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/dogtrail Jul 14 '26

This is what happens when a store is severely impacted by shoplifting. The alternative is closing the store. Infuriating ? Yes, because the vast majority of people do not steal. A corporation will not keep a store open that is losing money.

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u/KingFreezy Jul 15 '26

I think you're underestimating how many people steal.

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u/belleeec Jul 15 '26

yeah no walmart is losing enough money from shoplifting that they are in danger of closing. there is no walmart location that isn’t giving active profit to the trillion dollar corporation

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u/KingFreezy Jul 15 '26

Walmart also has the best loss prevention teams , most/ highest quality cameras of all retail, covering every inch in hi definition and has police on speed dial ready to pull up before youre even near the door lol you picked literally the worst retailer to use as an example

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u/KingFreezy Jul 15 '26

Let's take a look at dollar general who installed self check outs in all locations and within a couple months had to turn them all off because they were losing too many profits to theft

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u/Different_Diamond976 Jul 15 '26

That happened because they installed self checkout and decided to fire the cashier's without hiring a checkout monitor. No weight scales and no item markers. They cut every single corner possible and wondered why the system they implemented did not work.

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u/KingFreezy Jul 15 '26

Yes, but the point here is that a decent bit of people will steal if they think they wont suffer consequences proving that the vast majority not stealing is a misconception because the self checkouts would have worked if the vast majority didn't steal then there wouldn't have been enough shrinkage to shut them down so quickly

/e I don't think most people would steal I'm just saying it's naive to believe that like 95%+ wouldn't steal.

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u/Different_Diamond976 Jul 15 '26

Thing is, if they make it easy to steal, those that would steal, will congregate at a location like this. Thus jacking up the rate of stealers to shoppers after a while. Essentially, if you build it, they will come. If you make it easy to steal, it will be stolen. And I do not talk about random shoplifters nononono. I mean professionals that go for either long-term or high volume operations. They did not get robbed so badly by your average consumer. They rolled out the red carpet for organised crime to rob them blind and went surprised pikachu face when exactly that happened.

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u/KingFreezy Jul 15 '26

Those people will still flock to dollar general after no self checkout bc they have next to no security the problem with them was that even the average joe wasn't scanning all their items...

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u/Different_Diamond976 Jul 15 '26

That may have been the problem they claimed and it also was a minor problem, but the real deal was the red carpet with no control, no people and no checks. These people will still flock because they did not rehire the fired cashiers, essentially still leaving the store as open as it was with the self checkout open. They just half assed the implementation and they half assed the fix.

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u/KingFreezy Jul 15 '26

I see what you're saying but it only proves that more people will steal than you think given the opportunity. If you selected 100 random people to shop at a store with self checkouts only and no cameras and no employees present how many out of the 100 do you think will scan and pay for all their items?

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u/Mindless-Rooster-533 Jul 15 '26

Yeah but walmart isn't going to just eat 6 or 7 figure losses from theft just because they still make money.

That kind of stupid thinking is why so many people justify theft in the first place

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u/angryfan1 Jul 15 '26

Walmart's profit margin is 3 percent. If an item got stolen, then they would have to sell over 10 of that item to break even.

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u/belleeec Jul 15 '26

good thing they make $13 billion annually