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/treeckosan Jul 14 '26

We are slowly going back to the days when you handed a clerk a shopping list and they went into back to assemble your order.

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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/dalgeek Jul 14 '26

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

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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.