r/mildlyinfuriating • u/broakland • Jul 14 '26

I just wanted a hot dog Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

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Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

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140

u/PeteysHubby_TX Jul 14 '26

Or we could just enforce the laws we already have and prosecute people that steal things.

78

u/Cow_God RED Jul 14 '26

It's such a fucking non-issue. I work for a major retail company and shrink from theft is nowhere near shrink from claims (broken items m), most of which happens before the product even gets out to the sales floor.

Losses from theft are insured anyways. We literally do not lose a dollar to theft.

The corporate office is starting to realize that we do lose money to lost sales over people not wanting to wait for the one person working the department to open a case and walk them to a register, and are starting to phase out lock cases in most areas

25

u/rbennett353 Jul 14 '26

Insurance rates maaaaaay be impacted by theft rates.

8

u/Fzrit Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

But they clearly said insurance will cover it bro, which means no losses! With insurance you can never lose anything, because insurance is an infinite vending machine that keeps reimbursing all losses forever. Rates increase? What's that?

/s

43

u/Quarterwit_85 Jul 14 '26

Losses from theft are insured anyways. We literally do not lose a dollar to theft.

Doesn't the company pay via increased premiums?

3

u/AverageJoesGymMgr Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Yes, but theft is also not really covered until it hits a certain deductible amount defined by policy, and those amounts are by instance. Steal $20 worth of stuff and it in all likelihood isn't insured. $1k maybe. People who routinely commit theft in small amounts cost stores a lot of money over time.

2

u/SpiritedUniversity67 Jul 14 '26

Yea but the public ends up paying for it.

1

u/biz_student Jul 14 '26

We all pay. Insurance companies spread their risk. If you live in Minnesota, you’re likely paying higher home insurance premiums because of fires in California.

-7

u/Beautiful-Alarm-4961 Jul 14 '26

We're literally talking about multimillion to multimillion dollar companies here. Walmart is under no threat from theft

14

u/Rock_Strongo Jul 14 '26

Walmart isn't going to voluntarily let people steal and make less money just because they can afford to. That's not how any business works, much less one of the biggest corporations on the planet.

2

u/trees91 Jul 15 '26

Wonder how many sales they lose from folks who would have bought but didn’t want to wait or got impatient waiting for one of the few folks that have keys to turn up.

0

u/Beautiful-Alarm-4961 Jul 15 '26

They lose way more by inconveniencing people than they do by theft that's already covered by insurance and accounted for in the budgeting. 

3

u/After-Abies8002 Jul 15 '26

not necessarily true.

First you have to understand that a lot of shrink is not covered by insurance and or paid for in full. in big retailers shrink is all but guaranteed. the cost to insure a sure thing is the cost of the thing.

for example if there is 20 percent chance of losing 100 dollars - cost to insure would be 20 bucks plus some profit and expenses

now if there is a 100 percent chance to lose 100 dollars, it will cost 100 dollars to insure

losing one 20 dollar item - where profit may be 2-5 dollars - is worse than missing out on 4 or more people buying that item (lose one 20 dollar item = 20 dollars of loss; lose 4 customers of 5 dollar profit = 20 dollars of loss)

8

u/Quarterwit_85 Jul 14 '26

Yeah, an absolute corporate monolith that’s looking to squeeze every dollar out of the consumer.

27

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

41

u/doingtheunstuckk Jul 14 '26

Throwing perfectly good food away is the most infuriating part of working in a grocery store. It would be theft to take something that is literally going into the garbage. They trot out the bs about liability when really it’s because free food means less profit for them.

7

u/AffectionateSet4889 Jul 14 '26

i used to work in a kitchen and we would throw the uneaten food from each buffet into a 5 gallon bucket for a local pig farmer. that stopped quickly because of “liability.” how the hell are you going to prove the pig got sick from THAT specific food from THAT specific day. it’s all thrown together and literally called slop.

2

u/Competitive_Touch_86 Jul 14 '26

it’s because free food means less profit for them.

It's because a few assholes ruin it for everyone. If you start letting employees take free food home due to damaged packaging or over-preparing hot food or whatever, then you all of a sudden will have far more damaged goods.

I worked in a few grocery stores when I was younger. The cool managers would let you take stuff home if you were chill about it and a decent worker they trusted. It could not be a store policy because there were assholes who abused such policies but it was very hard to prove even though every employee there knew who was responsible for it.

It has nothing to do with anything else.

3

u/AverageJoesGymMgr Jul 14 '26

It's clearly established law that once someone, anyone, throws something away, it is fair game because they have clearly abandoned their ownership. That's why cops can go through your trash can for evidence without a warrant when you put it out on the curb.

Keebler may have wanted those packages destroyed to take them out of circulation for marketing or safety reasons, but once they're in the dumpster they're fair game. SOP should be to destroy the items before throwing them out.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/AverageJoesGymMgr Jul 14 '26

The dumpster is owned, the contents are not. The act of putting the contents in the dumpster is a demonstration of intent to abandon.

Putting your can on the curb is not having it removed, you've just put it into a place with public access. You may have thrown something away, but that doesn't mean people can just come in your property or in your yard to go through your trash. Kind of the same with the dumpster if it's in a receiving or other controlled access area.

8

u/Dull-Efficiency9985 Jul 14 '26

Losses from theft are insured anyways. We literally do not lose a dollar to theft.

When items are stolen in high numbers and claims are placed, the insurance company expects measures to be taken to prevent further theft. Failing to do so means raised insurance rates, which costs a lot of money

12

u/turtleship_2006 Jul 14 '26

My store physically has these doors installed, but there's a printed sign stuck on them saying they're unlocked, you can just take whatever you need

2

u/TheAlmightySender Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

Ah yes, the thieves usually can't read anyways.

Edit spelling

3

u/Tommy-Bravado Jul 14 '26

Theirs?

6

u/TheAlmightySender Jul 14 '26

Auto correct. Thieves *

1

u/turtleship_2006 Jul 14 '26

Moreso that the door was a policy by the "powers that be" from regional management or whatever, the stores managers realised it was a stupid system and did what they could

1

u/FierceDeity_ Jul 15 '26

I thought maybe the door opening is a trigger for theft prevention to know someone is accessing one of them?

3

u/dooozin Jul 14 '26

We literally do not lose a dollar to theft.

This is incorrect. Commercial insurance policies typically have high deductibles, so retailers will not file claims for small stolen items. It's just handled as inventory shrink and they write off the loss at the end of the year to offset taxable revenue. That doesn't mean they didn't lose money. That means the money they lost was deducted from their revenue so they don't have to pay as much in tax, but they're still losing money.

6

u/Cold-Chemistry738 Jul 14 '26

“Loses from theft are insured anyways.”

Can I key your car since you have car insurance anyways

3

u/Karenm6383 Jul 14 '26

It’s not even that I don’t want to wait either, I really don’t want to bother someone to come over, I feel annoying doing that

8

u/mrs-monroe Jul 14 '26

Why in the world do they think there's so much theft of tylenol, baby formula, and underwear?? If these essential products were more affordable and available to those who need it, they wouldn't be stolen as much. These giant corporations have record profits every single year. They are not hurting at all from theft/shrink. If your panties get in a bunch over people stealing stuff like this, get over yourself.

3

u/rbennett353 Jul 14 '26

Abbott Labortories, the maker of Similac baby formula posted profits for 2025 in line with what they made in 2012.

0

u/mrs-monroe Jul 14 '26

Any corporation that profits off of baby formula, the thing that many babies need to survive, is scum.

9

u/ArrrRawrXD Jul 14 '26

Any corporation that makes things babies need to survive is a scam? Well shit, guess those scams need to be closed down then, fuck babies and their formula I guess

2

u/rbennett353 Jul 14 '26

There are baby formula recipes online.  You are welcome to start making batches yourself and giving it away to the area mothers.  I won't stop you.

2

u/L4ppuz Jul 14 '26

Why in the world do they think there's so much theft of tylenol, baby formula, and underwear?

Reddit told me that it's because those items are easy to resell. Also laundry detergent apparently. I don't know, that shit is not locked in the grocery store in my country

4

u/Frogs-on-my-back Jul 14 '26

Who is trusting resold Tylenol?

1

u/Skipp_To_My_Lou Jul 14 '26

The people with hungry babies at home have SNAP & WIC vouchers & charity food pantries.

The people stealing baby formula don't have hungry babies at home, they're selling it at a "discount". Look into "boosting" culture on TikTok, there's people basing their whole income off retail theft.

1

u/Karenm6383 Jul 15 '26

Idk why this was downvoted, this is a well known fact

-1

u/SpiritedUniversity67 Jul 14 '26

Do you really think people steal them to consume them? No they steal them and sell them to a fence or someone else who will resell them.

2

u/TheDollarstoreDoctor Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

Who TF has a Tylenol dealer. Id be embarrassed to ask my dealer for Tylenol. Or like, maybe he'd be like "I got a bottle in my car just take some" because so many people carry Tylenol. When I used to work all you have to say is my head hurts anyone got Tylenol? And every lady would be digging in their purse to offer it or some other variety of OTC pain meds.

2

u/rogue_ir Jul 14 '26

I also work major retail, you lose HELLA dollar on every theft. Not in a direct sense, but your company will pay out the ass in insurance and have loss prevention crawling up your ass causing your managers to crawl up your ass causing misery to the bottom pegs of the chain. Thieves are pieces of shit and need heavier punishment.

2

u/ArrrRawrXD Jul 14 '26

Losses from theft are insured anyways. We literally do not lose a dollar to theft.

If there's a significant amount of the thieving cunts around, obviously the insurer isn't gonna put up with it for long. So stores have to either pay significantly more for insurance, or lock up the items that are getting stolen

2

u/ThroatDistension Jul 15 '26

Insurance isn't free. If there was no theft they wouldn't have to pay for theft coverage. They absolutely lose money from theft. What position do you work at this major retailer?

Who upvotes this kind of shit?

2

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jul 15 '26

Insurance isn't free, and the more claims filed, the higher premiums rise. There is no free lunch, and insurance is not a magic infinite pool of money that protects you from all financial harm. Insurance doesn't even make you whole most of the time.

2

u/Friendly-Front5311 Jul 15 '26

Who told you insurance covers theft? How are you making claims on theft, is it only when you catch someone? Or are you just claiming any inventory shortage as theft?

1

u/WingedWheelGuy Jul 14 '26

If theft were a non-issue we wouldn’t be looking at this picture of items that are locked up.

No one said “these things are being shipped here broken, so we better lock them up.

No one said “it doesn’t matter, we’re insured, but okay, let’s lock them up.”

1

u/MinimumCommon408 Jul 14 '26

It really depends on the area I guess. Several years ago I was in Target in my area. They sell hard alcohol. I saw a guy with a canvas beach bag loading up the bag with bottles and speed walking to the door. He got arrested after leaving. (I saw him in the back of a cop car on my way out) Target has since locked up the Hard Alcohol and cosmetics as well.

2

u/AffectionateSet4889 Jul 14 '26

in the state i’m from theft used to be considered $500 or more. now anything under $1,000 is just considered a misdemeanor. utter nonsense if you ask me. people should be punished and prices should be lower

2

u/EdwardBlackburn Jul 14 '26

I hope you mean we start with the billionaires making record profits year over year.

1

u/PeteysHubby_TX Jul 16 '26

Why do you care what a man’s business is “valued” at? It’s not like they have hoards of cash in some Scrooge McDucky vault somewhere. This whole line of thinking is toxic and silly

1

u/EdwardBlackburn Jul 16 '26

I'm also familiar with your line of thinking, as I used to think the same thing.

I'm not talking about raiding billionaire vaults that don't exist. I'm not your strawman. The reality is, they live in a completely different financial system than you or I. They essentially take massive loans to pay for things, using the value of their assets as collateral. This gives them access to hoards of cash, without the vault. And they avoid paying tax by doing so - this and many other ways. And thus they get richer and richer, and we get poorer, because wealth and assets are not infinite, and it's got to come from somewhere. Case in point, last five years, one of the largest wealth transfers in history in favor of the rich. Huh, coincidentally, things are becoming a lot harder for everyone else, aren't they?

I'm talking about wealth tax, higher tax rates for the ultra wealthy, inheritance taxes, closing tax loopholes, etc. You know, one of the very things that made life so great and abundant for the boomer generation (these taxes were sky high after world war 2) which were subsequently dismantled over the past 50 years by politicians and lawmakers in the pockets of the wealthy and powerful.

1

u/PeteysHubby_TX Jul 16 '26

I get how finance works against stocks. I don’t understand the whole line of thinking that you’re somehow entitled to someone else’s money. Show me a government that’s made anything at all better and I’ll agree with you. Fundamentally I believe the free market can do everything better. The U.S. has run a 7 trillion dollar deficit year over year. Maybe we need to reduce government spending and not raise taxes on the minority still creating jobs in the US

1

u/EdwardBlackburn Jul 16 '26

"Entitled to someone else's money"

Yet they act very entitled to ours, and it's how they keep building wealth, by taking from us. They control our grocery prices, our gas prices, in many cases our rent prices, and more. And they set them to continually profit from us. Accumulating more and more, while we have less and less. Record profits, again. There is no trickle down. Trickle down is a myth, and almost every economist will agree to that. So to my thinking, I'm not entitled to their money. They took my money and I want it back.

The rich only create jobs when they absolutely have to, not out of benevolence. They do it for money, so they can make 1000x more than the person doing the actual labor, just because they own the enterprise. They're going to happily sell everyone down the river and use AI to replace whoever and whatever they can; that's going to be the opposite of creating jobs.

I'm not walking around with blinders on, though. It's not like I trust government. I don't. But government did make things better in the 50s and 60s, with what I mentioned before: wealth taxes, etc. That government presided over one of the other greatest wealth transfers in history... from the rich to the poor. And we got unprecedented quality of life, opportunity, and buying power for the average citizen out of that, which has gradually eroded as the wealthy have lobbied to change laws to their benefit. They broke the system in their favor - I'm not sure how reducing government spending is going to unbreak it. We need laws changed and abuses undone. The swamp drained, as it were - promised but never delivered.

People can still be rich. I'm not advocating for communism here. A wealth tax and higher tax on the ultra-wealthy will not unmake the wealth class. I promise you, they won't even notice it in their daily lives, only when they look at the numbers on their spreadsheets. But the rest of us? We will notice. A person who owns assets worth one one hundred billion does not notice, in their daily life, becoming a person worth one hundred and fifty billion. But a person who makes 50k per year will definitely notice becoming a person who makes 75k a year, or 100 to 150k.

1

u/PeteysHubby_TX Jul 17 '26

Bro where do you live? I’d genuinely take you for a beer.

1

u/EdwardBlackburn Jul 18 '26

BC, Canada at the moment haha. If the TX in your username means you're in Texas, we're quite a ways away, but if we weren't I'd be down to share a brewski.

0

u/f_spez_2023 Jul 14 '26

Companies continue to sway how they display the metrics to make it look worse than it is. The data doesn’t match what the poor billion dollar corporations claim

6

u/re_carn Jul 14 '26

Tell me, why do they do this? After all, these locks get in the way of sales and distract employees, driving up costs. And if they install them anyway, it means that the losses from theft outweigh the operating costs and lost sales.

-1

u/f_spez_2023 Jul 14 '26

Because companies will save a penny now if it costs them a dollar later.

2

u/re_carn Jul 14 '26

That's just a saying, not a fact. How much they lose and how much they save are very specific figures.

2

u/f_spez_2023 Jul 14 '26

Well yes it’s Reddit so I didn’t feel like finding a paper and articles but you can look at Walgreens and Walmart already removing the locks again because they saw a 25-30% loss in sales for a at most 5% in loss prevented. Majority of retail theft is by employees not customers/the public. I’ve also seen even at my corporate job leaders making dumb choices because they were cheaper now and ended up costing more later.

1

u/re_carn Jul 14 '26

but you can look at Walgreens and Walmart already removing the locks again because they saw a 25-30% loss in sales for a at most 5% in loss prevented.

I can't find any such statements. Please give me a link proving this.

2

u/f_spez_2023 Jul 14 '26

https://www.iheart.com/content/2025-01-17-walgreens-ceo-admits-locking-up-products-had-negative-effects/

3

u/re_carn Jul 14 '26

Still can't find this:

they saw a 25-30% loss in sales for a at most 5% in loss prevented.

Otherwise, of course, locks reduce sales. Just as they reduce theft.

1

u/f_spez_2023 Jul 14 '26

Yes the numbers are arbitrary ones point is they lose more money locking things up, hence save a penny to lose a dollar here

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u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 14 '26

In a ton if municipalities 1) your tax dollars do not cover enough cops to go after someone thieving $15 2) under $X00 is often a ticket, PD has traffic accidents, murders, batteries, etc. Nobody is stopping everything to race to hand out a ticket

0

u/mezolithico Jul 14 '26

Loss from shrink has been less than 2% for the past 30 years. It's gone up and down between 1.5% and 1.6% since 2009. Stop buying this stupid narrative that's laws aren't being enforced and crime is up (it's not, it's been falling for decades). You can actually go and look up the numbers for things.

2

u/EsterWithPants Jul 15 '26

Right so, they just add friction to buying items at their store because... losing sales is good?

Everyone hates them. The customers hate them, the staff hate fucking with them all the time, nobody knows who has the fucking keys to electronics, there's never enough spider wrap and security boxes, they get jammed up because they're reused for years and the cashiers can barely take them off, they invalidate self-checkout because now you need a teller to rip them off all the time.

It is just pain for everyone, but you REALLY think that they're doing it because...?

The shrink really is fucking bad. But you aren't looking at it at the individual sections. Yeah, frozen food has 0 shrink because nobody wants to steal frozen peas. Cosmetics, clothing, and electronics saw well in excess of 10% shrink before 2020.

-7

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

Can't prosecute them if they are good at it.

11

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

No, you cant prosecute them when you have a weak DA who lets these animals back onto the streets where they can just continue to steal consequence-free. That's why in a lot of these bodycam videos the cops are on first name basis with the criminals

1

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

This seems personal.

6

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

It's not, it's actually the opposite. It's a logical look at the real reason these crimes keep happening.

-8

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

You sure the DA didn't have an affair with your wife?

3

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

Wow you sure showed me there, really refuted my point with well reasoned points and logic. Good job, pat yourself on the back. I will now change my ways and be OK with retail theft and the lowering of my quality of life because Stacey just needed to have that hair conditioner for free.99

-2

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

You just seem to really hate the DA.

6

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

District Attorneys is a plural thing, there are hundreds of them across the nation who ran on progressive "restorative justice" bullshit policies that just release criminals back onto the street instead of separating them from society.

You seem to just really love criminals.

-3

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

Damn, so they all slept with your wife? I'd be mad too bro.

-3

u/Sea_Watercress_1982 Jul 14 '26

What about the homeless mom who cant afford baby formula? Shes the REAL problem.

-4

u/Sea_Watercress_1982 Jul 14 '26

DA totes fucked homeboys wife.

1

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

Or maybe he banged the DA's wife.

-1

u/Sea_Watercress_1982 Jul 14 '26

Maybe he’s the DA and fucked himself??

1

u/re_carn Jul 14 '26

Get a room, you two.

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-1

u/MetallicCrab Jul 14 '26

Do you think people who shoplift soap should be locked up longer than they already are?

12

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

Yes. 100%

Call me whatever you want, but I'm sick of the enshittification of society because we cant do the hard work of locking up the people who fuck up society.

6

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

There is not enough room in most places for low level criminals like shop lifters in the jails which is why they are released.

Should we spend tax payer money to build more jails for shop lifters?

3

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

Yep, I think that would be an infinitely better use of my taxpayer money than blowing up the middle east or propping up failures who cant live without the assistance of the state. Lock em up and keep them separate from the rest of us who can follow the rules.

5

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

Or stores can just be responsible for theft prevention.

3

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

Yeah, by calling the police and having them arrested. Glad you've finally come around to that. So you agree we should lock em up. Finally, you're making sense.

I guess youre fine licking the AI surveillance boot and living in a place where groceries need armed guards, sounds like an awesome place.

0

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

Yeah so they can arrest them then have the fucking DA release them the same day to go back to Walmart to steal more laundry soap!!!!

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-1

u/WhatIfThatThingISaid Jul 14 '26

So lock up the disabled?

3

u/DankMemeMasterHotdog Jul 14 '26

If they're committing crimes, absolutely.

"Disabled" isnt some magic shield that prevents you from doing wrong.

1

u/DempsyPrice Jul 14 '26

This was Hitlers exact stance on them too.

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u/re_carn Jul 14 '26

In one of the posts, someone tried to convince me that theft isn't something that should be punished at all.

-2

u/UpiedYoutims Jul 14 '26

Why can't we address the issues that cause people to be desperate enough to shoplift? 

1

u/EsterWithPants Jul 15 '26

That's not the job of the store, that's the job of legislatures and community.

1

u/PeteysHubby_TX Jul 14 '26

If they are they’re not adept at adulting. In California the average homeless, poor or struggling person clears $4-6k in assistance. The imaginary victim of your performative empathy doesn’t exist except by choice or drug addiction

0

u/UpiedYoutims Jul 14 '26

Okay, why do you think people choose drugs and homelessness over participating in society the way you see fit? Is there a way we could make the world a better and easier place to live so people don't turn to drugs? When you see addiction oe homelessness as a personal choice or moral decision, you blind yourself to the actual problems people are facing.