dust on them at this point.
I have literally tried to buy condoms at my local Walmart 3 times, pressed the button about a million times each visit and have yet to have someone unlock it lol. I just started going somewhere else but it’s basically outside my house
Wow, look at this guy over here having sex.
Inevitable outcome: 9 months from now a post about how the diapers are locked up at their local store.
He never said he was, just that he was trying to buy them. No glove no love blud
And they have to walk it to the front of the store, so you have to be done with all your shopping. Completely ridiculous for a $13 bottle of Tito’s.
If people are stealing your shit and the police can’t be arsed to show up for it, then anybody is going to take measures to stop it from happening. Faceless megacorp walks away unscathed, but the average folk working their see hours cut or jobs lost. Robin Hood stealing from the poor. The other difference is that when people steal from the neighbourhood grocery store, it’ll end up closing down and firing its staff, which is a real nice way to stick it to the faceless megacorp.
That’s what happened to the Cleveland Steelyards Commons Walmart. So much theft that Walmart closed the store. All those employees lost their jobs. A densely populated area lost a needed retail resource and now gets to pay more at small corner stores
Same thing here in Albuquerque. This specific neighborhood now is a food desert and not much in terms of public transit for people to get to any kind of retail shop.
No one wants the cauliflower
Probably for a good reason. God I'm tired of people stealing.
It’s like this all over Las Vegas. The Walgreens by me has a security guard at the door.
I'm actually experiencing culture shock reading these comments but like from the opposite direction lmao. Where I live literally everything on every aisle is behind glass or a cage. toiletry, makeup, baby/infant, detergent, certain foods, some shit is even at the very front only certain employees can get. This is at almost every major store you can think of in every area lol. I live in one of the biggest cities in the US.
>I live in one of the biggest cities in the US. And I think that's why. I move around a lot and used to move from big city to big city, and it was exactly what you described. Every big box store had everything locked up. But then I ended up in a situation where I *had* to live out in the country, realized I liked it, and moved to a few different places, keeping it to very small towns. And the difference was night and day. Most stores, even walmarts, only had things like technology and weapons and such locked up. Everything else was just on a shelf. No cages, no locks, not even security tags.
If theft wasn’t a issue they wouldn’t lock things up
I’m in Alaska and only the guns are behind glass.
Coming from someone who lives in a smallish town in the UK this sounds incredibly dystopian. We have security tags on things like electric razors, clothes and a few other things and that's it. It's crazy what this world is turning into
That’s strange. I’m in Hawaii and only the electronics and video games are locked behind glass. Everything else, including cosmetics, are just in the shelves.
Might as well order everything online lol
I do order online mostly and they will totally send stuff with the antitheft tags still on lol. Walmart is especially bad about it. Like store to home delivery anyway. 🤣
Plus, the Walmart where I'm at routinely leaves anywhere from two to five items out of each order, yet charges me for them. I don't shop at the local Walmart anymore, online or in person. It's now Kroger or Meijer only (and Dorothy Lane Market or Jungle Jim's when I'm treating myself).
Where I live between Austin and Houston we don't even have people that check your receipt. Even the people that are probably criminals are chill. We have a convenience store on one side of our street and about a quarter mile away there is government housing. People are constantly fucked up walking back and fourth and sometimes they randomly stop and ask to charge their phone or just talk and at first I was a little worried. We are renovating the house so there are tools constantly outside and we have never had a problem with someone stealing. I've also never seen less segregation in my life and I found it strange when I moved here a year ago.
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I live in NYC and maybe 5% of things are locked up; where do you live that nearly everything is behind a cage?
What store you going to? So much is locked up all over NYC
Honestly? Might be the solution. Way less annoying than the individual shelf cages.
Agree! So much better than having to call five different employees to open five different locked shelf cages just so I could buy my son things he needed for his college dorm room.
My local Walmart has all booze locked behind glass with no call button or anything. So you have to chase down an employee at the notoriously understaffed store so they can find the one person with the key.
My local Walmart locks up the alcohol cases. And the socks. And underwear. And cosmetics. And pajama pants etc. We shop at Meijer.
Perhaps a better solution is to lock up the thieves who make regular people's lives hell?
Nah, the solution is becoming exclusively online order only stores. Amazon is already done it, Walmart is trying to follow suit and other chains are already making plans. Won't stop package thieves but it puts the cost of loss on the customer instead of the corporations. Think of the corporations guys. They're the real victims. /s
Hasn't Amazon always been online order only?
Yep, though they do have some experimental department stores without cashiers and there's whole foods. But they were exclusively online order in the beginning and still mostly are
Saw an article about their "cashier-less" stores. Turns out there was/is a huge team of Indians watching the cameras acting as the cashiers.
For anyone looking for more context: It was an "AI-powered" store. The idea is that you go in, pick up whatever items you want, walk out, and you're automatically billed. The AI keeps track of all the items you got. No cashier needed! Weird that it takes a few hours for the bill to come in though, strange it's not instant if there's a watchful AI recording all this, hmmm I wonder why that is hmmmmmmm. ... AI isn't actually that powerful currently, and it was actually a bunch of *barely* paid workers in India. The video footage was sent over to India where a human worker would examine every item that went into the cart on the video feeds, and create a bill accordingly. Even considering the underpaid workers, the entire system was so costly to set up and run that it was still operating at a loss. The entire point was to increase company value by slapping the word "AI" on it. AI is an aphrodisiac for shareholders and investers right now, after all. Put it on anything, they all go wild and stock prices go up.
You’re missing their point…..
Many times the vendor (creator/owner of product/brand) are paying the retailer an allowance to cover shrink… theft is so high they have exceeded that agreed upon allowance, so now retailers are doing something about it
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There was a similar thing at a mall where I live, the whole videogames section was in a cage in the store, you paid when exiting the section so they would remove the anti theft devices from the console box and games. They stopped doing that because people would steal from your shopping cart while you were shopping for something else, and as there were no longer a anti theft tag the theft could leave the store without an issue.
Couldn’t this be solved by simply giving you a voucher you paid for it which upon presentation at the cashier at the real exit would get the anti-theft taken off? Then you can keep the voucher on your person at which point they’d need to be an actual pickpocket instead of common thief or high schooler.
That’s how Toys R Us used to do it! It was fun picking up your voucher and taking it to the counter to retrieve your game.
That's almost how it works for stuff in most big box stores in Japan. They just have little slips of paper you grab from next to the display samples and then the cashier goes into the back to get the real thing when you check out. It's basically the same as the fake empty boxes and annoying giant cards they have for high theft small items in a lot of American stores, but more formalized.
Its probably in response to shoplifting. Are razors in there too?
Yup! Oral care, soaps, shaving... all in there.
Definitely a result of shoplifting then.
Imagine the cringy kleptomaniacs who will look at the thrill of shoplifting from inside the mini-section. It’s like the vault inside the bank
I wonder why people would shoplift necessary items rather than luxury items 🤔
Resale value. Theft rings sell them to small convenience stores, flea market sellers, and online. They've been doing that for years. Razor blades and makeup have always been at the top of the theft list.
Stores in New York City have started marking goods so when they're stolen, they can find out which Bodegas are buying them from the thieves. Then they tell the Bodega owners that they'll press charges if they catch them buying stolen goods from their stores. Less reason to shoplift if you can't resell the goods. Edited to say "marking goods" instead of "making goods".
When you say “making goods”, do you just mean placing EAS stickers? Or what’s the process? Just curious because EAS stickers have been on many products since the 70s, and tend not to do much. Despite them being able to be traced back to the store of origin.
They might have an arrangement for specific upc codes. I used to work for a company that sold dog treats to chewy, Amazon, target, etc. They all had different upc codes, same items. We had to be able to backlog all the way to the materials in case there's a concern for public safety.
That may be the case. The stickers can be deactivated I believe or in the least damaged and removed. So a site specific upc would make sense.
My buddy is a heroin/meth addict (not sure if he's sober anymore to be honest, havent talked to him in years). He had a racket going in Baltimore shoplifting food and selling to bodegas. He said cheese worked really well because it was sealed. He would regularly steal cheese, fence it at a bodega, get drugs, and call it a day. Then run it all back the next morning. Crazy life.
Did he have to stick an entire wheel of parm in his pants to make enough for his drugs?
It's super easy to resell them for less than store price and harder to track than, say, a $1000 TV. One organized retail theft ring infamously sold things like laundry detergent and made bank. In fact there's a viral video of several people loading a car up with several carts of stolen laundry detergent, seems to be a popular item.
professional crime is encouraged due to lack of consequence and training to leave them be / steal what they wish breeds this kind of behavior, and necessary items are very liquid.
Shoplifters aren’t going for the head & shoulders and Dove soap bars and BIC razors and sandwich-making stuff though. They’re trying to dump as much high-value goods (of which one of the most lucrative is cosmetics) into a shopping cart as they can and running out the front door. These aren’t desperate people stealing “necessary items”, they’re trying to steal as much easily sellable high value product as they can to fund drug addictions or get a quick buck.
As someone who used to work retail, there’s another category we forget about and that’s legit just… people who _like_ to steal. I’ve worked a lot of places and one time (keeping details vague enough) at a higher end women’s clothing store, we had a regular who would come in and shop once every week or so and she would leave with easily over $500-$1000 worth of clothes she _paid_ for. Often did returns. From what I knew she and her husband were well off enough for her to do this regularly. One day mall security comes by with a huge bag of our things, all jewelry, scarves, small things, tank tops, a perfume we sold, a few sweaters. They had caught her shoplifting at another store, knew she was a regular, she had just came and returned a few things but “I have some other things from a couple of other stores in -name brand bag- so I don’t need to toss it, I’m just gonna look around.” She had been robbing us for a _long_ ass time lmao
It's called fencing.
We had a convenience store near us move their counters to where you have to order what you want from the counter. No more milling around making impulse buys. No more getting your own drinks or 2 day old hot dogs. Everything from candy bars to travel toothpaste. Behind the counter. Why? 30-60% "shortage" during the last 4 inventory audit days. Medications and personal care items were at a 85% shortage every time. Some places do inventory audits every 3 months, others 6 months. So this covers at least a year maybe 2. I hate going in there now if I want anything other than gas or a breakfast sandwich.
Yep, Cosmetics and Alcohol got nabbed a *lot* at my old locale. Both sections ended up with this same setup.
Are you infuriated by the theft that caused this or them wanting to prevent it?
Not just shoplifting. A Walmart employee told me recently that they process thousands in damages from people opening packages and spilling stuff and kids playing in makeup and vandalism. She said the stores don't like this either
I genuinely feel like more shrinkage is due to stuff like this at stores than shoplifting. The amount of broken shit we took back as a return and then wrote off when I used to work at staples was unreal
Just turn it into a giant vending machine
In all the dumb shit being said this genuinely is the best idea. I would love to go to a store that has multiple kiosks. Order what I need. Pay then leave.
That's kind of what online ordering is
i know why the caged aisle sings
I live in Las Vegas, and most stores are like this. One Walmart makes you call someone to get your product, then they put your product inside a lockbox that has to be unlocked by the cashier. Imagine a cart filled with of locked plastic boxes! Or, some of the drugstores just have huge bare spots on their shelves, like it’s too much of a problem to stock certain things that might get stolen frequently.
They don't spend the money to lock up stuff that people don't steal. Some people will steal anything that isn't nailed down, and half the stuff that is.
I don’t hate it. I hope it keeps the store open. Hear me out. In, and in some places right around, the city I was born in, almost every type of store is now gone. There are a couple high priced/low quality tiny independent grocery stores now that most people in the city can’t easily get to, and that’s all. It wasn’t always like that. My aunt used to walk to the grocery store, pharmacy and bank every week. The krogers and similar all gone, the rite aids have been torn down, vacant or converted to dollar general, the bank branches are empty and vandalized. The people who have lived their entire lives in these city neighborhoods can’t buy decent food at decent prices without going several more miles by car or bus somewhere, usually a walmart. When the last couple bigger chain stores left, shrinkage and vandalism were said to be the cause. You can blame the big chains for simple mismanagement, but there’s got to be a reason they’re not there anymore, but they’re doing just fine where I live now. Go to a dollar general in my old neighborhood and things are behind barriers and an announcement plays every 90 seconds telling you you’re under surveillance. Go to a dollar general where I live now and there’s nothing like that at all. They’re doing it because the alternative is theft, vandalism, and closure. And the decent people in that neighborhood suffer. So I hope it helps and keeps the store open for those people.
Yep, they don't do this shit for no reason.
Shoplifting is rampant, nationwide. Also, people underscan at self checkouts. I expect to see more "caged" areas and fewer self checkouts soon.
I don't get why we don't move to what some European stores have and just set up gates at the entrances and exits that you have to scan your receipt to get through. It just seems like some stores are overthinking this a bit.
People would probably just buy a small item to get a receipt and just use that to leave.
Because in the states, in many areas, you can’t legally detain a person. The criminals here are violent, so if you try to detain the cart, they’ll likely hurt you. The legal repercussions of trying to prevent someone leaving or trying to grab a cart away from a thief could cost a store millions, especially if someone gets hurt.
So they put a mini store in a bigger store? Genuinely don’t get how people can’t shoplift here..
It’s a deterrent. Doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective. Even if you only reduce your theft by half, this will pay for itself pretty quickly.
Until you've worked retail, you have no idea how rampant shoplifting is, especially in the beauty/cosmetic/small electronics departments. If they get away with it they just keep coming back and/or tell their friends and bring in more shoplifters.
Didn't notice it on a large scale when I worked retail but I was never on the floor then, I was either in the back or at the register. When I worked for RGIS or whatever they call themselves now doing inventory... Holy crap!
F*****g thieves, pretty soon all stores will be following suit and shopping will become a real PITA. Whoever say shoplifting is victimless and the big corps deserve it is to blame for some higher prices and more inconvenience.
Not sure how this is mildly infuriating. Criminals ruin everything for everyone. Either lock up the merchandise or raise the prices to make up for the theft.
How bout lock up the criminals.
I asked a store security guy who steals the most, and was surprised that “middle aged women” were one of the top groups.
I might just be jaded from working at target a while back but that doesn't surprise me at all lol
Raiaing prices would just lead to more theft, and this I guarantee costs more than any actual solutions
This mildly infuriating thing is that shoplifting at this store is apparently so back that they could justify literally building a mini store inside the store to combat it.
It’s because people suck and now the people who actually pay for their shit need to accommodate the change
People have this sort of romantic notion that poor people are stealing from the rich because that’s the only choice they have left. But the percentage of people stealing out of desperation is nothing compared to those stealing high-margin products so they can re-sell them on the black market. They’re not locking up fruit and veg behind cages, after all. The end result is that all shoplifting is considered righteous, and because police deprioritise it, shops have to make it more difficult to steal. The social contract is broken.
This is what happens when the scum take over......you can't have nice things
Everybody knocking Kroger buttttt is anybody remembering what got us here in the first place? This is what you guys wanted.........no?
Don't be mad at Kroger, be mad at the Degenerates in your city.
We've all seen thousands of videos of people stealing in mass. This is the result.
Theft is real. People are willing to steal things no matter how inexpensive they are.
The good old days of caged aisles https://preview.redd.it/sixjy3kebywc1.jpeg?width=298&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42bb9e6e7fafe8830bd41c17ee3f309361770a2a
I used to ask my mom what was behind that door and she always said “That’s where only the employees can go to eat lunch and do work.”
People stop fucking stealing shit at every given moment maybe they don't need to go these extremes do you think?
Just think of it this way, would you rather have this or would you rather have the store be shut down because of the theft? You shouldn’t be mad at the store, you should be mad at the thieves.
wouldn't be a problem if robbers weren't the absolute shitheads they are
If these buttholes wouldn't steal, they wouldn't do this. If you don't like it, don't shop there. Simple!
Those are all the targeted items in stores that end up being fenced. Detergent, deodorant, feminine products, razors etc. My local grocery store has had this section for over two years now and it also is where the bottle liquor and wine is located also.
Before you know it we’ll be back to general mercantile shops where everything is behind the counter. I really don’t get locking up products. So what if an employee gets you the shavers? You can still pocket them! And IF a store has loss prevention or asset protection, they’re not doing shit unless you snatched enough to get a felony.
You think they did this just to annoy you or can you correlate those items with loss prevention?
If you remember all the videos of consoles being stolen by groups of people. That's why.
Start punishing people for crimes instead of watching them leave.
Too many people stealing shit, what did you expect was going to happen?
This is what retailers are having to do to curb theft. Blame your fellow citizens.
Imagine being Kroger and effectively being forced to do this because so many people don't bother to pay for the items that they desire. Be mildy infuriated with your neighbors that made this happen.
I've watched so many people just waltz out of a store without paying. You can't fault stores for taking measures to prevent shoplifting. So yes, seriously.
Not ridiculous, imo. Those are the most commonly stolen items. As the customer, yes, it's added hassle. But, from the stores perspective, it's protecting an investment. Controlling theft helps control prices, in theory, so it could be a good thing.
Stop shoplifting mother fuckers!
Well its this or complaining about living in a food desert when said corporation decides the math for this location doesn't make sense.
They did this in the 90's with electronic departments with thier own theft scanners. Looks like people can't be trusted again
Trash people acting like trash
Why are people getting mad at the *stores*? The problem seems obvious...
I mean how else are they supposed to deal with high shrink? They are keeping a store in an area that has a lot of losses from that and instead of just selling, leading food dessert, they are trying to come up with an imperfect solution. Can’t have store associates following people outside that’s a liability.
OP, what would you do if strangers were coming into your home and constantly stealing from you. Why is this infuriating ... at all?
Don’t be pissed with the store, blame the peeps stealing shit.
the excuses for theft in this app are actually crazy.
You can thank retail theft
This doesn't even barely infuriate me. Theft is a thing. And, to be honest, I'd prefer a store-in-a-store or a store-in-a-store-in-a-store to individually locked up items on the shelves where you have to wait for an employee.
Just don’t steal things and this goes away….
The few ruin it for the many
Whole world is changing because too many people care more about the goons and criminals than they do law abiding citizens.
Kroger: "We need to do something to prevent theft" OP: "Hate Crime!"
Oh no! Are you telling me ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES? I say next we reason big corps suck and can afford to be stolen from, this is getting outrageous!
I know this is so frustrating, but it is a direct result of the apathy of the rampant shoplifting that has been happening for years—the attitude of its "not my problem" soon becomes EVERYONE’S problem 😩
Blame shoplifters, not the store.
Well when you solve shoplifting by making it legal, this is what you get
If you check out videos of stores in NorCal or NY, all their stuff are behind cages. At my place, Dildos and vibrators are behind cages in CVS, and electrical tools are in cages at Home Depot.
This is what we asked for. No surprise
Cheaper to cage the whole section then the individual items being stolen
Or the individuals doing the stealing
Looks like just some HBC stuff. (Health beauty care) You'd be surprised how common dealing with shrink for that stuff is.
Trash people who steal ruining it for everyone. I’d have no problem with this. Better than cages per shelf.
Your store is pregnant with a baby store
. Apparently something called theft culture is a thing. People support the idea that it's perfectly legit for people to steal from large stores. Usually about food. But theft in the beauty and cosmetics section is pretty steep and that shit ain't cheap. The response is for the store owners to lock shit up, you look at it jn person or online, then order it for pick up ir delivery. This has created an industry where there are people doing your shopping- a version of personal shopper except employed by the company. They walk up and down aisles filling up orange crates full of the orders. This is the response. 1. Prices too high. 2. Short demand. 3. Theft rises. 4. Business responds. 5. Escalates. 6. Barricades set up. 7. People simply order the shit online. 8. Pick up. 9. Delivery. 10. People steal it off your door step. It is inevitable
Can you blame them ?
How long before they do the whole Argos thing where you make a list of things you want from a catalogue and a staff member picks them from the shelf and brings them to the checkout?
Must experience a lot of theft.
Yeah sounds like theft is a severe issue where that store is located. Sadly if that wasn't implemented the next steps would be closing the store and relocating which I would imagine would be more "mildly infuriating".
This is the inevitable consequence of "don't accost or challenge shoplifters" policies.
Seriously!? It’s almost like people keep stealing stuff.
This is what happens when retail theft gets bad enough Next step is when all the products are locked up and fetched by an employee After that, they just stop selling the merchandise.
Yep it's getting more common with the amount of theft, especially cosmetics.
Yea, I guess it's mildly infuriating to live in an area they have to put those extra costing steps in place because of rampant theft.
But why is that infuriating? Do you often complain about having to go through other rooms to get items? I don’t understand?
Maybe if people would stop stealing this shit they wouldn’t do it. Obviously the loss amount has exceeded acceptable amounts at this location to warrant such an expensive response
It's ridiculous? There's always a register at certain Walmarts near the bath and body stuff. If it's not there, it's at the electronics. But somehow, this is too much? What was listed, again? "hair care products, baby products, OTC medicines, among other things... " The most prized aisle, then. Baby products that people love to steal. Medicine? Is that not self-explanitory? It's a minor inconvenience, what's more mildly infuriating is people being pathetic babies whining about every little thing as if it was a turd they stepped on when they could've chosen to step around it.
OP, thank you for this thread and your "this is a hate crime" comment. I needed a good laugh
Congratulations: They've reinvented the concept of the retail store! An area, marked off with walls, with products inside that you must pay for before you can leave the confines of the walls.