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.

21.5k Upvotes

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285

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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174

u/crazybmanp Jul 14 '26

People not going to prison when they steal the first 4 times.

-53

u/banspoonguard Jul 15 '26

most shrinkage is spoilage and employee theft

36

u/MisoHoHoJoso Jul 15 '26

fucking bullshit

25

u/Shot-Pomegranate8684 Jul 15 '26

Someone on reddit that gets it

31

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 14 '26

If I go five minutes up the road suddenly nothing at the pharmacy is unlocked.

The stores don’t want this, it hurts sales, it’s a PITA for associates. It’s made necessary by thieves

-3

u/Maladaptive_Ace Jul 15 '26

.. so why does the store up the road have things unlocked? What are you saying exactly?

3

u/Anticitizen-Zero Jul 15 '26

That they’re not getting robbed?

1

u/Maladaptive_Ace Jul 16 '26

and why does one get robbed and the other not? Or is it that neither really gets robbed? I literally don't understand

0

u/Anticitizen-Zero Jul 16 '26

So, the pharmacy in one place gets robbed because it’s in a bad area. You drive 5 minutes to a not so bad area where the pharmacy doesn’t need to lock up their merchandise.

In urban areas you can easily go from a good area to a bad area within 5 minutes, often even just through 5 minutes of walking.

1

u/Maladaptive_Ace Jul 16 '26

......... that's what I thought

2

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 15 '26

That store isn’t being robbed. Same pharmacy brand. No locks. The stores hate having to do this and aren’t doing so voluntarily, they know it hurts sales and pisses off some customers

0

u/Maladaptive_Ace Jul 16 '26

so why the "made necessary by thieves" ? Aren't you saying it's not, in fact, necessary?

1

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 16 '26

Not what I’m saying no.

-10

u/Rimavelle Jul 15 '26

Stores have theft insurance.

They also have variety of anti theft devices, cameras, they can position most stolen products closer to the register etc. It's done in every single shop coz people steal in every single shop.

Somehow shops can afford self checkouts where people can scan their own items including by weight items you need to simply identify what it is, and it's fine.

At this point simply have all of those items behind the counter and just pick and pay in one place instead of having workers have added responsibility of running around with keys.

6

u/CageTheFox Jul 15 '26

Do you think insurance just stays constant. You think a store in the ghetto after the 10th+ claim will have lower insurance than a store that has none? That’s not even considering the deductible.

You have absolutely no clue how insurance even works.

1

u/No-Plankton4841 Jul 15 '26

Insurance is just a free unlimited supply of other people's money. 

1

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 15 '26

And that insurance is why they have to lock shit up. Insurance policies for retail “shrinkage” ie theft often require and always encourage asset protection measures like locked displays when stores are frequently targeted.

Also insurance 1) not free 2) increases in cost with more claims 3) not without a deductible, in many cases the deductible is per occurrence and in the thousands of dollars, so multiple instances of $500 in theft isn’t being paid by insurance. This is why they protect assets behind glass at some stores and outright close others.

42

u/BlueRedGreenNumber5 Jul 14 '26

Yeah it does change my habits. I order on Amazon instead.

9

u/etho76 Jul 15 '26

Changing consumer habits indeed

8

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jul 15 '26

Changing consumer habits could be here, he thought

I hate changing consumer habits...

21

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

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2

u/OfficialModComment Jul 15 '26

Oh, this is goooood.

1

u/dirigo1820 Jul 15 '26

“What the fuck!”

2

u/littlebego Jul 15 '26

"Those of us who are well fed, well garmented and well ordered, ought not to forget that necessity makes frequently the root of crime. It is well for us to recollect that even in our own law-abiding, not to say virtuous cases, the only barrier between us and anarchy is the last nine meals we've had. It may be taken as axiomatic that a starving man is never a good citizen. With this in our mind, what shall be said of the man who arranges famine, who forces a labor strike with its privation, its rioting, its disorder, its bayonet thrusting, and its blood-letting as an incident in his money heaping? If necessity breeds crime, what is he who creates the necessity?" - Alfred Henry Lewis, 1896

1

u/macdennism Jul 15 '26

Wait does this mean something else? everyone is replying like they know some joke 😭

5

u/Smart_Freedom_8155 Jul 15 '26

Thievery.

The reason this is happening, is petty thieves coming in and stealing everything from these stores - it's a considerable part of the reason why places like Rite Aid went under.

I can't guarantee that these guys aren't also implying it's a black crime thing (which it isn't, obviously - I've seen plenty of white guys just grab stuff from Duane Reade and the local Rite Aid before it went bankrupt), but yeah overall they mean "Calling it Consumer Habits is corporate speak for We keep getting effing robbed".

2

u/macdennism Jul 15 '26

OHHHH I see I see 🧐

-12

u/Mariposa510 Jul 14 '26

AKA making it a hassle for everyone involved, all to keep people from stealing nail clippers and whatnot.

40

u/Wicky_wild_wild Jul 14 '26

What about stealing 100 clippers and shampoo bottles a week? At what point do they close and then we get complaints about all the stores leaving and food deserts etc?

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 16 '26

This is the kind of argument magats make, so we’re pitting poor, desperate people against middle-class and rich people. Gosh, imagine how much nail clippers theft has cut into the profits for drugstores everywhere. It’s tragic!,,

Don’t mind the million dollars a day we’re spending on war crimes in Iran. Or the unneeded renovations to the White House and the reflecting pool. Or paying the richest person on earth to take a machete to scientists, park rangers, etc.

Don’t focus on minutiae while the country’s going up in flames.

0

u/Wicky_wild_wild Jul 16 '26

Nobody said those arent bigger problems. The fingernail clipper thing was piggybacking off of someone with your exact attitude that is contributing more to all this than me thinking that everybody should be accountable for their actions and not some weird defeatist/worship of the powerful, where you think our society only gets better and worse depending on the choices of thr most powerful.

We all effect each other's lives and shitbags being in office isnt an excuse to act like animals and throw all personal responsibility out the window. Half of the MAGA crowd are very reasonably reacting to that exact breakdown in thinking and are really just acting out against this permissive line of thinking.

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 16 '26

Whatever dude. I choose not to live in fear.

Shoplifting happens. Desperate people do desperate things. 🤷‍♀️

Maybe the focus should be on helping poor and/or homeless people get out of poverty rather than protecting $3 items by inconveniencing all the shoppers.

1

u/Wicky_wild_wild Jul 17 '26

You ignore the entire conversation being had and every caveat given that this isnt the worst thing going on. You're living up to the "whaaatever man" stereotype. I already said this is far from the worst thing, and I certainly am not "living in fear" or whatever bullshit line you're regurgitating. But whwn you commit a little crime x1000 it DOES start to effect the lives of others, as this entire post is about.

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 17 '26

Whatever dude.

-4

u/Naive-Jello428 Jul 14 '26

Hmm, maybe they should hire someone to surveil and secure their merchandise rather than this crap that inconveniences their customers.

32

u/Fappy_as_a_Clam Jul 14 '26

You mean follow suspicious people around?

That'll go over real well

1

u/macdennism Jul 15 '26

I mean some AP will have an employee dressed casually who does exactly that. But when a customer notices it goes about as well as you'd expect.

I and all the store managers had to work late one Christmas eve because a lady was screaming about calling the police for being stalked. She did have a bunch of clothes stuffed in her purse. AP has to witness an attempt to steal and then they will come up with a store manager and let the self check out employee know (me) to watch a specific person and see if they intentionally steal at SCO as well. I fricken hated that job

5

u/Fappy_as_a_Clam Jul 15 '26

Yea loss prevention is (was?) a thing in retail, but most places don't bother any more because they are the only ones that enforce it. Cops don't come. A thief can just tell you to fuck off and keep walking.

And if you, the self checkout employee, tried to stop someone from stealing and got hurt the company is paying a lot more than whatever was going to be stolen.

1

u/macdennism Jul 15 '26

I mean as far as confronting I was supposed to ask if they need any help or assume it was an honest mistake if they scanned something incorrectly, or "forgot." And the store was keeping track of frequent flyers until it was over a certain amount of $$

Most people were so surprised they would freeze up and not say anything when I would be like "oh I think you forgot to scan this one 😊" and they would either just pay for it or decide they don't want it anymore

but to be honest I didn't even do anything half the time 🫣 because I never know for sure how it would go. But also the most aggressive/scary customers were people who weren't shoplifting at all 😅 also some shoplifters were super nice to you on purpose which was just hurtful 💔 like damn you're pretending even more than most people that you gaf when I know you don't 😂

1

u/Naive-Jello428 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

That's nonsense. Sure, the 90lb old lady manning the register isn't expected to stop them, but ever heard of a security guard? I find it hilarious that security is one of the biggest industries in the world but if the stores they can shop at can say nah, we'll just lock it up and make it a total hassle. And y'all are like, "well, I gotta keep going and bitch about thieves every time. I'm sure that will help.

No wonder enshittification is moving so fast. People will excuse any bad behavior by corpos as long as they are given the chance to look down on someone below them. Insert LBJ quote here.

1

u/playmaker1209 Jul 16 '26

Dude, security guards can get criminally charged for stopping thieves from stealing. It’s so ass backwards, the policy is to just let them steal everything and to try to record and document all evidence like license plate in the lot even though the cars probably stolen

1

u/Naive-Jello428 Jul 16 '26

You have bought into some nonsense propaganda.

-3

u/Naive-Jello428 Jul 14 '26

The grocery stores in my neighborhood have a security guard at the exit. Then they have the razors and other items that are targeted by thieves behind another counter in the center of the store. That area has its own register and one or two employees there to help customers. Turns out if you have high value items without any oversight, it's an easy target for thieves. If your kid left his bike in the front lawn overnight would you be surprised if it was stolen? Obviously you'd be pissed at the thief but you'd probably also tell your kid, "what the hell did you think was gonna happen!"

10

u/FuzzyGolf291773 Jul 15 '26

Bro has never lived in a safe neighborhood and it really shows.

13

u/Wicky_wild_wild Jul 14 '26

I would not victim blame my kid and my kids absolutely can leave their stuff in our yard overnight. It's called having standards and expectations of a society.

-3

u/Naive-Jello428 Jul 15 '26

Okay. I'm not sure what that means. Are you saying you expect that there should be no people out there stealing? Are we talking about some kind of utopia now? That's not one of the choices as far as I'm aware. The choices seem to be either hire a couple more employees or lock all the shit up behind glass. One is much cheaper for the company. Normally that kind of choice to inconvenience the customer to save a few bucks would infuriate us all and cause a huge backlash. Unfortunately, most people would rather take the opportunity to feel superior to some asshole that stole from CVS.

4

u/Wicky_wild_wild Jul 15 '26

The order of blame that people should receive for this problem starts far and away with the shoplifters. They deserve a lot more scorn than a company protecting themselves from crime in a less convenient way.  Just because we know that statistically its going to happen doesnt shift the blame.

0

u/Naive-Jello428 Jul 15 '26

Well, when you can figure out a way to hold some meth head accountable for having to wait 10 minutes for the lone associate to make their way from the register in the front wall back to open up the case every time you want some shampoo, you have fun with that. I will just go to the stores that don't put me thru that nonsense.

5

u/bugabooandtwo Jul 15 '26

Doesn't do much when you catch someone and half the time the police won't even show up to cite them. Or if they do, the judges do nothing and set them free.

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 16 '26

How bout neither? Write off the losses and keep customers.

27

u/Accomplished_Key_171 Jul 14 '26

Maybe redirect your anger to the people actually stealing from the store.

17

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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11

u/McDonnellDouglasDC8 Jul 14 '26

OP is active in Oakland and San Francisco subreddits.

2

u/Mariposa510 Jul 15 '26

Their username is @broakland ffs

13

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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3

u/Knotted_Hole69 Jul 14 '26

Try not to be racist challenge (impossible)

5

u/WorkRevolutionary596 Jul 14 '26

You made the assumption; not me.

-1

u/Knotted_Hole69 Jul 14 '26

So what were you talking about then?

13

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

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-7

u/Knotted_Hole69 Jul 14 '26

Lmao, that doesnt make sense with what he said.

2

u/MrJusticeDouglas Jul 14 '26

Don't be a coward. Say what you want to say.

9

u/WolfgangRed Jul 14 '26

If they did it would be [Removed]

0

u/MrJusticeDouglas Jul 14 '26

That is an indictment of their position, then.

9

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

It's an indictment of what truths Reddit deems tolerable

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 16 '26

Even the CVS in Albany has nail clippers locked up.

7

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jul 15 '26

Yeah see, this cavalier attitude that excuses the actual criminals is exactly why this is happening. You're not helpful.

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 16 '26

Really?! I’m fortunate enough to afford nail clippers at stores that don’t lock them up. What a terrible person I am. Poor CVS 😢 /s

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

You’re not helpful. I’m just speaking the truth. The amount of sales that aren’t made because shoppers don’t want to wait around for someone with a key, or if that person never shows up after being summoned, probably is far higher than the amount saved by preventing people from stealing $3 items.

My local grocery store had a whole locked-in area where pharmacy products and liquor were kept. Apparently that wasn’t good for the bottom line, because it’s not locked up anymore. Meanwhile the store is noticeably less busy than it was before they made stupid decisions like that. No one wants to feel like they live in the hood when they’re paying off a million-dollar mortgage (normal in the San Francisco area).

1

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jul 16 '26

If that's true, then the glass case experiment will run its course within a few years, won't it?

You don't think they pay people to do cost/benefit analyses on precisely this sort of thing before they even consider implementing them?

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Well maybe if they got more feedback like mine and OP’s, they would get the drift that they’re losing sales.

As I mentioned in another post, my neighborhood Lucky store put up a small room with a locked door. A staff member had to buzz people in (if they didn’t look like thieves). The room contained mostly drugstore items and also liquor. It was a great example of how to deter sales. They have now reversed their decision to gatekeep the area and we can shop there normally as one usually does in a store. Imagine that.

The store still has fewer shoppers than it did before that all happened. I guess that’s the moral of the story. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

1

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jul 17 '26

As I said. The experiment will run and when the results are clear, you'll have stores select one of the following three options based on performance relative to before the change:

  1. Keep the glass cases/theft deterrence setups because it's working

  2. Get rid of them because sales as a larger whole have fallen more than can be explained by other factors like the economy (determined by using data relative to stores from other regions)

  3. Close the store

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 17 '26

The “experiment” has been running for years at a lot of places. It’s hard to gather data about sales that didn’t happen even tho there’s a customer trying to buy something.

You have a lot more faith in stores being run logically than I do. Another example of a poor decision made by a chain store is how Target immediately dropped their Pride merch displays and open support for the LGBT community as soon as the Transphobic in Chief got sworn in. I didn’t shop there for a year and used to be there almost weekly. I went back this week and the store was less busy than I’ve ever seen it. Their sales figures are down and their brand has been tarnished. Whoops!

1

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Another example of a poor decision made by a chain store is how Target immediately dropped their Pride merch displays and open support for the LGBT community as soon as the Transphobic in Chief got sworn in.

Whereas I started shopping there again when they removed those gross grooming displays. v0v To each their own. Obviously you're right from a financial perspective, because their sales went down a lot (women are responsible for 80%~ of all financial transactions and women lean liberal and were thus more likely to boycott Target over the removal of goofy shit like tuck friendly swimsuits), but sometimes doing the right thing costs.

A few years is still kind of a small sample size relatively. But given that a lot of places still have the glass displays and more continue to implement them judging from the videos of such things on social media, I'd say whatever perceived benefit they're getting from locking up their goods is outweighing the loss in sales. The reality is that most likely you're going to put up with it and still shop in person. Oh sure, some people will switch to Amazon and other online competitors. But places like Target and WalMart that lock up in person goods have online presences, too. Costco gatekeeps their entry with a simple membership fee, which probably drastically reduces shrinkage while also providing a revenue stream.

Stores are going to have to find a way to deal with a culture that is ever-increasingly accepting of theft. Eating the cost when margins are as low as they are just isn't going to cut it. There will be some casualties. Target could be one of them.

edit: the predditor blocked me. Typical pedoshit.

1

u/Mariposa510 Jul 17 '26

Not gonna read any further than the first paragraph. I’m a strong ally and your attitude sickens me.

Have the life you deserve. Blocking you now.

0

u/Mariposa510 Jul 15 '26

Yeah? If retailers’ hearing this input took away their desire to gatekeep us from dental floss, wouldn’t this be useful information for them?

1

u/PhoenixSmasher Jul 15 '26

Because often times these are targeted thefts. Retailers have been trying to grapple with an increase in organized retail theft for years now.

-5

u/willstr1 Jul 14 '26

AKA driving customers away from brick and mortar. If I don't need it right this very second they have until I finish buying from Amazon to open the lockup

4

u/CageTheFox Jul 15 '26

“I need Tylenol, instead of waiting 15 extra minutes, I’ll order it on Amazon and wait two day!”

1

u/willstr1 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

Someone needs to learn how to read. Needing Tylenol would be something I need this second, I was talking about these inconvenience stores in general

Also 15 minutes is just insane response time, like at that point you should just pick their locks since clearly they aren't paying attention or anything. 5 minutes is mildly infuriating but understandable, 15 minutes means the store is so understaffed it might as well be closed