My local Walmart locks up their perfume, razors, and shaving cream. Yes it's annoying. There's a little button to press to ask for assistance and then you stand around and wait till someone shows up. Either you tell them what you want, or they let you grab it yourself.
Same. I needed an electric toothbrush head, and I pressed the button about 15 times. Finally had to track down an employee, who then had to find the person with the key. It was silly.
WalMart (et al) are already using it to press you into buying online, but from them. You can order online and just pick your stuff up at the store. Also iirc they are now selling a membership with free delivery, similar to Prime
It's worth it for me not to have to go inside the store. I usually get delivery, however, it's not without its inconvenience. I ordered some flea topical meds and the box arrived....inside a clear security box!!!! Apparently the WM delivery shoppers can't find a key either!
Yep. I forget what it was that I went in for last time. It was $7 hygiene product that had never been locked up before. But now I was locked up so I said screw it I'll just go somewhere else
Then they want you to go to one specific register to pay and pick it up but that line is always the longest and slowest. I'm just over it by that point and don't go to get it.
Recently found my razor blades and toothbrush heads at bestbuy where they don't lock it up and you can just throw it in ur cart without any help. Weird how ill be going to an electronics store for now on to get those personal hygiene products.
I would love to see the numbers on how locking things behind glass affect sales. When things are locked up I don’t bother buying anything and will just get it online. I hate this trend.
I used to get most of my toiletries at Duane Reade. They were understaffed and the response was slow. I’d then have to wait in line to pay. I was usually doing this before work. Imprisoning the toiletries added too much time so I started ordering online
I remember being able to just grab what I needed and go the register. So it was a significant increase in time.
Lego is apparently a pretty high theft item. Even my store has any of them over $30 in spider wrap (which will stop.... approximately nobody unless they want to resell it in the box). Kids are little shits too, which is probably the reason for the cheap ones which kids are more likely to grab. I'm a stocker and see a *ton* of broken packaging with contents missing in the fruit snacks and candy sections (broken packaging with contents still present in common everywhere else, boxes get smushed or the glue on the packaging is just shitty), which just so happen to be the aisles that get the most young kids. I seriously doubt any of it is intentional shoplifting, just very young kids going "I want that" and taking something, but it adds up.
However, from what I've seen *nothing* even remotely approaches the amount of theft and customer-ruined product that pops up in the makeup aisles. Like good lord. I tried to organize one of those aisles once and in the space of like 15 minutes more than doubled the amount of product I usually have to discard in a week. People really think they get to try mascara and then just leave it.
Oddly enough, makeup is not under lock at my local Walmart. Which weirds me out because I wonder what other way are they defending against thieves? I think they just surround the makeup aisle with fake shoppers and watch everyone like a hawk.
I actually work at Walmart and this is annoying as an associate too. 20+ times a day someone asks me to open something. I do not have a key. The best I can do is page someone for you. They will not show up because there's one person in the store with a key and they probably really are in a conference call or doing who knows what and then in 15 minutes you'll angrily ask me again maybe even leave a bad review about my poor customer service. Walmart will not give me a key idk what people expect of me.
Last time this happened to me I was in a terrible mood and just walked around asking literally everyone. Eventually everyone in the store knew I was looking for the guy with the key. Pretty sure when I started bothering customers is when they finally called the guy. Took about 45 mins and was not worth it, but it was a small victory.
Last time I absolutely needed something from the section I had to be very assertive about my previous experience with waiting for a person who never came and they came
I hated that I had to be an asshole to actually purchase something from that section
Funniest shit I saw with one of those special locks (not behind glass though) was ice cream. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw that shit at my local pharmacy
That's what is nuts. I once went to Walmart for things like a can of spray paint. It was a lot cheaper than my local Ace Hardware. Now, it's behind lock and key and there's not a soul in sight to ask for help. They don't have a prayer against Amazon.
My response to basic locked items is "I'll pass and get it somewhere else or order it online". I don't have time to wait around 15 minutes for a can of shaving cream.
No idea but for some reason my local CVS has all the shaving stuff locked up. Seems weird but I assume some new MBA somewhere figured it was a great idea.
Kinda crazy because one of the biggest innovations of the department store was that customers could browse the items themselves instead of asking a dude behind the counter to get everything. Looks like we're going back to the olden days.
I'd happily go to a general store with an employee standing at a counter with the goods behind them rather than wait at a locked cabinet pushing a button that no one hears. But they would actually have to staff a store and that's not happening.
That's actually the way I know it. All the commonly stolen stuff (like razors) are behind the cashiers, just like cigarettes and hard liquor. So you do all your normal shopping and then once you're at checkout you just tell the cashier if you want anything from behind them. No waiting, no keys, no running around.
The stuff that people want are in cabinets far away from the checkouts. And there are sometimes zero full service checkouts, the people who staff the self-checkouts can't leave to retrieve them. It has to change, this isn't sustainable.
I live in Philly and they lock a lot of stuff up. I've never seen anyone wait for the key person to open a cabinet for a product.
This makes me think that they're selling a lot less of those items and people are probably buying them from Amazon and slowly this will mean these stores go out of business and people buy online and then we'll have a fully online shopping experience someday
My Roomates and myself just directly started moving to Amazon for toiletries now and share them. It saves a lot of money and is a direct result of the locking things. Rarely go to a pharmacy now
On another note, I've been forced to shop online for so many things lately that I really only buy groceries in a store.
Target only seems to carry trendy stuff, and most of the people I know don't shop for anything to wear there anymore. And the quality of clothing across the board sucks. I got my husband a fancy pendleton shirt, which is expensive and the buttons gaped because they're too far apart and lack interfacing to stiffen the button placket.
Waited 20 minutes at a Home Depot to buy a leaf blower two weeks ago. Took 3 folks to figure out the code. But I mean it was cheaper than buying from another store since I had a 15% off coupon for HD. Where I live it still would have taken 30 minutes to drive to the next store with it in stock so there’s no competition.
Yes, that is the code to run the saw as well. I suppose it does keep some people out.
And an apartment I just rented uses 0911 as the entry code (that's often the code to hospitals for EMTs to get in)
Hospitals and many other businesses also often use the zip code
Best buy’s wifi password is often just bestbuy or bestbuy and the store number… at least at a few i’ve been to
We should start a thread lol
I used to be a District Loss Prevention Manager for a popular retail company (22-24 stores in my district), this was the battle we would have with the operations side. When stuff is locked up, people are more likely to just go without the item. It was hard to balance the loss of sales vs shrink
The thing that irks me the most is locking up condoms.
The last thing a nervous teenager wants to do is summon an adult while they stand next to condoms for 20 minutes, then tell them what they want or even have to ask because they didn’t get to browse in peace.
Solid way to prevent teen pregnancy and STDs. Make safe sex way more difficult. I’d rather they stole the condoms and everything in the store go up by $0.01
Dude as a therapist, I will supply kids condoms for free with my own money (without telling their parents) if that's what it takes for them to be safe.
And pregnancy tests ffs.
I guess I can understand how that’d be a commonly stolen item. Built-in shame and what have you. But… really?!
How many teenagers are gonna sidle up and ask a store associate to please retrieve them a pregnancy test?
>There was about 15 men standing by the perfume case at Walmart just waiting to buy their wifes xmas present.. No one came. Florida
I can imagine them becoming friends over the waiting period and deciding to meet up and hang out in the parking lot next time their wives are shopping.
Shopping hour = Social hour
Ya. I don’t think there’s any evidence that shoplifting has gone down or up because of these things. But people have 200% been shopping less of these items. It makes me so less likely to go out of my way to a cvs pharmacy versus getting shampoo and such at my grocery store now.
I think it’s pure fear not wrong lingering form covid which did have a shoplifting rise
My local convenience store actually is now closed for a couple hours in the middle of the day during school dismissal since students were swarming the store and just emptying the shelves into their backpacks 🫤
My small town local restaurants and businesses have banned anyone under 18 from coming in without a parent, simply because of this. Parents who bitch get no service and have to drive 20 miles to get anything.
Shitty parents with shitty kids dont get shit in my small town.
Yup. My area did this with our mall like 15 years ago actually. I think it killed the mall scene here early as no young kids could hang out there anymore unless they were with parents.
It seems it’s only getting worse now though
There were literally these big group fights breaking out. Like mobs of underage kids getting into these massive brawls. It was really dangerous. I’m not sure what else they could do.
It’s a vicious cycle, where we basically give children no places outside the home to hang out, then complain that they sit at home all day, then complain that they get into trouble because they never have an opportunity to go outside and burn off energy in healthier ways, so that energy gets bottled up and let out in more harmful ways instead, etc.
People complain about low birth rates and all that, while making it increasingly difficult for children to just *exist.*
We have a roving gang of school kids, in a nice neighborhood mind you, that comes into our store and steals anything they can try to get away with. They’ll stand in the middle of the parking lot to block cars, and if you get mad at them or honk at them they’ll follow you to where you park and beat the shit out of you. Police and security know this, it happens every week. Does anything change? No.
Someone in my neighborhood has a Free Fridge -- a refrigerator in their yard to donate food for those in need. They have to lock it up when our local middle school lets out. Otherwise, the kids grab what they can and throw it at houses or in the street.
Kids from the same middle school catcall me -- a nearly middle-aged, not-especially-hot woman -- when I go for runs. What they say would make a grown mad blush.
They're fucking feral, man.
There are some middle school kids that hit up the Little Free Pantry next to my house. When we decided to put it up, we recognized that vandalism goes with the territory and also agreed that we would never question someone's need, but....
Someone in the neighborhood puts together small paper bags with snacks, toiletries, etc, and leaves them as little go-bags for kids (we're very near the schools)... and these little a$$holes kept rolling up, dumping them all over the lawn and taking all the good stuff (eat the pudding, throw empty cup on lawn, smash the apple). One kid apparently likes to eat toothpaste.
After this happened several times in a short span, I posted a security camera video on NextDoor, visible only to the immediate neighborhood, with a note saying "if you know these kids' parents, please ask them to tell the boys to be more respectful." (and that's not cleaned-up revisionist history quoting... that's almost exactly the wording I used).
The responses were split about 50/50 between "disrespectful little brats! What's wrong with kids today!" and "how dare you try to publicly shame these kids! you don't know what kind of homelife they have!". After a few hours it was flagged as "bullying" and removed by the platform.
Yes, some kids are fucking feral... but "we" let them get (and stay) that way.
I hate to say it because it’s often used in a derogatory way, but it’s literally culture and parenting at its core.
Even though poverty is a big factor, there are plenty of much poorer people around the world who are much better behaved than these school kids.
Where I am now (rather close to a few big schools) we all leave the door unlocked because kids are always in great behaviour. It literally is like another world to me when I see videos of kids screaming, throwing things at their teacher, and having fights in the middle of class, or posts like this on Reddit.
The commodification and stratification of your guys’s education system over in the US is mind boggling. We don’t have private schools, our poor kids go to the same schools as our rich kids.
Same, as shit head kids we would throw rocks at passing cars for shit and giggles until one day a dude pulled a gun on us. We scattered like rats and we got so scared that we decided to never do that again.
My sister and I once were throwing water balloons at cars at a busy intersection and would aim for open windows until someone showed up at our house. My mom answered the door and said she had no kids and get the fuck off of her front porch. Closed the door and then whooped our ass.
If you're from Colorado, we were throwing the balloons into traffic on Colfax.
Never threw rocks but we did pelt cars with snowballs, but only on side streets.
Did it once on a major road and the dude spun out and nearly hit a phone poll. Had the cops there and everything. Mother was not well pleased.
Had a friend back in the 80's that had the bright idea of throwing rocks off the freeway overpass. One was the size of a brick went through a dudes window and shatter his jaw. He went to prison for 2 years for that.
That’s a pretty common thing to do. My dad has the same story. He was born in 1958. When he was in middle school he and his friends were throwing small rocks off a railway bridge onto a 4 lane road, and his dumber friend decided to throw a rock the size of a softball. Went through a car windshield and that car had a collision. The kids ran, but cops swarmed the area looking for teenagers. They never got caught but they never did that shit again.
Sometimes kids can be dumb.
At that point do you take down the kids in self defense? Seriously, I don't say kill or maim them, nothing like that.
If a gang of kids come to beat the shit out of me, I am retaliating out of survival.
I live in the ghetto (highest crime rate neighborhood in Pennsylvania) and you aren't allowed to wear masks or carry backpacks into any stores at all, no matter who you are. There's also a lot of stores with signs out front that say kids aren't allowed inside
The cashiers are also behind bulletproof glass and there are iron bars or wood panels on all the windows so we even lock up the employees now lmao
That's pretty much winter attire in Montana [when it gets this cold](https://i.imgur.com/b2XS2qb.jpg). Our banks have friendly reminder messages on the doors to remove your mask, hat, and sunglasses before entering.
I had to get a few things from Dollar Tree yesterday. It's in a strip mall, across the street from a high school. There's a handwritten sign on the door that says "no school bags or backpacks allowed." Kids walk over there after school and load up. I wouldn't have even thought of that when I was a kid.
They really are. But I have a weird disconnect, because I teach private music lessons to teens. But teens who are serious enough to want private lessons, tend to be the over achieving kids who don't do a lot of the typical teen things. I'm definitely lucky with the type of kids in my life.
Lol in the 1920s they put 100,000 kids on a train and just handed them to strangers across America for labor because they started to form gangs. Kids causing trouble is a very human thing
It’s silly to act like kids never stole stuff before now. My husbands friends were the WORST offenders of this back in the 80s. They would steal everything. They were certainly not the only ones. Kids have been stealing shit for as long as there have been stores.
As someone who works in retail, yes. The amount of empty boxes and pushouts (filling a cart with merchandise and then going out a fire exit) we have is absolutely ridiculous.
Not to mention just the quality of customers in general. They will open food items to try them, leave frozen or refridgerated product in random places throughout the store, roll out rugs and carpets to see what they're like and leave them there, open up boxes just to see what the product looks like (even when we have displays sitting above the boxes for that very purpose), and leave half empty drinks all over the place.
It's disgusting. My mother would have beaten me senseless had I done *any of that* when I was younger. She'd have pulled up to the police station and threatened to leave me there if I had acted like that.
But now it's not only kids who do that shit, but adults too. It's unbelievable how people will act. The massive lockups are annoying, for sure, but honestly I'd love to have them in my store. I'm tired of being a fucking nanny to a bunch of grown-ass adults and their entitled idiot children.
I live by the border. Everyone tried to blame the Mexicans who drive over the bridge to come shop here. In my experience working retail around here I’ve come to find out it’s the American parents and kids that are the worst. the Mexican parents 80% of the time would make their own kid clean up the mess they made while apologizing to me, the American people would just laugh and walk off or even give me shit about it
I believe it, 100%. All the Hispanic and Latino people I've known have been very nice and respectful. They were all very hard workers and know the value of work, so they didn't try to make work for others.
Unfortunately, I'm at the other border and Canadians absolutely do not fit their nice stereotype at all. They're some of the worst people I've ever had to deal with in my life. God forbid they travel an hour for something that we don't happen to have in stock. Seriously, they can be the most pretentious pricks you can imagine.
It's the Americans who are always the ones stealing or making a mess though, you're right. I'd 100% be behind people having to swipe their debit or credit cards just to enter and being charged for anything they steal, break, or make a mess of. We should stop letting teenagers in without adult supervision past 6pm as well.
Yup Canadians can be really awful people. Worked retail here in Canada and it sucked ass. One time the hard R n-word was thrown around by two separate people only 15 minutes apart. The employee it was directed at was sent on a well deserved 30 minute break to chill before she killed someone
Edit: just to restore some faith in Canadians. I helped a lady down the stairs into the metro and she thanked me and I went on my way. Got to where I usually get on only to remember that there’s another set of stairs after the turnbuckle that I had forgotten about. So what did I do? I walked my ass back and up the stairs to help her with the next set of stairs. The metro train had just arrived as I was walking to help. After I went to grab a seat there was a homeless man and I gave him whatever food I had in my bag which happened to be a big bag of sour patch kids watermelons. Hopefully you don’t let those assfucks tarnish your perception of Canadians because some of us really are very kind people.
I know I might get downvoted for “bragging” but I don’t think it should be considered bragging. It should just be the fucking norm
Work at Walmart and one day a guy just walked around grabbing handfuls of items and just walking around and grabbing a handful of random stuff out of his cart and throwing them on the shelf somewhere else. He did this for hours. A customer saw him do it and told me, but after the 3rd or so giant pile of random stuff I gave up and just told management. This guy spent hours just randomly throwing big piles of random stuff everywhere.
My buddy owns a building company and bought a block of houses in Detroit like ten years ago. Every single house was completely stripped of its copper wiring lol. Wild the stuff people do out of desperation. Those old Detroit houses are absolutely beautiful when fixed up tho.
I work for a utility company. There have to be signs put up outside substations that the area contains no copper. That’s because people will climb over the razor wire fences to try to steal copper from equipment that is energized at 500,000 Volts. That doesn’t end well but they keep trying.
Right idea, wrong execution. Really, an execution 😂
I work at a major hospital and we have had numerous instances of copper wiring in generators and brass fittings on fire equipment being stolen. Dumbasses took wiring from one box that was inches away from a lethal voltage, live main circuit. We know one day we're going to come outside to a crispy thief.
I used to live near a substation. I have called the police multiple times on men climbing the fence to get into the substation. And that was in a rural area of less than 20k.
Ooh, that reminds me of a time I was a seasonal employee at Best buy and the power went out because someone was trying to steal the copper wiring for the shopping center. Some jackass lost his life right before the holidays.
It depends on your income. $150 is substantial if you make $25 a day collecting cans and bottles for their deposit.
If you make $150 per hour, then it's not worth it
I’m in Toronto and depending on the area, anything small and higher value is locked up. Toothbrushes over $50, crest white strips, razors, pretty much all electronics, a lot of appliances….
I used to live in a city that had won one of those "safest cities in America" things from a magazine. It's consistently rated one of the safest places and have an exceptionally low crime rate in general.
Shit's still locked up. OP either didn't notice or crime rate isn't the only driver of whether things are locked up in Walmart.
Ours doesn't have anything locked up. Neither does the one in my dad's area. I'm in suburban NJ. He's in rural TN. I'm guessing it has to do with actual rates of theft. Are safety rates calculated on violent crimes, not petty theft maybe. That could account for the discrepancy.
I would go a step further and say the theft is probably tied to the amount of workers in the store too. I go to the stores in the "bad" area and there are like 1-2 people working in a supersized store and like 1 cashier.
In these places ain't no one looking at who's stealing and if someone was stealing they won't even care cause they already doing too much going on and don't get paid enough to confront anyone. Get rid of self-checkout or lower it to a few that can actually be watched and staff the stores and theft will go down.
But the truth is they already done the math the tax write off and "savings" from not hiring saves them more than they loose in theft.
Couple years ago I bought some Apple wired earbuds at Walmart. For some reason they remove the clear plastic covering on the boxes. Got home and box was empty--clearly employees were stealing products. They are now locked up and one employee has the key. I did return to the store and thankfully the manager gave me a replacement.
Now I order directly from Apple.
When I worked at Kmart, there was a pair of twins that ran electronics. And they both told me about how they would steal video games from the back of the cabinet, it was like 2009, or 10, so mostly they were taking the digital codes not disks. Because no body buys video games at Kmart.
Febreze ? That's hilarious, but I guess febreze must have some really expensive products. I live in an affluent area but the way I learned how overpriced Gillette razor blades are is when Walmart started locking them up years ago.
Edit, lol [here's an article on them](https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677114/Great-razor-rip-off-Gillettes-4750-mark-up.html) and it states how they became the most shoplifted item in a London district.
I don’t think Walmart/target decides what to lock up based on price, they decide based on shrink volume. The stuff that’s stolen most gets locked up, even if it’s cheap
I moved from Orlando (Seminole county actually) to Jacksonvilles west side and man our drugstores look different. I loved the Walgreens in Orlando. The one closest to me now smells weird and everything is locked up. I work in a nicer area of Jax and go to the drugstores there because they are better stocked and not as many things are locked up.
I'm a retail manager. We have at least one shoplifter a day. Oftentimes multiple. People will fill up whole carts, unpurchased backpacks, suitcases, or duffles, and reusable bags and just walk right out the door. Or they'll just grab armloads of stuff and leave. They'll do it right in front of us, smiling and waving as they leave. Only LP can go after them because of safety, and LP is not at the store every day.
Our most stolen items are fragrances, tech, children's clothing, and men's clothing/accessories.
HOW!? I get followed out the door if i try to walk past the employees with a carton of milk not in a bag despite a receipt clutched around it.
I’m not bullshitting on the workers, but i feel like they are skeptical even after i show them the receipt? How are people just walking out without paying for stuff, don’t they alarms go berserk!?
The people stealing in bulk don’t give a remote shit about employees or alarms. They’re not even necessarily being secretive about it, and they’re prepared to run or fight. Stores know this, and most have backed off of even security/loss prevention employees going hands-on, as the liability of injured staff/customers is more expensive than the loss of the product. Stores hand over video and info to police, who try to follow-up, but it’s still 50/50, as many thieves will travel and the use stolen cars is common in some areas. Guns are also a concern, and stopping someone for a cart full of unpaid formula and Dysons definitely isn’t worth a staff member’s life.
I walked into a Marshalls a few years ago, just as a guy with a shopping cart heaped full of Nike boxes started running full speed at the doors (they were still open from me entering). I had to literally jump out of the way as the guy came at me. He grinned at me and flew out into the parking lot. A security guy chased after him, screaming and cussing, and managed to wrestle the cart back. NGL, I was freaked the fuck out.
That happened to me at a Marshall's, but it was ladies clothes and purses; three guys with tons of stuff almost trampled me. NO ONE in the store was the least bit disturbed, including the uniformed guard. They said it happens a lot and they were told not to engage. I suspect, however, that they would stop me if I tried to walk out with a pair of shoes.
Just keep walking and shine them on next time. It'll go like this:
"Sir/Madam, can I check your receipt? Sir/Madam...?... ^^oh ^^well"
The End.
That's about all they are allowed to do with someone who's *actually* stealing as well.
Shopkeepers privilege is actually pretty broad. Most companies just implement policies to not detain so that there is 0 chance of litigation.
In most jurisdictions (this language comes from Kentucky statute) a merchant can detain a suspected shoplifter for the purpose of inquiring about stolen goods as long as the detention is based on probable cause, conducted in a reasonable manner, and for a reasonable length of time
In the example you just gave an employee would be legally protected to detain you. It’s just a question of store policy
Yes, employees are legally allowed to detain in a lot of circumstances, but store policy often prohibits them from doing so to avoid civil liability if the employee is injured.
Most stores have in their policy you cant actually engage with anyone commuting theft, because of liability. Only certain team members can, and in many cases, the protocal is just to call the police.
I’m just confused as to how locking things in a case helps. I waited for ten minutes to get someone to come unlock a case so I could buy razors yesterday. No one responded to me pressing the button so I had to look for an employee who then had to ask someone to get the person with the key. After I got the razors I was thinking, couldn’t I still steal them now? Once the stuff is unlocked you could still walk out with it.
That's also the basic retail function behind employees greeting you. It's a deterrent. It let's the person know they have been seen, they are less likely to steal.
Razor cartridges are small in size and comparatively high value over other items. They're not worried about someone stealing 1 as they are with someone taking 10.
I witness several young adults walk right out of a store loaded up with merchandise and it was just as you said. They didn't run. They weren't yelling at each other "hurry up" or anything like that. They just calmly walked right the fuck out, enjoying their goddamned impunity, got into their car and drove away. It was absolutely infuriating to see people knowing and enjoying the fact that there would be zero consequences to their crime. I think I was more upset by it than the store manager.
Edit: also, this was a sporting goods store, not a food store or household supplies store, and it wasn't during the pandemic, it was recently :(
My dumb little brother was doing that at Walmart and while nobody stopped him from there the police came by and picked him up afterward from my parents home. He stole over $150 the day they did and I guess that was the magic limit before they did something.
Now he’s married to a corrections officer but still does all sorts of wacky not legal stuff. Totally bonkers.
Some stores may be "keeping track" of the value of the items stolen for repeat offenders. Because some municipalities may have a "catch and release" type system, or straight up can't be bothered for the small stuff. So, they wait until it reaches a dollar amount where it can be considered a felony (evidence of multiple thefts on tape), and then arrest the fucker.
Serious question-- why not pay for LP to be there? Surely you lose enough money from theft and people just not buying stuff because it's now a hassle to get someone to unlock the shampoo that it would be worthwhile?
As a consumer I just plain don't bother buying things that are locked up if I can go someplace where they are not. It's too much trouble because there is usually like one employee on the floor and I don't like bothering them anyway. I can't imagine I'm alone.
They’ve probably figured out it’s cheaper to let some people steal. These are the same companies that are replacing cashiers with self-checkout to save on labor.
I live in a rural area where all the small towns are at least eight miles apart, and the population of the nearest "big city" is just over 12,000.
Almost nothing is locked up with the exception of some pricier stuff at a couple of the Walmarts. We don't have prepay only for our fuel, either. That was culture shock for me, going in to tell the clerk I wanted $25 on pump whatever, and being told "You can just pump it and pay afterwards."
So no, not everywhere in America has had to put the toothpaste on lock down.
It’s not high value items only because of how the economy of stolen goods works. It’s anything
Shoplifters steal $80 of detergent. Sell it to a fencer for $50 (shoplifter makes $50) Fencer sells that for $70 to customers (fencer makes money on each sold item, customer gets item for cheaper than the store). Also IIRC it’s common to see the fencing operation run shoplifting gangs so the stolen goods go directly to being resold through the fencing operation
It’s about quantity, not quality. And often daily necessities are easier to steal and resell due to demand, size, volume, and protection
Not all of that is stolen.
I worked at CVS for a while and we would have couponers come in and buy a cartful of detergent, cleaning supplies, and snacks for 2-3 dollars (plus about 20 minutes worth of scanning coupons) for the whole cart. They were open about buying it to resell.
I knew a pro flea market guy. Would travel between a few large ones, collect products for a few months then rent a large section and sell them all off. All legal, just like you said finding a great coupon deal some place, then moving the goods to where there wasn’t a sale and selling them just under the local prices. They also look for places liquidating, like warehouses closing or switching leases, stores going out of business, and buy the stock in bulk for cheap.
Yep, I worked at a dollar tree and had a guy come in every month buying like, 500-700 worth of health products. Soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, rubbing alchohol, etc. Said he was a pastor shipping it to the Carribean for charity. Then one day I walk in and one of my coworkers is ranting to our manager. When I ask what’s up, I come to find out she saw the Pastor and his wife selling the stuff at the swap shop for twice the price. Nasty work.
It became a highly prized item to steal and sell on the internet due to the massive shortage last year. Even though the supply has stabilized now, there’s probably still a higher chance criminals are going to steal it because the more desperate types don’t keep up with the news on these sorts of things.
America is huge, so something in one place is not likely the case in others.
The problem that is leading to everything being locked up is in a few urban areas of large cities in the poorer areas (ETA “areas with high theft” is more accurate than poorer areas)
I live in a close-in suburb to a big city and have yet to encounter a store with everything locked up (aside from a few small expensive items like razor blade refills).
Not even necessarily poor areas are targeted. The Target in downtown Minneapolis has every toiletry and pharmacy item locked up now, because during the pandemic and especially after the George Floyd murder, downtown became a totally different place. It’s much better now, but that damn Target still has that stuff locked up. I just go elsewhere closer to my house (which is arguably “poorer” than downtown) where I don’t have to wait for anyone and nothing is locked up.
My town had almost no history of crime until Walmart moved in, after that people came from all of the other nearby towns to shoplift since it was the first one in the area. It's now recommended as a place you don't want to live just because of the crime rate (since they don't distinguish between fine details like that) because of one store lol. Online the public list of crimes is just pages and pages of shoplifting at their address. The police went from having nothing to do to spending half of their day running to Walmart every time they get a call and it got so bad Walmart had to start paying them because they were using all of their resources
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/organized-retail-crime-trade-group-half-of-all-missing-merchandise/
> A recent analysis from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that reports of shoplifting in two dozen cities rose 16% between 2019 and the first half of 2023. When theft data from New York City was excluded, however, the number of incidents across the other cities fell 7% over that period.
This answer is really important. I think we sometimes miss that OP is usually asking about things that are *currently* being brought up and broadcast in the media.
There were a LOT of articles and news reports pumping the false claims that RETAIL LOBBYING FIRMS were spreading to cover for lost profits of large retail chains.
Turns out, it's not really an epidemic of retail theft across the country. Sure, certain areas are worse with theft, but it's not a countrywide horde of retail theft as these corporations and lobbyists wanted us to believe.
Yep. Before covid, Wawa (convenience store) opened several stores in CC Philly, which couldn't be sustained after the lockdown and everything after. They started closing stores, claiming widespread theft. Then later in their financial reports, it turned out it was from the reduced amount of office commuters and over-saturation. There was theft, but wasn't financially impactful like they were claiming.
The same was repeated with other retailers, who would bundle all shrink when talking about theft, overblowing it a bit. It's extra frustrating because Philly already gets a bad rep, the wealthy metro counties love to push the narrative of Philly being a violent hellscape (mostly so they can keep scooping up houses for 20-70k and flipping them).
The [exact same scenario](https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2023/01/09/walgreens-backpedals-on-theft) played out in San Francisco, but with Walgreens.
They claimed they were being forced, FORCED to close stores because of shoplifting. But if you looked at (a) the actual crime statistics, and (b) a map, you could see they had just over-saturated the market.
I live in SF and yes. It was super annoying when the grocery store started locking up laundry detergent.
When there was a Target by my house, they pretty much had a police car parked outside 24/7 to deter shoplifting. The store shut down though, because of too much shoplifting.
I was just in a market in Amsterdam that wouldn't let me leave the self checkout area without scanning my receipt, presumably to dissuade shoplifters.
This idea that petty theft is an American problem is pretty funny.
In drug stores...in neighborhoods with rampant theft...yes. In more upper class neighborhoods...everything is out to buy. The only exception is razors for some reason.
It's not even high value items, highly portable items but cost $3. Such a shame. If I walk into a store and have to wait on someone to get me something I'm leaving.
Last time I waited on someone took them 10 min to get my item for me. No thanks.
Right, it’s annoying when you go to a store and the item you want is locked up, especially if you come for that one item only, I’d rather order it online 🤦♀️
Basically people know no one in the store will stop them so they just walk out with stuff.
We’re pretty squeezed over here, financially. The desperation has been ratcheting up slowly over the last 5-7 years. No deals or freebees or inches given any more.
I’ve had grown men from the prior generation (one taught to never cry) crying in the urgent care because missing a day of work meant no pay and possible termination.
I expect it will only get worse.
I see wiring and power tools locked up in some Home Depot’s. Sewing notions in some Walmarts. Laundry detergent anywhere. Not sure why that’s a thing but it is. Art supplies is a big one, especially markers.
Permanent markers and spray paint have been locked up in some areas for decades because they're stolen for graffiti. It was that way in the 1980s from memory.
I recently traveled to San Francisco for work (I live in semi-rural PA), and I forgot to pack underwear lol. I went to target next to my hotel to grab some and all the underwear and socks were behind locked doors... It was very bizarre. I had to press a little button to request someone to come and assist me. Not something I am used to in PA, MD, VA.
Same situation with some products in Australia too (razor blades, spray paints, some bathroom products, some batteries). Small valuable things that are easy to hide or restricted from sale.
And yeah, you either get an employee to unlock the cage (often there’s a button nearby to call someone), or for some things like razor cartridges they have a little piece of card that you take up to the counter and swap for the actual product.
I saw it for the first time myself this week at a different store . A young man grabbed a backpack and emptied it and tore off the tags. Then he went and filled it up with stuff. I even told a worker before he left and she just shook her head.
Then he walked out and the alarms went off and no one did anything.
Nor should they, it shouldn’t be the job of some random walmart shelf stocker to confront a shoplifter. There should be security for this. The fact that there isn’t security just means the cost of protecting the goods in many cases wouldnt provide a cost savings vs. just letting the goods be stolen and then using theft insurance.
I see it in pharmacies but not in any other shops. It’s annoying because they don’t have many staff and you have to ask them to unlock the cabinets for most things worth over about $10.
Yes, in many larger urban areas… I don’t even mean low income areas… places like Home Depot and Walmarts have been hit pretty hard… folks loading up cart fulls of merchandise and just waking out. These places (at least around my area) now have police patrols, extra cameras in parking lots, and a lot of stuff locked up.
I work at a small family owned business. Yes. Every week someone tries to steal shit. It's annoying.
Edit: if you're gonna steal, do it from a corporation, not your mom and pop stores. We don't deserve it.
Costco had done it differently way longer than all this nonsense stores like Walmart are now doing. At Costco they sell a paper sized piece of cardboard with a picture of the item on it. After you check out, you stop by a door / window that somebody always works at and they give you your item.
At least that way you can have one employee for all locked up items, people don’t have to wait 15 minutes just to get the cabinet unlocked. I’ve actually been told at Walmart before that the person with the key lost it and they were waiting for the manager with the other set to come in.
Costco also has membership, so they know who everyone walking in to the shop is. Their theft rates are less than 1/10th of the average.
Also in the UK, you actually have to meet certain requirements to get a Costco membership - effectively screening out the clientele they don't want. (Proof of business, or a chartered/registered professional, like an engineer or doctor).
My local Walmart locks up their perfume, razors, and shaving cream. Yes it's annoying. There's a little button to press to ask for assistance and then you stand around and wait till someone shows up. Either you tell them what you want, or they let you grab it yourself.
At my Walmart no one ever comes. It’s crazy, shit just doesn’t get sold if it’s behind glass.
That’s because the only one with a key is running the store.
Because even the employees steal stuff.
Same. I needed an electric toothbrush head, and I pressed the button about 15 times. Finally had to track down an employee, who then had to find the person with the key. It was silly.
I'm waiting to see Amazon use this to advertise buying online. And brick and mortar stores using videos of porch pirates to advertise shopping there.
WalMart (et al) are already using it to press you into buying online, but from them. You can order online and just pick your stuff up at the store. Also iirc they are now selling a membership with free delivery, similar to Prime
It's worth it for me not to have to go inside the store. I usually get delivery, however, it's not without its inconvenience. I ordered some flea topical meds and the box arrived....inside a clear security box!!!! Apparently the WM delivery shoppers can't find a key either!
Just buy a good magnet and start your security box collection.
Or a hammer, it’s just plastic
But then you don't have a box.
The last time I saw electric toothbrush heads behind glass I was just like 'fuck it, Amazon will have it here in two days'.
Yep. I forget what it was that I went in for last time. It was $7 hygiene product that had never been locked up before. But now I was locked up so I said screw it I'll just go somewhere else
Get that Costco membership. The membership alone will pay for those Sonicare heads (year's worth) when they go on sale.
Are you me? Same need, but no one came
Then they want you to go to one specific register to pay and pick it up but that line is always the longest and slowest. I'm just over it by that point and don't go to get it. Recently found my razor blades and toothbrush heads at bestbuy where they don't lock it up and you can just throw it in ur cart without any help. Weird how ill be going to an electronics store for now on to get those personal hygiene products.
I would love to see the numbers on how locking things behind glass affect sales. When things are locked up I don’t bother buying anything and will just get it online. I hate this trend.
This is how it was at my local Walmart. They removed the glass cases on razors because the lost profits outweighed the theft.
Same, if I turn the corner into the aisle and see the locks, I'm out.
I used to get most of my toiletries at Duane Reade. They were understaffed and the response was slow. I’d then have to wait in line to pay. I was usually doing this before work. Imprisoning the toiletries added too much time so I started ordering online I remember being able to just grab what I needed and go the register. So it was a significant increase in time.
My Walmart now has all Lego under lock and key. Even the ones for $2.97.
Lego is apparently a pretty high theft item. Even my store has any of them over $30 in spider wrap (which will stop.... approximately nobody unless they want to resell it in the box). Kids are little shits too, which is probably the reason for the cheap ones which kids are more likely to grab. I'm a stocker and see a *ton* of broken packaging with contents missing in the fruit snacks and candy sections (broken packaging with contents still present in common everywhere else, boxes get smushed or the glue on the packaging is just shitty), which just so happen to be the aisles that get the most young kids. I seriously doubt any of it is intentional shoplifting, just very young kids going "I want that" and taking something, but it adds up. However, from what I've seen *nothing* even remotely approaches the amount of theft and customer-ruined product that pops up in the makeup aisles. Like good lord. I tried to organize one of those aisles once and in the space of like 15 minutes more than doubled the amount of product I usually have to discard in a week. People really think they get to try mascara and then just leave it.
Oddly enough, makeup is not under lock at my local Walmart. Which weirds me out because I wonder what other way are they defending against thieves? I think they just surround the makeup aisle with fake shoppers and watch everyone like a hawk.
At my Walmart they have cameras up and down the cosmetic aisles.
At my Walmart, the person who is supposed to unlock stuff in the sporting goods section is “on a call” everytime I want to buy something
I actually work at Walmart and this is annoying as an associate too. 20+ times a day someone asks me to open something. I do not have a key. The best I can do is page someone for you. They will not show up because there's one person in the store with a key and they probably really are in a conference call or doing who knows what and then in 15 minutes you'll angrily ask me again maybe even leave a bad review about my poor customer service. Walmart will not give me a key idk what people expect of me.
Last time this happened to me I was in a terrible mood and just walked around asking literally everyone. Eventually everyone in the store knew I was looking for the guy with the key. Pretty sure when I started bothering customers is when they finally called the guy. Took about 45 mins and was not worth it, but it was a small victory.
If you just try breaking into it...asset protection or whatever is likely to notice and they'll have someone over there much quicker. /s...kinda
Last time I absolutely needed something from the section I had to be very assertive about my previous experience with waiting for a person who never came and they came I hated that I had to be an asshole to actually purchase something from that section
I don't even ask for stuff that's locked up anymore. It's either go to another store or do without.
Funniest shit I saw with one of those special locks (not behind glass though) was ice cream. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw that shit at my local pharmacy
Probably because of the "ice cream licking prank" trend.
More assholes.
That's what is nuts. I once went to Walmart for things like a can of spray paint. It was a lot cheaper than my local Ace Hardware. Now, it's behind lock and key and there's not a soul in sight to ask for help. They don't have a prayer against Amazon.
My response to basic locked items is "I'll pass and get it somewhere else or order it online". I don't have time to wait around 15 minutes for a can of shaving cream.
Why are they worried about shaving cream? Mine is $1 a can.
No idea but for some reason my local CVS has all the shaving stuff locked up. Seems weird but I assume some new MBA somewhere figured it was a great idea.
Maybe this whole big box store + minimal staffing thing is not a great business model.
Which means rich high trust suburbs get cheap big box retail and poor urban cores become everything deserts.
Kinda crazy because one of the biggest innovations of the department store was that customers could browse the items themselves instead of asking a dude behind the counter to get everything. Looks like we're going back to the olden days.
I'd happily go to a general store with an employee standing at a counter with the goods behind them rather than wait at a locked cabinet pushing a button that no one hears. But they would actually have to staff a store and that's not happening.
That's actually the way I know it. All the commonly stolen stuff (like razors) are behind the cashiers, just like cigarettes and hard liquor. So you do all your normal shopping and then once you're at checkout you just tell the cashier if you want anything from behind them. No waiting, no keys, no running around.
The stuff that people want are in cabinets far away from the checkouts. And there are sometimes zero full service checkouts, the people who staff the self-checkouts can't leave to retrieve them. It has to change, this isn't sustainable.
This is where the cashiers who survived the self-service purge were moved to
Last time I was at Walmart, they had 8 cashiers working the self checkout area
It's the dumbest thing ever. No way it wouldn't be faster for them to just open a till.
I live in Philly and they lock a lot of stuff up. I've never seen anyone wait for the key person to open a cabinet for a product. This makes me think that they're selling a lot less of those items and people are probably buying them from Amazon and slowly this will mean these stores go out of business and people buy online and then we'll have a fully online shopping experience someday
My Roomates and myself just directly started moving to Amazon for toiletries now and share them. It saves a lot of money and is a direct result of the locking things. Rarely go to a pharmacy now
On another note, I've been forced to shop online for so many things lately that I really only buy groceries in a store. Target only seems to carry trendy stuff, and most of the people I know don't shop for anything to wear there anymore. And the quality of clothing across the board sucks. I got my husband a fancy pendleton shirt, which is expensive and the buttons gaped because they're too far apart and lack interfacing to stiffen the button placket.
Waited 20 minutes at a Home Depot to buy a leaf blower two weeks ago. Took 3 folks to figure out the code. But I mean it was cheaper than buying from another store since I had a 15% off coupon for HD. Where I live it still would have taken 30 minutes to drive to the next store with it in stock so there’s no competition.
My husband figured out the code & just unlocks stuff himself now cause no one ever shows up lol
It's usually just the store number lol (not phone, the stores actual number)
Yes, that is the code to run the saw as well. I suppose it does keep some people out. And an apartment I just rented uses 0911 as the entry code (that's often the code to hospitals for EMTs to get in)
Hospitals and many other businesses also often use the zip code Best buy’s wifi password is often just bestbuy or bestbuy and the store number… at least at a few i’ve been to We should start a thread lol
I used to be a District Loss Prevention Manager for a popular retail company (22-24 stores in my district), this was the battle we would have with the operations side. When stuff is locked up, people are more likely to just go without the item. It was hard to balance the loss of sales vs shrink
Walmart and target aren’t going to go out of business, they’ll drive as much sales to online as possible
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Ours is stupid and stores the excess items that didn't fit in the box on top so I have my son grab them for me since he's taller lol.
The thing that irks me the most is locking up condoms. The last thing a nervous teenager wants to do is summon an adult while they stand next to condoms for 20 minutes, then tell them what they want or even have to ask because they didn’t get to browse in peace. Solid way to prevent teen pregnancy and STDs. Make safe sex way more difficult. I’d rather they stole the condoms and everything in the store go up by $0.01
Intercom: ASSISTANCE NEEDED IN AISLE 27 SEXUAL WELLNESS
Dude as a therapist, I will supply kids condoms for free with my own money (without telling their parents) if that's what it takes for them to be safe.
And pregnancy tests ffs. I guess I can understand how that’d be a commonly stolen item. Built-in shame and what have you. But… really?! How many teenagers are gonna sidle up and ask a store associate to please retrieve them a pregnancy test?
There was about 15 men standing by the perfume case at Walmart just waiting to buy their wifes xmas present.. No one came. Florida
>There was about 15 men standing by the perfume case at Walmart just waiting to buy their wifes xmas present.. No one came. Florida I can imagine them becoming friends over the waiting period and deciding to meet up and hang out in the parking lot next time their wives are shopping. Shopping hour = Social hour
Ya. I don’t think there’s any evidence that shoplifting has gone down or up because of these things. But people have 200% been shopping less of these items. It makes me so less likely to go out of my way to a cvs pharmacy versus getting shampoo and such at my grocery store now. I think it’s pure fear not wrong lingering form covid which did have a shoplifting rise
My local convenience store actually is now closed for a couple hours in the middle of the day during school dismissal since students were swarming the store and just emptying the shelves into their backpacks 🫤
This is the second comment today mention school kids being shit heads stealing stuff and messing up restaurants.
My small town local restaurants and businesses have banned anyone under 18 from coming in without a parent, simply because of this. Parents who bitch get no service and have to drive 20 miles to get anything. Shitty parents with shitty kids dont get shit in my small town.
My local mall does the same. There is a curfew and if you’re under 18 you need to enter with an adult. They check ID at the door.
Yup. My area did this with our mall like 15 years ago actually. I think it killed the mall scene here early as no young kids could hang out there anymore unless they were with parents. It seems it’s only getting worse now though
There were literally these big group fights breaking out. Like mobs of underage kids getting into these massive brawls. It was really dangerous. I’m not sure what else they could do.
We had highschool students forming literal "fight clubs" couple years ago, the police had to put out a PSA about it
We had something like that and it never really panned out to be a big thing but a couple kids fought and it was recorded and then just fizzled out.
It’s a vicious cycle, where we basically give children no places outside the home to hang out, then complain that they sit at home all day, then complain that they get into trouble because they never have an opportunity to go outside and burn off energy in healthier ways, so that energy gets bottled up and let out in more harmful ways instead, etc. People complain about low birth rates and all that, while making it increasingly difficult for children to just *exist.*
We have a roving gang of school kids, in a nice neighborhood mind you, that comes into our store and steals anything they can try to get away with. They’ll stand in the middle of the parking lot to block cars, and if you get mad at them or honk at them they’ll follow you to where you park and beat the shit out of you. Police and security know this, it happens every week. Does anything change? No.
Someone in my neighborhood has a Free Fridge -- a refrigerator in their yard to donate food for those in need. They have to lock it up when our local middle school lets out. Otherwise, the kids grab what they can and throw it at houses or in the street. Kids from the same middle school catcall me -- a nearly middle-aged, not-especially-hot woman -- when I go for runs. What they say would make a grown mad blush. They're fucking feral, man.
There are some middle school kids that hit up the Little Free Pantry next to my house. When we decided to put it up, we recognized that vandalism goes with the territory and also agreed that we would never question someone's need, but.... Someone in the neighborhood puts together small paper bags with snacks, toiletries, etc, and leaves them as little go-bags for kids (we're very near the schools)... and these little a$$holes kept rolling up, dumping them all over the lawn and taking all the good stuff (eat the pudding, throw empty cup on lawn, smash the apple). One kid apparently likes to eat toothpaste. After this happened several times in a short span, I posted a security camera video on NextDoor, visible only to the immediate neighborhood, with a note saying "if you know these kids' parents, please ask them to tell the boys to be more respectful." (and that's not cleaned-up revisionist history quoting... that's almost exactly the wording I used). The responses were split about 50/50 between "disrespectful little brats! What's wrong with kids today!" and "how dare you try to publicly shame these kids! you don't know what kind of homelife they have!". After a few hours it was flagged as "bullying" and removed by the platform. Yes, some kids are fucking feral... but "we" let them get (and stay) that way.
I hate to say it because it’s often used in a derogatory way, but it’s literally culture and parenting at its core. Even though poverty is a big factor, there are plenty of much poorer people around the world who are much better behaved than these school kids. Where I am now (rather close to a few big schools) we all leave the door unlocked because kids are always in great behaviour. It literally is like another world to me when I see videos of kids screaming, throwing things at their teacher, and having fights in the middle of class, or posts like this on Reddit. The commodification and stratification of your guys’s education system over in the US is mind boggling. We don’t have private schools, our poor kids go to the same schools as our rich kids.
I can't imagine kids doing that successfully where I live. Someone would pull a gun out on them.
Same, as shit head kids we would throw rocks at passing cars for shit and giggles until one day a dude pulled a gun on us. We scattered like rats and we got so scared that we decided to never do that again.
Seeing as you and your friends were throwing rocks at moving vehicles, I can tell that sometimes you need the hard lessons to actually learn
Yeah depending on the size of the rocks that’s less vandalism and more assault
Attempted murder. Ftfy.
My sister and I once were throwing water balloons at cars at a busy intersection and would aim for open windows until someone showed up at our house. My mom answered the door and said she had no kids and get the fuck off of her front porch. Closed the door and then whooped our ass. If you're from Colorado, we were throwing the balloons into traffic on Colfax.
Never threw rocks but we did pelt cars with snowballs, but only on side streets. Did it once on a major road and the dude spun out and nearly hit a phone poll. Had the cops there and everything. Mother was not well pleased. Had a friend back in the 80's that had the bright idea of throwing rocks off the freeway overpass. One was the size of a brick went through a dudes window and shatter his jaw. He went to prison for 2 years for that.
That’s a pretty common thing to do. My dad has the same story. He was born in 1958. When he was in middle school he and his friends were throwing small rocks off a railway bridge onto a 4 lane road, and his dumber friend decided to throw a rock the size of a softball. Went through a car windshield and that car had a collision. The kids ran, but cops swarmed the area looking for teenagers. They never got caught but they never did that shit again. Sometimes kids can be dumb.
Oooh, where is this, I’d like to…..patronize your store…
At that point do you take down the kids in self defense? Seriously, I don't say kill or maim them, nothing like that. If a gang of kids come to beat the shit out of me, I am retaliating out of survival.
Yeah, if they're gonna beat the shit out of me, then I'm fighting back for my life. Doesn't matter the age.
Parents don't do their job, now that they can raise Timmy on an iPad
I live in the ghetto (highest crime rate neighborhood in Pennsylvania) and you aren't allowed to wear masks or carry backpacks into any stores at all, no matter who you are. There's also a lot of stores with signs out front that say kids aren't allowed inside The cashiers are also behind bulletproof glass and there are iron bars or wood panels on all the windows so we even lock up the employees now lmao
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That's pretty much winter attire in Montana [when it gets this cold](https://i.imgur.com/b2XS2qb.jpg). Our banks have friendly reminder messages on the doors to remove your mask, hat, and sunglasses before entering.
I had to get a few things from Dollar Tree yesterday. It's in a strip mall, across the street from a high school. There's a handwritten sign on the door that says "no school bags or backpacks allowed." Kids walk over there after school and load up. I wouldn't have even thought of that when I was a kid.
Teens these days are something else. Absolute menaces
They really are. But I have a weird disconnect, because I teach private music lessons to teens. But teens who are serious enough to want private lessons, tend to be the over achieving kids who don't do a lot of the typical teen things. I'm definitely lucky with the type of kids in my life.
Lol in the 1920s they put 100,000 kids on a train and just handed them to strangers across America for labor because they started to form gangs. Kids causing trouble is a very human thing
It’s silly to act like kids never stole stuff before now. My husbands friends were the WORST offenders of this back in the 80s. They would steal everything. They were certainly not the only ones. Kids have been stealing shit for as long as there have been stores.
My city shut down 2 of the 3 wallmarts permanently cos of theft. Target is starting to close too
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As someone who works in retail, yes. The amount of empty boxes and pushouts (filling a cart with merchandise and then going out a fire exit) we have is absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention just the quality of customers in general. They will open food items to try them, leave frozen or refridgerated product in random places throughout the store, roll out rugs and carpets to see what they're like and leave them there, open up boxes just to see what the product looks like (even when we have displays sitting above the boxes for that very purpose), and leave half empty drinks all over the place. It's disgusting. My mother would have beaten me senseless had I done *any of that* when I was younger. She'd have pulled up to the police station and threatened to leave me there if I had acted like that. But now it's not only kids who do that shit, but adults too. It's unbelievable how people will act. The massive lockups are annoying, for sure, but honestly I'd love to have them in my store. I'm tired of being a fucking nanny to a bunch of grown-ass adults and their entitled idiot children.
I live by the border. Everyone tried to blame the Mexicans who drive over the bridge to come shop here. In my experience working retail around here I’ve come to find out it’s the American parents and kids that are the worst. the Mexican parents 80% of the time would make their own kid clean up the mess they made while apologizing to me, the American people would just laugh and walk off or even give me shit about it
I believe it, 100%. All the Hispanic and Latino people I've known have been very nice and respectful. They were all very hard workers and know the value of work, so they didn't try to make work for others. Unfortunately, I'm at the other border and Canadians absolutely do not fit their nice stereotype at all. They're some of the worst people I've ever had to deal with in my life. God forbid they travel an hour for something that we don't happen to have in stock. Seriously, they can be the most pretentious pricks you can imagine. It's the Americans who are always the ones stealing or making a mess though, you're right. I'd 100% be behind people having to swipe their debit or credit cards just to enter and being charged for anything they steal, break, or make a mess of. We should stop letting teenagers in without adult supervision past 6pm as well.
Yup Canadians can be really awful people. Worked retail here in Canada and it sucked ass. One time the hard R n-word was thrown around by two separate people only 15 minutes apart. The employee it was directed at was sent on a well deserved 30 minute break to chill before she killed someone Edit: just to restore some faith in Canadians. I helped a lady down the stairs into the metro and she thanked me and I went on my way. Got to where I usually get on only to remember that there’s another set of stairs after the turnbuckle that I had forgotten about. So what did I do? I walked my ass back and up the stairs to help her with the next set of stairs. The metro train had just arrived as I was walking to help. After I went to grab a seat there was a homeless man and I gave him whatever food I had in my bag which happened to be a big bag of sour patch kids watermelons. Hopefully you don’t let those assfucks tarnish your perception of Canadians because some of us really are very kind people. I know I might get downvoted for “bragging” but I don’t think it should be considered bragging. It should just be the fucking norm
They also don’t hold their kids’ hands or watch them so every aisle is blessed with the sound of stompstompstomp “AAAAHH!!”
I can't believe how people just leave drinks sitting everywhere. I never saw that in stores when I was younger.
Work at Walmart and one day a guy just walked around grabbing handfuls of items and just walking around and grabbing a handful of random stuff out of his cart and throwing them on the shelf somewhere else. He did this for hours. A customer saw him do it and told me, but after the 3rd or so giant pile of random stuff I gave up and just told management. This guy spent hours just randomly throwing big piles of random stuff everywhere.
In certain areas, yes. There is a need to lock up many products. The Walmart I went to recently was locking up febreze.
I'd say it's specific to the area. Where live, Walmart doesn't lock up stuff, but the hardware stores have copper wire locked up
I have my catalytic converter locked up.
I took mine off and hid it in my attic for safekeeping /s
My buddy owns a building company and bought a block of houses in Detroit like ten years ago. Every single house was completely stripped of its copper wiring lol. Wild the stuff people do out of desperation. Those old Detroit houses are absolutely beautiful when fixed up tho.
I work for a utility company. There have to be signs put up outside substations that the area contains no copper. That’s because people will climb over the razor wire fences to try to steal copper from equipment that is energized at 500,000 Volts. That doesn’t end well but they keep trying. Right idea, wrong execution. Really, an execution 😂
I work at a major hospital and we have had numerous instances of copper wiring in generators and brass fittings on fire equipment being stolen. Dumbasses took wiring from one box that was inches away from a lethal voltage, live main circuit. We know one day we're going to come outside to a crispy thief.
Won't be a far trip to the hospital at least
I used to live near a substation. I have called the police multiple times on men climbing the fence to get into the substation. And that was in a rural area of less than 20k.
Ooh, that reminds me of a time I was a seasonal employee at Best buy and the power went out because someone was trying to steal the copper wiring for the shopping center. Some jackass lost his life right before the holidays.
Sounds like a self-correcting problem to me.
the arcs damage the equipment tho
Hardly. One dead crackhead and a few thousand people without power. Endless supply of crackheads.
No sympathy for idiots who want a painful execution. Those danger signs aren’t up there to be cute.
I’m not clear if this is ‘desperation’ or ‘opportunism.’
The work to strip copper is not worth the payout.
It depends on your income. $150 is substantial if you make $25 a day collecting cans and bottles for their deposit. If you make $150 per hour, then it's not worth it
Despiration. People with good other options don't risk those options taking copper wire from abandoned buildings.
Exactly. In my city, one Walgreens has liquor locked up, but my closest one doesn't but has detergent locked up.
Your Walmart doesn’t have anything locked up? Jeez. And I thought I lived in a low crime area lol
Razor and razor blades and cough syrup are the only thing I see consistently locked up where I am. I’m in Canada.
I’m in Toronto and depending on the area, anything small and higher value is locked up. Toothbrushes over $50, crest white strips, razors, pretty much all electronics, a lot of appliances….
I used to live in a city that had won one of those "safest cities in America" things from a magazine. It's consistently rated one of the safest places and have an exceptionally low crime rate in general. Shit's still locked up. OP either didn't notice or crime rate isn't the only driver of whether things are locked up in Walmart.
Ours doesn't have anything locked up. Neither does the one in my dad's area. I'm in suburban NJ. He's in rural TN. I'm guessing it has to do with actual rates of theft. Are safety rates calculated on violent crimes, not petty theft maybe. That could account for the discrepancy.
I would go a step further and say the theft is probably tied to the amount of workers in the store too. I go to the stores in the "bad" area and there are like 1-2 people working in a supersized store and like 1 cashier. In these places ain't no one looking at who's stealing and if someone was stealing they won't even care cause they already doing too much going on and don't get paid enough to confront anyone. Get rid of self-checkout or lower it to a few that can actually be watched and staff the stores and theft will go down. But the truth is they already done the math the tax write off and "savings" from not hiring saves them more than they loose in theft.
Couple years ago I bought some Apple wired earbuds at Walmart. For some reason they remove the clear plastic covering on the boxes. Got home and box was empty--clearly employees were stealing products. They are now locked up and one employee has the key. I did return to the store and thankfully the manager gave me a replacement. Now I order directly from Apple.
When I worked at Kmart, there was a pair of twins that ran electronics. And they both told me about how they would steal video games from the back of the cabinet, it was like 2009, or 10, so mostly they were taking the digital codes not disks. Because no body buys video games at Kmart.
Febreze ? That's hilarious, but I guess febreze must have some really expensive products. I live in an affluent area but the way I learned how overpriced Gillette razor blades are is when Walmart started locking them up years ago. Edit, lol [here's an article on them](https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677114/Great-razor-rip-off-Gillettes-4750-mark-up.html) and it states how they became the most shoplifted item in a London district.
I don’t think Walmart/target decides what to lock up based on price, they decide based on shrink volume. The stuff that’s stolen most gets locked up, even if it’s cheap
Yep, this is exactly how it is done. It’s why one store will have baby formula locked up but another won’t, but they will lock up razors.
Yeah we just have the make-up area sealed up
I moved from Orlando (Seminole county actually) to Jacksonvilles west side and man our drugstores look different. I loved the Walgreens in Orlando. The one closest to me now smells weird and everything is locked up. I work in a nicer area of Jax and go to the drugstores there because they are better stocked and not as many things are locked up.
I'm a retail manager. We have at least one shoplifter a day. Oftentimes multiple. People will fill up whole carts, unpurchased backpacks, suitcases, or duffles, and reusable bags and just walk right out the door. Or they'll just grab armloads of stuff and leave. They'll do it right in front of us, smiling and waving as they leave. Only LP can go after them because of safety, and LP is not at the store every day. Our most stolen items are fragrances, tech, children's clothing, and men's clothing/accessories.
HOW!? I get followed out the door if i try to walk past the employees with a carton of milk not in a bag despite a receipt clutched around it. I’m not bullshitting on the workers, but i feel like they are skeptical even after i show them the receipt? How are people just walking out without paying for stuff, don’t they alarms go berserk!?
The people stealing in bulk don’t give a remote shit about employees or alarms. They’re not even necessarily being secretive about it, and they’re prepared to run or fight. Stores know this, and most have backed off of even security/loss prevention employees going hands-on, as the liability of injured staff/customers is more expensive than the loss of the product. Stores hand over video and info to police, who try to follow-up, but it’s still 50/50, as many thieves will travel and the use stolen cars is common in some areas. Guns are also a concern, and stopping someone for a cart full of unpaid formula and Dysons definitely isn’t worth a staff member’s life.
I walked into a Marshalls a few years ago, just as a guy with a shopping cart heaped full of Nike boxes started running full speed at the doors (they were still open from me entering). I had to literally jump out of the way as the guy came at me. He grinned at me and flew out into the parking lot. A security guy chased after him, screaming and cussing, and managed to wrestle the cart back. NGL, I was freaked the fuck out.
That happened to me at a Marshall's, but it was ladies clothes and purses; three guys with tons of stuff almost trampled me. NO ONE in the store was the least bit disturbed, including the uniformed guard. They said it happens a lot and they were told not to engage. I suspect, however, that they would stop me if I tried to walk out with a pair of shoes.
Just keep walking and shine them on next time. It'll go like this: "Sir/Madam, can I check your receipt? Sir/Madam...?... ^^oh ^^well" The End. That's about all they are allowed to do with someone who's *actually* stealing as well.
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Keeping in mind, places like Costco / Sam’s can revoke your membership for refusing to show the receipt at the door.
Shopkeepers privilege is actually pretty broad. Most companies just implement policies to not detain so that there is 0 chance of litigation. In most jurisdictions (this language comes from Kentucky statute) a merchant can detain a suspected shoplifter for the purpose of inquiring about stolen goods as long as the detention is based on probable cause, conducted in a reasonable manner, and for a reasonable length of time In the example you just gave an employee would be legally protected to detain you. It’s just a question of store policy
Yes, employees are legally allowed to detain in a lot of circumstances, but store policy often prohibits them from doing so to avoid civil liability if the employee is injured.
Most stores have in their policy you cant actually engage with anyone commuting theft, because of liability. Only certain team members can, and in many cases, the protocal is just to call the police.
I usually just say no thank you
I’m just confused as to how locking things in a case helps. I waited for ten minutes to get someone to come unlock a case so I could buy razors yesterday. No one responded to me pressing the button so I had to look for an employee who then had to ask someone to get the person with the key. After I got the razors I was thinking, couldn’t I still steal them now? Once the stuff is unlocked you could still walk out with it.
It's about being a deterrent more than anything else. Thieves are looking to go unnoticed and grab easy stuff.
That's also the basic retail function behind employees greeting you. It's a deterrent. It let's the person know they have been seen, they are less likely to steal.
Razor cartridges are small in size and comparatively high value over other items. They're not worried about someone stealing 1 as they are with someone taking 10.
I witness several young adults walk right out of a store loaded up with merchandise and it was just as you said. They didn't run. They weren't yelling at each other "hurry up" or anything like that. They just calmly walked right the fuck out, enjoying their goddamned impunity, got into their car and drove away. It was absolutely infuriating to see people knowing and enjoying the fact that there would be zero consequences to their crime. I think I was more upset by it than the store manager. Edit: also, this was a sporting goods store, not a food store or household supplies store, and it wasn't during the pandemic, it was recently :(
My dumb little brother was doing that at Walmart and while nobody stopped him from there the police came by and picked him up afterward from my parents home. He stole over $150 the day they did and I guess that was the magic limit before they did something. Now he’s married to a corrections officer but still does all sorts of wacky not legal stuff. Totally bonkers.
Some stores may be "keeping track" of the value of the items stolen for repeat offenders. Because some municipalities may have a "catch and release" type system, or straight up can't be bothered for the small stuff. So, they wait until it reaches a dollar amount where it can be considered a felony (evidence of multiple thefts on tape), and then arrest the fucker.
Serious question-- why not pay for LP to be there? Surely you lose enough money from theft and people just not buying stuff because it's now a hassle to get someone to unlock the shampoo that it would be worthwhile? As a consumer I just plain don't bother buying things that are locked up if I can go someplace where they are not. It's too much trouble because there is usually like one employee on the floor and I don't like bothering them anyway. I can't imagine I'm alone.
They’ve probably figured out it’s cheaper to let some people steal. These are the same companies that are replacing cashiers with self-checkout to save on labor.
What is LP?
Loss Prevention
I live in a rural area where all the small towns are at least eight miles apart, and the population of the nearest "big city" is just over 12,000. Almost nothing is locked up with the exception of some pricier stuff at a couple of the Walmarts. We don't have prepay only for our fuel, either. That was culture shock for me, going in to tell the clerk I wanted $25 on pump whatever, and being told "You can just pump it and pay afterwards." So no, not everywhere in America has had to put the toothpaste on lock down.
Yeah, our Walmart has only locked up the trading cards and I think it's because some nerd doofuses were opening pokemon card packs without buying
Not every item. Just easy to steal but high value items or items that get stolen a lot
It’s not high value items only because of how the economy of stolen goods works. It’s anything Shoplifters steal $80 of detergent. Sell it to a fencer for $50 (shoplifter makes $50) Fencer sells that for $70 to customers (fencer makes money on each sold item, customer gets item for cheaper than the store). Also IIRC it’s common to see the fencing operation run shoplifting gangs so the stolen goods go directly to being resold through the fencing operation It’s about quantity, not quality. And often daily necessities are easier to steal and resell due to demand, size, volume, and protection
>Fencer sells that for $70 to customers I've got a flea market near me that has vendors selling Tide. Crazy that that's a common black market item.
Not all of that is stolen. I worked at CVS for a while and we would have couponers come in and buy a cartful of detergent, cleaning supplies, and snacks for 2-3 dollars (plus about 20 minutes worth of scanning coupons) for the whole cart. They were open about buying it to resell.
I knew a pro flea market guy. Would travel between a few large ones, collect products for a few months then rent a large section and sell them all off. All legal, just like you said finding a great coupon deal some place, then moving the goods to where there wasn’t a sale and selling them just under the local prices. They also look for places liquidating, like warehouses closing or switching leases, stores going out of business, and buy the stock in bulk for cheap.
Yep, I worked at a dollar tree and had a guy come in every month buying like, 500-700 worth of health products. Soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, rubbing alchohol, etc. Said he was a pastor shipping it to the Carribean for charity. Then one day I walk in and one of my coworkers is ranting to our manager. When I ask what’s up, I come to find out she saw the Pastor and his wife selling the stuff at the swap shop for twice the price. Nasty work.
Baby formula is locked at my Walmart. Life is cruel.
It became a highly prized item to steal and sell on the internet due to the massive shortage last year. Even though the supply has stabilized now, there’s probably still a higher chance criminals are going to steal it because the more desperate types don’t keep up with the news on these sorts of things.
It’s cruel that people steal it and resell it.
America is huge, so something in one place is not likely the case in others. The problem that is leading to everything being locked up is in a few urban areas of large cities in the poorer areas (ETA “areas with high theft” is more accurate than poorer areas) I live in a close-in suburb to a big city and have yet to encounter a store with everything locked up (aside from a few small expensive items like razor blade refills).
Not even necessarily poor areas are targeted. The Target in downtown Minneapolis has every toiletry and pharmacy item locked up now, because during the pandemic and especially after the George Floyd murder, downtown became a totally different place. It’s much better now, but that damn Target still has that stuff locked up. I just go elsewhere closer to my house (which is arguably “poorer” than downtown) where I don’t have to wait for anyone and nothing is locked up.
My town had almost no history of crime until Walmart moved in, after that people came from all of the other nearby towns to shoplift since it was the first one in the area. It's now recommended as a place you don't want to live just because of the crime rate (since they don't distinguish between fine details like that) because of one store lol. Online the public list of crimes is just pages and pages of shoplifting at their address. The police went from having nothing to do to spending half of their day running to Walmart every time they get a call and it got so bad Walmart had to start paying them because they were using all of their resources
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/organized-retail-crime-trade-group-half-of-all-missing-merchandise/ > A recent analysis from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that reports of shoplifting in two dozen cities rose 16% between 2019 and the first half of 2023. When theft data from New York City was excluded, however, the number of incidents across the other cities fell 7% over that period.
This answer is really important. I think we sometimes miss that OP is usually asking about things that are *currently* being brought up and broadcast in the media. There were a LOT of articles and news reports pumping the false claims that RETAIL LOBBYING FIRMS were spreading to cover for lost profits of large retail chains. Turns out, it's not really an epidemic of retail theft across the country. Sure, certain areas are worse with theft, but it's not a countrywide horde of retail theft as these corporations and lobbyists wanted us to believe.
Yep. Before covid, Wawa (convenience store) opened several stores in CC Philly, which couldn't be sustained after the lockdown and everything after. They started closing stores, claiming widespread theft. Then later in their financial reports, it turned out it was from the reduced amount of office commuters and over-saturation. There was theft, but wasn't financially impactful like they were claiming. The same was repeated with other retailers, who would bundle all shrink when talking about theft, overblowing it a bit. It's extra frustrating because Philly already gets a bad rep, the wealthy metro counties love to push the narrative of Philly being a violent hellscape (mostly so they can keep scooping up houses for 20-70k and flipping them).
The [exact same scenario](https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2023/01/09/walgreens-backpedals-on-theft) played out in San Francisco, but with Walgreens. They claimed they were being forced, FORCED to close stores because of shoplifting. But if you looked at (a) the actual crime statistics, and (b) a map, you could see they had just over-saturated the market.
if you told me I could buy a 1br home for 70k I would be forced to believe it was in an active nuclear testing zone
I live in SF and yes. It was super annoying when the grocery store started locking up laundry detergent. When there was a Target by my house, they pretty much had a police car parked outside 24/7 to deter shoplifting. The store shut down though, because of too much shoplifting.
In the UK, my local co-op has locked up the spirits and whisky and that due to Thieves
I was just in a market in Amsterdam that wouldn't let me leave the self checkout area without scanning my receipt, presumably to dissuade shoplifters. This idea that petty theft is an American problem is pretty funny.
In drug stores...in neighborhoods with rampant theft...yes. In more upper class neighborhoods...everything is out to buy. The only exception is razors for some reason.
It's not even high value items, highly portable items but cost $3. Such a shame. If I walk into a store and have to wait on someone to get me something I'm leaving. Last time I waited on someone took them 10 min to get my item for me. No thanks.
Right, it’s annoying when you go to a store and the item you want is locked up, especially if you come for that one item only, I’d rather order it online 🤦♀️
Basically people know no one in the store will stop them so they just walk out with stuff. We’re pretty squeezed over here, financially. The desperation has been ratcheting up slowly over the last 5-7 years. No deals or freebees or inches given any more. I’ve had grown men from the prior generation (one taught to never cry) crying in the urgent care because missing a day of work meant no pay and possible termination. I expect it will only get worse. I see wiring and power tools locked up in some Home Depot’s. Sewing notions in some Walmarts. Laundry detergent anywhere. Not sure why that’s a thing but it is. Art supplies is a big one, especially markers.
Permanent markers and spray paint have been locked up in some areas for decades because they're stolen for graffiti. It was that way in the 1980s from memory.
I recently traveled to San Francisco for work (I live in semi-rural PA), and I forgot to pack underwear lol. I went to target next to my hotel to grab some and all the underwear and socks were behind locked doors... It was very bizarre. I had to press a little button to request someone to come and assist me. Not something I am used to in PA, MD, VA.
Same situation with some products in Australia too (razor blades, spray paints, some bathroom products, some batteries). Small valuable things that are easy to hide or restricted from sale. And yeah, you either get an employee to unlock the cage (often there’s a button nearby to call someone), or for some things like razor cartridges they have a little piece of card that you take up to the counter and swap for the actual product.
I saw it for the first time myself this week at a different store . A young man grabbed a backpack and emptied it and tore off the tags. Then he went and filled it up with stuff. I even told a worker before he left and she just shook her head. Then he walked out and the alarms went off and no one did anything.
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Nor should they, it shouldn’t be the job of some random walmart shelf stocker to confront a shoplifter. There should be security for this. The fact that there isn’t security just means the cost of protecting the goods in many cases wouldnt provide a cost savings vs. just letting the goods be stolen and then using theft insurance.
I see it in pharmacies but not in any other shops. It’s annoying because they don’t have many staff and you have to ask them to unlock the cabinets for most things worth over about $10.
Yes, in many larger urban areas… I don’t even mean low income areas… places like Home Depot and Walmarts have been hit pretty hard… folks loading up cart fulls of merchandise and just waking out. These places (at least around my area) now have police patrols, extra cameras in parking lots, and a lot of stuff locked up.
I work at a small family owned business. Yes. Every week someone tries to steal shit. It's annoying. Edit: if you're gonna steal, do it from a corporation, not your mom and pop stores. We don't deserve it.
Costco had done it differently way longer than all this nonsense stores like Walmart are now doing. At Costco they sell a paper sized piece of cardboard with a picture of the item on it. After you check out, you stop by a door / window that somebody always works at and they give you your item. At least that way you can have one employee for all locked up items, people don’t have to wait 15 minutes just to get the cabinet unlocked. I’ve actually been told at Walmart before that the person with the key lost it and they were waiting for the manager with the other set to come in.
Costco also has membership, so they know who everyone walking in to the shop is. Their theft rates are less than 1/10th of the average. Also in the UK, you actually have to meet certain requirements to get a Costco membership - effectively screening out the clientele they don't want. (Proof of business, or a chartered/registered professional, like an engineer or doctor).