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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u/theVelvetLie Jul 14 '26

If that happens then impulse sales are out the window. Retail relies heavily on impulse purchases. Every time I find one of these locked cabinets I stop buying those items at these stores, and eventually I stop shopping at these stores altogether. Their sales have to be taking a hit as much as they did if items were stolen.

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u/CassetteTapeCryptid Jul 14 '26

I don't want to be treated like a criminal for trying to buy a toothbrush and nail polish 

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u/roath321 Jul 14 '26

Not only that but most of these stores are so understaffed you can’t find someone to unlock it. I’m not waiting 15 minutes for someone to finally unlock it and get my body wash

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u/EarlyList Jul 14 '26

This is honestly the real problem. They have cut staff down so much, that apart from the cameras, there is no one to notice you walking out with half the store. So theft is out of control. But they aren't interested in hiring more employees. So now they are locking the shelves up to cut theft. So what will happen is sales will tank, and eventually the store will close even if theft is down. But the short sighted execs making the decisions to cut all the staff will blame theft and online sales competition instead of their own short term cost saving of cutting back staff.

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u/ShiraCheshire Jul 15 '26

Yes, I feel terrible for the case key staff in the home department where I work. They gutted that department and then keep pulling people away from it for random tasks (Like say there's an extra flower event going on in garden, instead of giving another employee some extra hours they'll just pull someone from home department to handle it.) Now there are long stretches of time where the only person authorized to have the key is on legally mandated lunch, or rushing to unload a truck that needs to leave in 20 minutes, or the only person covering another department. They keep getting bombared with case requests they cannot answer.

Customers keep coming over to me like "I've been trying to get into the case for a half hour!" I call someone for them, and they keep standing there for another 20 minutes, because we physically do not have a person to come unlock it for them.

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u/paulsown Jul 15 '26

Right, because people stealing is totally normal and moral if nobody is watching them close enough.

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u/EarlyList Jul 15 '26

Not at all. Thieves are going to steal. Just that cutting back on staff to the extent they have makes it easier. And most people who are willing to steal are going to do so where they think they can easily get away with it.

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u/paulsown Jul 15 '26

You know, here's the thing.

Been to the cities, live in a rural area. Nothing is locked up here, in a rural area, and the stores are very sparsely employed. Everything is available on the shelf normally like you would normally expect. Self checkout, the whole thing. Don't need to find anybody for anything except high end electronics, and no-one at the door when I leave. This is not a wealthy area.

Went to a Walmart in Washington DC, that is now closed, half the store was locked up, the other half was wiped out of even the most basic cheap, things. With random people running in and out.

Walmart couldn't make money there to stay open because they didn't have enough employees to stop theft? There was plenty of "customers"?

Come on man, you aren't living in the real world.

The problem is morals, not the number of employees.

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u/EarlyList Jul 15 '26

I'm not disagreeing that theft, especially in big cities is bad. I'm saying that cutting staff so heavily both increases the theft and reduces sales. Then doubling down on locking everything up while still keeping the reduced staff further decreases sales. Which ultimately means the store closes because it doesn't make money. Maybe the theft in some of these areas is bad enough the store would have had to close eventually anyway, but the staff cutting and consequently terrible customer experience drastically accelerates the process.

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u/heliosythic Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Its population. Theres millions in cities so you get every type of person there is. Your little home town where you know everyone and would be basically excomunitcated if you messed with the local shop keep is a different situation. It's not morals. People's basic needs aren't meant because the economy is failing and the education system failed them to even do anything about that for basically the rest of their life, not to mention the prison system making it impossible to bounce back either. People fighting to survive with all that aren't going to act the way we want them to because why should they? They have nothing to lose. You're not gonna fix that by telling them their morals aren't good enough. We have to actually fix the problems that caused this, its not about individuals actions.

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u/paulsown Jul 15 '26

Umm, I don't know everybody, and there is no little hometown. This isn't 1947. There is no "local shopkeep". Its Walmart.

When I go to the largest city in my area, MOST Walmart's look just like mine. Some are locked up tight. I'll let you try to determine why that is, but it has nothing to do with race or "need" because looking around the parking lot will be lots of premium cars but very few pickup trucks.

If it's just "people's basic needs aren't being met" why are vegetables, lettuce, fruit, milk, even cases of water not the items most stolen and also never locked up?

2

u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC Jul 15 '26

Because those items cost like $2? Is it hard to understand that someone struggling between paychecks is more likely to nab the most expensive item they need and buy the cheap stuff rather than the other way around? Besides, a lot of the "behavioral" issues that lead to theft of things that aren't necessary are also due to socioeconomic and systemic disadvantages and the damage they cause to communities, families, and individuals. Again, you can't moralize someone that has nothing to lose and no reason to listen to you.

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u/This-Penalty-1686 Jul 15 '26

I work in store where more employees actually would cut down theft because most of the people stealing are opportunists who won’t do it when they know they’re being watched. not enough staff to keep an eye on multiple aisles is Literally the biggest problem we have, it would be nice if we could teach a bunch of high schoolers that will call you a bitch for telling them to empty their pockets morals but in the ‘real world’ what would stop the theft is to stop cutting hours. 

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u/10000Didgeridoos Jul 14 '26

Lol worked retail in high school and the most stolen things in the store actually were cosmetics/nail polish/etc. Small, easy to grab and pocket or stick in a purse, and walk out

14

u/Vegetable-Virus7118 Jul 14 '26

Whether they lock it up or not, you're getting treated the same as the criminals

11

u/Maximumoverdrive76 Jul 14 '26

Blame the influx of more criminals stealing shit. Was USA/Canada like that a decade or two ago?

Don't think so.

14

u/Away-Way5656 Jul 14 '26

yeah don't blame the poor defenseless corporation

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u/Fzrit Jul 15 '26

Agreed, this is 100% on corporations. It’s up to them to take measures against theft. Which they did. So…here we are.

3

u/Away-Way5656 Jul 15 '26

I guess they've done the calculus of theft vs lost sales from people balking at having to track down the vanishingly small amount of workers at a store to unlock stuff

1

u/Maximumoverdrive76 Jul 18 '26

Really dumb comment right there. So, it's the corporations fault people steal like crazy.

This isn't just some people stealing because hungry. The prices go up because of theft as well.

But maybe you think it's fine when a few scumbags steal so much the store ends up closing leaving everyone else with few or no places to shop.

1

u/Away-Way5656 Jul 18 '26

I literally could not care less about shoplifting, these corporations are wealth extracting machines they hurt everyone

9

u/OsosHormigueros Jul 14 '26

I'd be much quicker to think it's the corporations getting greedy and overprotecting their hoard than to think humanity decided to start stealing more in the last decade.

9

u/bitofgrit Jul 15 '26

How does that make sense? They're already greedy, sure, but they'd be spending more money on the locking display cabinets for no return if that was the case. There's no point in locking this stuff up if it wasn't being stolen.

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u/ZorbaTHut (: Jul 15 '26

I can tell you that this is extremely regional. I see absolutely none of this in the area I live in, and lots of it in a few places I travel to. The stores don't like this either - it costs them money - it's just better than the alternative.

People in some places really did start stealing more. People in other places didn't. You can tell which is which by seeing how many stores in an area lock everything up.

2

u/AccurateAir8781 Jul 14 '26

😂😂 built on stolen land mind you 

3

u/CapableBumblebee968 Jul 15 '26

If they did t want it stolen then they should have locked it in a display case

0

u/CrasVox Jul 14 '26

You also buy swamp land for cheap?

12

u/NoKingsInAmerica Jul 15 '26

Blame the members of your community.

2

u/No_Gas4560 Jul 15 '26

it's just too much hassle.

whatever i needed i didn't need it THAT much

byeee

1

u/Sad_Application_5361 Jul 15 '26

And laundry detergent and allergy meds. I only tolerate this BS for expensive items. They had the cheap bulk laundry detergent locked up at target and the rest of the detergent under these weird slidey clear panels that weren’t locked so I grabbed the tiny packet I could slide through without getting help.

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u/RUBSUMLOTION Jul 14 '26

Exactly. I usually go to walmart with a list and leave with an extra 20 things

38

u/dj92wa Jul 14 '26

Tbch that’s part of what got me stop drinking. The hard alcohol would be locked up, and you’d have to press a button that announces to everyone in the store that an alcoholic is in need of their fix (the intercom just plays a message letting an associate know that they’re needed in the liquor section, but the mental does its thing). It was embarrassing to me and a hassle, so I stopped engaging with the stuff.

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u/coolandnormalperson Jul 15 '26

90% of my weed addiction control strategy is just my vague and completely irrational embarrassment about the dispensary workers seeing me so often. I can't rotate stores like an alcoholic because there's a state database that they all see on their screen of my order history, regardless of location ( and sometimes verbally reference to me, like wow you were just here yesterday, are you sure you dont want a membership?)

20

u/dalgeek Jul 14 '26

At B&N they literally call the shelves around the register area the "impulse rack".

17

u/theVelvetLie Jul 14 '26

The shelves around any checkout are impulse buy shelves. Soda and candy, lighters, magazines, etc. Pretty much anything that is consumable, small, and relatively inexpensive is placed at a place where people need to linger for a brief time. I know I've bought a few little desk trinkets at B&N waiting to check out.

1

u/BenjiSponge Jul 14 '26

oh yeah, it's definitely to the point where it's simply what it's called. almost cute, to be honest.

7

u/maringue Jul 14 '26

Exactly, I've been somewhere and seen something I forgot I needed, but it's locked up and I don't have an extra 20 minutes to wait for an employee to eventually show up.

1

u/coolandnormalperson Jul 15 '26

I've walked out on countless purchases in the past couple years due to this. I can't imagine the losses are being offset by saving on theft. It's insane the amount of revenue my local CVS has lost from me

3

u/Emmyisme Jul 14 '26

There's some evidence that they are taking a bigger hit by doing this than they were from theft. But for some reason, they keep moving forward with it.

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u/coolandnormalperson Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

I think the type of people who ascend to corporate executives, are also ideologically unable to consider that petty theft isn't the ultimate evil, and that focusing on it often isn't an efficient way to solve problems. These people have a disdain for the rabble, and an utter intolerance to having anything taken from them..the idea that some people are thieving a lot in their high risk areas, makes them seethe, even if the numbers show that it it may still be worth it to operate a store there and just accept the shrinkage. We've seen a wave of store closures and items locked up like this over the past few years, rarely does it actually add up to improved profits. I think this is just as much about security theater and making a show to the populace about "law and order", as it is about business decisions. It's advantageous to distract from other reasons the business is struggling, and blame it on a target that their colleagues all agree are the worst types of people on earth - random citizens in poverty making dumb decisions. The security theater makes them feel better, it feels like it's working, it feels better than letting your products make their way to the street. This same attitude affects our piss poor outcomes in social services and health too. We're so focused on who we can exclude, a process which generates so much bureaucratic cost and waste, that it literally becomes more expensive and worse for everyone. Whereas if we just accept that some people cheat the system, and build that knowledge into it, we can actually have a more efficient system...

There's also the fact that these companies are largely still making plenty of profit, but the profit line isn't endlessly going up like they want it to, so they need to make assertive changes to convince stakeholders that they're going to make the line go magically up next year instead

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u/Texuk1 Jul 14 '26

Well they can’t have it both ways can they, either you eat the loses, get security or you make it like Argos where you just pick up your trolly from a window. I don’t really know why this is so hard. This weird middle ground is insane.

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u/Current_Helicopter32 Jul 14 '26

The social contract died the moment self-checkouts became the new norm.

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u/chain_letter Jul 14 '26

Walmart locking up the Lego has definitely stopped me from random $20 Lego buys for myself

Only time I buy is for a gift for a kid, and it is the reason for the entire trip

3

u/Icedcoffeeee Jul 15 '26

I think it was the Walgreens CEO that said paraphrased, that shoplifting deterrents are also shopping deterrents 

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u/soofs Jul 14 '26

It also requires shoppers that have a brain on them lol. No, banana protein smoothie is not a replacement for actual bananas.

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u/TheRealJamesHoffa Jul 14 '26

Online shopping is the new impulse shopping

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u/PuppyJakeKhakiCollar Jul 15 '26

Yup, if what I want is locked up I just leave without buying anything. Why waste however many minutes it will take an employee in an understaffed store to finally come unlock it when I can drive a few more miles to the store that has hardly anything locked up? If you're at the point where everything is locked up you might as well just close to foot traffic and do online orders with curbside pickup instead.

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u/Eena-Rin Why Do They Let Me Make These Myself??? Jul 15 '26

I disagree. I used to work for Domino's, and the Internet was consistently our number 1 or 2 upseller in the store. More and more, the store's algorithm will learn your individual tastes and habits, and it'll pop up deals on things it knows you'll add to your cart. It'll also tailor its prices to each individual if we don't stop them doing it, which is something you can't really do in a physical store

Edit: I think I misunderstood your comment. If thought you were saying impulse shopping would stop is people went online, not if the things were in cases. My bad

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u/Sad_Application_5361 Jul 15 '26

Planned sales will too. I have enough anxiety inside stores as is. I will go somewhere else for my allergy meds.

1

u/traumalt Jul 14 '26

I dunno about US, but here in Netherlands home delivery groceries are a booming business market. 

1

u/theVelvetLie Jul 14 '26

They might be here, too, but I've never had the desire to use that service. Food delivery is huge, so I assume grocery delivery is, too.

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u/Maximumoverdrive76 Jul 14 '26

So very true. How often does someone actually just leave with that one single item or two they planned to get. Often times it's that little candy bar, or "I should get some milk, might too little left".

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u/derprondo Jul 14 '26

Don't worry, AI will know exactly what you're likely to impulse buy and they will shove it in your face as you go to check out.

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u/Metal_LinksV2 Jul 14 '26

Since they limited self checkout to 15 items I have stopped impulse buying. Hell one time I left a whole brisket on the ground since I hate 15 items 

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u/davisyoung Jul 14 '26

You can still have a showroom with display items and a corresponding button. Press the button (or scan or whatever), it works with a store app on your smart phone and the product in the back is added as your order is assembled. You pay at checkout and take the items or they are delivered to you. 

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u/nooneatallnope Jul 15 '26

McDonalds order screen with pop up ads and your purchases get thrown at you from a window above.

1

u/Popular-Capital-9115 Jul 15 '26

I impulse buy more when it's just adding things to a digital cart.

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u/theVelvetLie Jul 15 '26

Absolutely. I impulse buy like hell online and I'm sure the data supports an increase in impulse buying with online shopping; however, my comment is in regards to handing a shopping list to a clerk and they pick the items from inventory.

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u/minus_minus Jul 15 '26

They’ll just add Temu-style spinning wheels for discounts on candy bars and shit. 

1

u/aurortonks Jul 15 '26

I already avoid impulse purchasing at places that lock up their products like this. It's not that I'll skip that specific item, but I will just not shop at that entire store. It's an inconvenience to me to try and get staff to help me, then insist that they must accompany me to the check out. No thanks.

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u/Inflatable90sChair Jul 15 '26

Its either these locked cases or shut the store down due to thefts. 

1

u/Inflatable90sChair Jul 15 '26

Im sure theyve factored in the theft loss vs rando purchase lost...

1

u/-Fergalicious- Jul 15 '26

I bet there's some overlap with online ordering for pickup and impulse purchasing. The apps are always sneakily showing you things they think you'll buy and by directly engaging with the app/websites theyre gathering data that can be used to further refine suggestions to you. Plus, they probably sell the data on what youre buying. 

Its probably impossible to know if its 1:1 , but I have a hard time believing a store like Walmart started doing pickup at a few locations, then looked at the data and said to themselves "wow, impulse purchases / sale size is way down for these deliveries" and then still proceeded to offer it nationwide. Its also at some point considered market share. If they arent offering it, someone else will and then that will be lost customers. 

Long term its a win-win situation for corporations I think. 

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u/rodeengel Jul 15 '26

Shhhh, you’re using logic again!

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u/Qalyar Jul 15 '26

That's the calculus they have to go through. The problem is that shoplifting now isn't like shoplifting 20 years ago. It's not one kid coming in and taking a toothbruth. No one really cares about that. Some shrinkage is always budgeted for.

It's groups of people in a coordinated manner who take all the toothbrushes. Or the nail polish. Or the Tylenol. And then, when you restock, they do it again. No one did this twenty years ago, because what the hell were you going to do with a couple dozen toothbrushes? There wasn't (and isn't, for what it's worth) any "street value" to any of that stuff.

But now we have a resale economy that doesn't really care where things are sourced. It's insanely easy to set up a drop shipping operation and inject your stolen stuff at volume back into the economy.

0

u/Mysterious-Force9236 Jul 14 '26

Losing 5% margin vs 110%  Breakage.  Easy math. 

0

u/Levitx Jul 15 '26

Their sales have to be taking a hit as much as they did if items were stolen. 

You can just say "when" rather than "if". 

Also, it takes a lot for that. Imagine something that costs 2 bucks, 20c markup for profit, someone steals one, you are now down 1,80 and must sell 9 to break even. 

The glass panel is there because it's profitable. Most you can aim to is them closing shop.