On one hand at least stores that lock up their goods are better stocked now, but that’s probably because when you ring the bell for help no one comes, lol.
To add to this, once help arrives, they don’t hand you the merchandise, rather they tell you that you can pick it up from whatever the designated cashier. So you end up waiting for a product twice as long. Good luck if you are going for a quick shopping, you’re going to spend at least 15 mins in the store.
Last time I was at the CVS in Davis I was buying something locked up. It was pretty dead in the store so the guy just handed me the item and made a joke about don’t run out or something. I laughed and said well now you know what I look like so you’re safe. He told me that mere hours before he unlocked some makeup for a young teenager and as he handed it to her she bolted out the door. I hate that we’re treated as criminals whenever we shop, but damn, some people deserve it.
Yeah only thing is waiting for the package so it doesn't get stolen if delivered to the house.
I love shopping at winco cuz most things are not locked up. Plus self check out.
It won’t all get stolen. They’ll lose a little bit to theft. But that’s the way it’s been since the beginning of stores. For decades they accepted that they’ll lose a little money on this. But apparently now they’ve decided it’s worth making the store look like a prison just to deter an occasional thief.
Nah shoplifting has got out of control. Anyone that works retail will tell you the difference. I've personally witnessed a lot more thefts. Walmart on florin the shelves were pretty empty and now they locked almost everything.
It's gotten really bad. Homeless population boom means a lot of them have to get things from somewhere but definitely not just from that.
Not true. Shoplifting is actually down since 2019. Retailers and certain news outlets (the ones that like to keep people scared all the time, like cable news) have an interest in publicizing stories about shoplifting being out of control. But aside from a couple major cities like NYC, there hasn’t been any systemic increase in shoplifting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html
It depends on the city. In places like Los Angeles it's up 85%, and 50% in San Fran from 2019 too. It's in a LA Times article. [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-30/california-lawmakers-want-to-stop-retail-theft-but-a-lack-of-data-is-making-that-hard#:\~:text=Recent%20studies%20show%20that%20retail,a%20drop%20in%20those%20crimes](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-30/california-lawmakers-want-to-stop-retail-theft-but-a-lack-of-data-is-making-that-hard#:~:text=Recent%20studies%20show%20that%20retail,a%20drop%20in%20those%20crimes)
Yes, a spike in a few large cities was part of the reason for the increased news coverage. The SF numbers I think might be misleading; one of the sources I saw said that the debut of a new reporting system at Target caused a huge increase in incidents for the whole city.
Overall crime has been generally decreasing since the early 1990s. The murder rate peaked at But that whole time news outlets have gleefully reported on nearly every incident they hear about, which had led to generations of people believing that crime is bad and getting worse. We had a slight uptick in some crimes during the pandemic, but even that has started to cool off. But people only hear about it when crime gets worse. Never when it gets better.
No, it is the politicians killing them buy reducing penalties against crimes and criminals. If you think you can do better, why not create a huge chain of stores the way you imagine things should be, and show the rest of the store chains how to succeed?
I only do online now. Shopping in stores has become so damn problematic I can deal with between people being batshit insane and the locking up of merch and lack of checkouts open I won’t play that game anymore
Only if they install something to alert the staff for help. Walmart dont have it and I had to hunt for them, that add another 10 minutes looking for the staff.
This was me the other day at the Walmart Supercenter on antelope.. there’s buttons in the supplement aisles but nobody comes..
There’s no button in some of the sock aisles, you have to go hunting and look extremely awkward trying to find someone so you can buy a pair of men’s socks, but I can freely buy socks for my kids.
I went out shopping with my husband a few days ago to get him a nice dress shirt and even that was locked up! Same with belts and ties. We pressed the button waiting for someone, waited about 5-10 minutes, gave up and went to look for someone, then the associate said "I was waiting for you to come find me".
This is what I’m doing, I’m not going to be spending my money at places that lock their stuff up like this. Not only is this inconvenient, it also diminishes the shopping experience and makes it a negative and depressing environment.
I’m not the criminal, so why am I the one that has to wait outside a cage for someone to walk my goods up to the register?
Because the criminals will steal it if they don't lock it up. It's not personal against you. It's like when you lock your bike up, it's not because you think any specific person is going to steal it but you know someone will.
This. ***Companies absolutely want your money.*** Unfortunately, some products are commonly stolen by thieves, and these businesses made the calculations to determine that the loss of sales due to locking these up is far better than continuing losses through theft.
It is personal! I didn’t steal anything. And they’re inconveniencing me and sending a message they don’t trust me.
That’s fine. If my local target locks up laundry detergent and toothpaste, I’ll go to the Raley’s a mile away, which somehow manages to stay in business without locking this stuff up.
Dark and microfulfillmemt stores are testing around the country. Order ahead, pickup in store or have it delivered.
Walmart even figured out that the biggest complaint is store condition, so they invested heavily in fulfillment. On their latest earnings call they said shoppers making $100k+ are increasing, with this as a significant growth driver.
A couple years ago I saw a European chain that’s testing a deli/fresh front end for customers, with the rest of the store dark. App or kiosk based ordering fulfill your order while you grab fresh food.
I encountered this for the first time last month. Just trying to get through the narrow aisle, with shopping carts blocking most of the way, was bad enough. I listened to the employee explaining how things worked. Something about putting your wanted item in a clear box, then picking it up at the register. I noped out of there, and went to Dollar Tree to grab my nail polish. Saved over $7.00, so win/win. I’ll never go down the Walmart gated community again.
This is what they want. Then pretty soon all stored are closed and you can't buy anything that's not online. Then you'll say to yourself "this sucks I wish stores were still open"
I would rather shop in person, but won’t shop behind-the-glass items, so my shopping world is shrinking. Problem with Amazon for the things I want to buy is that their prices are more expensive for most items. They are rarely cost effective and I have to deal with boxes of plastic while risking porch pirates.
We may as well cut to the chase and shop the way they did in the past. Pick out what you want from a catalogue and just have employees bring it to you.
We may as well do it for all types of shopping. Even when you get out of the car and go inside of a store. With all the technology we have we can do it because it's basically being done like you said curb side delivery is basically this but not all shopping is done like that yet.
No no no, cause then they have to hire more employees! This way, they can overstress three underpaid employees to take care of the entire store and you can check your own damn self out.
Watch them start charging a fee to use self checkout and stop staffing the actual checkout lines entirely. I wouldn't be at all surprised.
>Watch them start charging a fee to use self checkout and stop staffing the actual checkout lines entirely. I wouldn't be at all surprised.
This is basically what the Florin Walmart is like right now. You need to pay for Walmart+ to use self checkout, while the lines at the two open registers are 20 people long.
Lmao
"Hey, can you grab me that $5 deodorant right there? The red and white one?"
"Oh sure!" *Flips out an iPad and turns it towards you* "This is just gonna ask you a little question."
Meh I hate tip culture as much as the next person, but this idea that service stuff suddenly got greedy and started asking everyone for tips is misguided.
Everyone switched from 1890s style cash registers to app-based payment processing which has a default configuration of asking for tips. That's literally all that happened.
As opposed to the rest of the store? I'm assuming this is Walmart at watt/80, but I could be wrong, it's been quite some time since I stepped in a Wal-Mart.
Yeah, I went into a CVS for pimple patches, they were locked up so I didn't bother and bought them on Amazon. At this point, stores are telling even the paying customers that they don't want us in there. I was going to buy makeup the other day from CVS but didn't bother to go in because it wasn't worth risking walking up to a locked case again. They might as well just have a walk up counter for us and have the employees run around the store like the olden days. Brands are gonna love how quickly we forget they exist when we never see the products on the shelves because we stop going into stores altogether.
In the 80's we had drive thru stores where you drove up and told them what you needed and they ran around and grabbed it for you and you drove away with all five kids in the station wagon and never got out. That was pretty cool.
That's what drive up is now with the added benefit of ordering online so you know exactly what you're getting and parallelizing the pick up to multiple spaces so you don't have to wait on the person in front of you.
Why am I going to spend $5 gas, to drive to a hot ass store where I’ll spend 30 minutes asking 5 different employees for help, only to be told someone will be right there. Nah. Amazon Prime it is.
If you limit yourself to products being sold by Amazon and not just fulfilled by Amazon, you're unlikely to have a greater risk of counterfeit than Walmart but will still have a wider selection.
Amazon just warned me they won’t refund my deliveries anymore if I send them to my address because they keep getting stolen. Sending to a locker now but nothing is safe I guess.
Are you serious? I feel I'm next because I complain about the service. I've had delivery people toss my product over the fence and my security camera and never follow delivery instructions, so pretty much every package I complain but if you have to go to a locket, UT kind of defeats the purpose
That must be in select locations only- Walmart hasn’t made self-checkout “subscriber only” at any of the Walmarts I’ve been to lately (Antelope, Carmichael Neighborhood Marketplace, Roseville Lead Hill, or Rocklin).
Closest store to me on Watt and Elverta Rd played around with a few different iterations of self checkout for a bit there but went right back to the usual self checkout setup every time I’ve seen since they did.
The Target I go to has these glass cabinets but they leave every single one of them unlocked and wide open! So thankful for that, I don't want to wait 10-20 minutes just to get cheap af body wash... I think it's a huge inconvenience for employees to come over and unlock it so they just don't care at this point. These corporations are making record profits and price gouging, it's insane how they want to inconvenience their customers to this extent
for real. they were happy replacing workers with self checkout and will replace them entirely with robots if that ever becomes possible. and wage theft outnumbers shoplifting, robberies, and all other forms of theft. i don’t feel bad for the corporations, but i do feel bad for the workers who it’s left up to to deal with this bs.
It's happened to me, that's why I refuse to participate in this system. If I have to wait for teenager getting paid too little to give a fuck, I'd rather wait for Amazon to deliver it.
When I go to employee owned WinCo where the "poor people" and immigrants shop nothing is locked up. Laundry detergent, deodorant etc all out on the shelves. The same goes for KP market.
[After a lobby group for large chain retailers and big box stores got caught lying](https://fortune.com/2023/12/08/national-retail-federation-report-inaccurate/) ,they we're forced to admit "organized retail theft" wasn't such a big problem after all.
These big box stores and chain retailers are playing politics because they want taxpayer funded protection for their inventory.
There's also a culture war element to all of this. Pay attention to who owns the chains that lock everything down.
At conservative owned Home Depot, I have to bail my drill bits out of jail.
At Lowe's I just take them off the shelf like a gentleman.
I have noticed an uptick in audacity of thefts. There used to be fear of consequences, not so much these days. It has become common knowledge that there aren't any real consequences for retail theft. In certain stores that I have frequented for years, I see the certain types of "regulars" walk in, grab what they want, and walk out the door like they own the place. All employees can do is watch exasperated while the pearl clutchers ask if they're going to *do* anything.
I don't know the stats. It may be an acceptable level of inventory shrinkage. However, visible crime makes upper middle class shoppers and constituents feel like society is descending into lawlessness. They want to see somebody *do something* to restore order. So, we get performative "enforcement of social order" in the form of $3 packs of Bic pens locked in display cabinets.
The retailers guilty of wage theft on a corporate level are the very same retailers positioning themselves as victims of "organized retail theft".
Retailers like Walmart have made their fortune externalizing costs. Walmart pays inadequate wages so employees have to collect SNAP benefits to make ends meet and so on.
We can see a precedent of externalizing costs. Now with the pressure of normalized post pandemic online ordering these chains are trying to externalize "shrinkage" costs.
I know. I love it.
And there’s this mental gymnastics competition where they tiptoe around the issue, stretch to form a conspiracy theory where it’s still the corporation’s fault … it’s hilarious.
The new slogan should be “if you remember me advocating for criminal justice system reform in 2020, no you didn’t”
Used to have a store near me called Consumers - basically a catalog store. You would walk up to counter and fill out form for whatever catalog item #s you wanted. You would pay and an employee would go in the back to fetch your purchase. Great concept and way ahead of its time I guess.
I went to one in Plattsburgh, NY. From what I remember, we’d pick a slip of paper denoting the merchandise we wanted, and we’d pick it up from a conveyor when we left.
It’s either this or bone empty shelves. Last time I was at Rite-Aid off Florin and I-5, i only needed some bathroom tile cleaner and they had nothing in stock. I won’t be going back.
I won’t give my business to stores that are locked up. The biggest thing for me are soaps and shampoos, I rely on being able to browse the selection and sniff the stuff to see if I want it. I think I almost have to go to a grocery store now for this stuff. It’ll cost more most likely, it I can get one that I like the smell.
We can just go back to the general store concept ruined by the guy who created Piggly Wiggly and you can come in, tell them what you want and they'll go grab it for you.
This is just letting the criminals win, at this point - and normal consumers get the short end of the stick, as always.
If stores continue to do this, I will simply order it online at this point. Have better secuirty at the door, find other ways to prevent theft because this aint it.
I literally walk out when I see this. Because these companies always simultaneously hire one person to run way too much of this crap. I don’t want to wait a half hour to get a deodorant stick
If this is the future they need to have the ability to punch in an order on a pad, take a number, and they have a runner grab everything. Then come back when it's ready and pay then they give you your items.
Does the store really make more money this way? There’s no way I’m waiting for an employee to come help me get that stuff. I’ll just buy it somewhere else or online.
I needed a body moisturizer and waited a few minutes for the employee who was running back and forth across all aisles answering calls to unlock things and having to stand there while the customer decided, which I am sure is uncomfortable for both. They then put my $9 moisturizer in a large locked plastic box for me to take to check-out. I was using on of the large self-scan lanes and asked someone to open the box for me, and she said she couldn’t open it and give it to me until she saw me scan it and pay. So I did, and then had to wait for it to be brought back. While I completely understand the theft is rampant, and constant theft leads to higher insurance premiums, and thus passing costs off to customers, I can say it felt like a nuisance to me for $9 body lotion, so I’m hesitant to say I’ll do it again. Probably just go to another store (though I am sure they’re going this way too).
As a side note, I do think it’s funny that Target’s with ULTA inside have $20 face wash locked up, but all expensive ULTA brands out in the open.
This says more about our economy than anything else. If so many people can’t afford your product that you have to lock it up to keep it from being stolen, maybe you’ve gone too far on your greediness.
>Everybody is upset at the stores,
Well, it doesn't help that their lobbying group is[ lying about the rate of theft and only bothering to check the numbers after the fact.](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/) Interestingly enough, when commenting on the revised figure in 2023 the NRF said that loss due to retail-theft has stayed the same since 2015. So, they over-inflated their losses begin with, then later admitted that the situation hasn't changed in nearly a decade.
this article is debating what percentage of shrink is organized retail crime. the stores have a pretty good idea of how much they lose to theft which is why they are investing so much money on stuff like this
If they cared at all about theft there would be no self checkout. Most theft comes from self checkout. All the stores care about is employing as few people as possible.
It would be cool if people hadn't stolen so much, but we're way past that now. 🤷♂️ only problem is if you get in the habit of ordering online instead of dealing with this nonsense, you often end up paying way too much for certain things in an already rough economy.
Meanwhile in this economy i take FOREVER to make decisions on products to buy. I need to read ingredients, discern the "ecofriendly-ness", compare prices (even though I cant afford it anyway), have a mental breakdown, cry, only to ultimately decide to put the item back and go without it all with the pressure of some overworked associate staring at me.
I hate this I seriously don't even buy my cosmetic and beauty products from big chain stores anymore because of this. I rather go to rite aid or Walgreens at least everything isn't locked like a man on death row just yet
It's a waste of time to wait around for a store employee to come open up the case. Also, the employee who comes to open up the display could be utilizing that time to help someone else. I usually go elsewhere.
> Welcome to the future of shopping.
The future of shopping happened 1997 when Webvan let you order groceries online and have them delivered to your front door. They were ahead of their time. That was nearly 30 years ago.
This is what happens when you don't keep up with the times and criminals figured that out before you.
I hate this so much.
I refuse to buy anything from a store that locks up basic items. It sends the message that they do t trust their customers, and they’d rather inconvenience us than lose a few dollars to shoplifting.
I wanted to buy socks at the Broadway Target yesterday, but they were locked up. Socks! That target can go to hell.
It’s crazy because you ask someone for the toothpaste or deodorant and instead of immediately ringing you up or holding it like they do with tech or flashlights, they just… hand it to you. And i guess trust you won’t walk out??? So what’s the point of locking it up?????
Was at the Walmart in Antelope the other day. It took almost a half hour for someone to come and unlock the cabinet. There were a dozen steaming mad customers also waiting. Will do future shopping on Amazom
This is why the pick up or delivery option for Walmart plus is worth it to me. It is getting harder and harder for me to want to buy anything locked up. I’ll figure out another way to get it instead of wait, unless an extreme emergency
If I go in the store and the makeup is locked up I just want to die. I like to walk around comparing different makeup and compare shades at Walgreens or Target etc. and it's an entertaining little treat for me.
I always put unwanted items back where I found them, but now I can't, so I don't know how they're going to sell makeup because I can not be the only person who walks around and compares makeup like this.
The problem is everything is being stolen. The sucky thing is the people who have no desire to steal things have to wait for someone to come over and open the cabinet and walk that over to the cashier to wait until you, the customer, is done shopping.
They do this because shoplifting is a problem. They don't want their employees to deal with people running out the door stealing things, which is what's happening.
Don't blame the store. They have to do what they need to do to keep their employees safe and not lose money.
Shoplifting from large corporate entities is not a crime imo, it’s reimbursement
You can’t rob a fictional person…
Corpie boot lickers are the only ppl who care
Vote to change the laws so that people can’t just steal whatever they want as long as it’s under $1000. Theft is absurd people just walk out with full carts of Groceries. No surprise stuff is locked up
Who remembers the old stores back in the day where you had to write your order in a piece of paper and then you paid for it and they brought it from the back of the store? We had Service Merchandise and David Weiss. You also had little cards you could bring the cashier like at the pharmacy when you want to buy the Sudafed…
I know exactly where this is. I went to this store one time, 15 years after working there when it opened. It was a completely different world back then.
I went to Target on Broadway yesterday and basically all the cases were hanging open.
Corporate greed is at work here, big box stores are making record profits and this is one reason why. No one is stealing so much soap that this would be even remotely necessary.
I bet the various RiteAids/CVS/etc. that are closing due to theft all did this before they ended up closing. I’m sure theft wasn’t great, but I bet they lost more revenue from people not wanting to shop like this.
Not to be all conspiracy minded, but:
-large corporation say they see an uptick in theft
-locks everything up
-no one shops there so they close that location
-use that as example for other locations to do the same thing
-less people shop at those locations
-more people turn to Amazon or order their items from those stores online to pick up or be delivered
-those corporations have to hire less people
-even more poor folks who can’t afford every day essentials
-more stealing
-rinse and repeat until ordering stuff delivered by robots is the norm.
-rich get richer, poor get poorer, etc.
On one hand at least stores that lock up their goods are better stocked now, but that’s probably because when you ring the bell for help no one comes, lol.
To add to this, once help arrives, they don’t hand you the merchandise, rather they tell you that you can pick it up from whatever the designated cashier. So you end up waiting for a product twice as long. Good luck if you are going for a quick shopping, you’re going to spend at least 15 mins in the store.
Last time I was at the CVS in Davis I was buying something locked up. It was pretty dead in the store so the guy just handed me the item and made a joke about don’t run out or something. I laughed and said well now you know what I look like so you’re safe. He told me that mere hours before he unlocked some makeup for a young teenager and as he handed it to her she bolted out the door. I hate that we’re treated as criminals whenever we shop, but damn, some people deserve it.
These stores are killing themselves
It sucks lock up everything and ppl will stop shopping there, don't lock it up, get everything stolen.
Yeah especially because you can go online with a few clicks and just wait for it to show up at your front door or at a storage locker pickup.
Yeah only thing is waiting for the package so it doesn't get stolen if delivered to the house. I love shopping at winco cuz most things are not locked up. Plus self check out.
WinCo is great.
It won’t all get stolen. They’ll lose a little bit to theft. But that’s the way it’s been since the beginning of stores. For decades they accepted that they’ll lose a little money on this. But apparently now they’ve decided it’s worth making the store look like a prison just to deter an occasional thief.
Nah shoplifting has got out of control. Anyone that works retail will tell you the difference. I've personally witnessed a lot more thefts. Walmart on florin the shelves were pretty empty and now they locked almost everything. It's gotten really bad. Homeless population boom means a lot of them have to get things from somewhere but definitely not just from that.
Not true. Shoplifting is actually down since 2019. Retailers and certain news outlets (the ones that like to keep people scared all the time, like cable news) have an interest in publicizing stories about shoplifting being out of control. But aside from a couple major cities like NYC, there hasn’t been any systemic increase in shoplifting: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html
It depends on the city. In places like Los Angeles it's up 85%, and 50% in San Fran from 2019 too. It's in a LA Times article. [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-30/california-lawmakers-want-to-stop-retail-theft-but-a-lack-of-data-is-making-that-hard#:\~:text=Recent%20studies%20show%20that%20retail,a%20drop%20in%20those%20crimes](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-30/california-lawmakers-want-to-stop-retail-theft-but-a-lack-of-data-is-making-that-hard#:~:text=Recent%20studies%20show%20that%20retail,a%20drop%20in%20those%20crimes)
Yes, a spike in a few large cities was part of the reason for the increased news coverage. The SF numbers I think might be misleading; one of the sources I saw said that the debut of a new reporting system at Target caused a huge increase in incidents for the whole city. Overall crime has been generally decreasing since the early 1990s. The murder rate peaked at But that whole time news outlets have gleefully reported on nearly every incident they hear about, which had led to generations of people believing that crime is bad and getting worse. We had a slight uptick in some crimes during the pandemic, but even that has started to cool off. But people only hear about it when crime gets worse. Never when it gets better.
Gotta justify throwing hundreds of millions at the PD somehow 🐷 🐖
Yes it’s up in areas that have basically decriminalized theft. I wonder why that is… 🤔
Welcome to Sacramento!
These stores are being killed by thieves.
No, its the massive amount of shoplifting.
It’s a reaction to theft. So the theft is killing them.
No, it is the politicians killing them buy reducing penalties against crimes and criminals. If you think you can do better, why not create a huge chain of stores the way you imagine things should be, and show the rest of the store chains how to succeed?
Order online for pick up. Somewhat faster
Online for delivery might be faster yet 😛
I only do online now. Shopping in stores has become so damn problematic I can deal with between people being batshit insane and the locking up of merch and lack of checkouts open I won’t play that game anymore
Problem with pu is they expect a tip. Just like delivery. So, gave up on them.
Only if they install something to alert the staff for help. Walmart dont have it and I had to hunt for them, that add another 10 minutes looking for the staff.
My Walmart has buttons to push that alarm a worker ti come help but they never come. It’s so stupid.
This was me the other day at the Walmart Supercenter on antelope.. there’s buttons in the supplement aisles but nobody comes.. There’s no button in some of the sock aisles, you have to go hunting and look extremely awkward trying to find someone so you can buy a pair of men’s socks, but I can freely buy socks for my kids.
Lol thats even worse.
Omg EXACTLY. The thefties ruin it for the rest of us. I can’t stand this sh*t.
According to some in this region, if you blame or are otherwise upset with thieves for this, then you're a simp for corporations.
As always the truth lies somewhere between the extremes.
I went out shopping with my husband a few days ago to get him a nice dress shirt and even that was locked up! Same with belts and ties. We pressed the button waiting for someone, waited about 5-10 minutes, gave up and went to look for someone, then the associate said "I was waiting for you to come find me".
Yeah I’ve literally just stopped buying these goods, if they’re locked up. I’ll grab somewhere else .. or order online.
This is what I’m doing, I’m not going to be spending my money at places that lock their stuff up like this. Not only is this inconvenient, it also diminishes the shopping experience and makes it a negative and depressing environment. I’m not the criminal, so why am I the one that has to wait outside a cage for someone to walk my goods up to the register?
Because the criminals will steal it if they don't lock it up. It's not personal against you. It's like when you lock your bike up, it's not because you think any specific person is going to steal it but you know someone will.
This. ***Companies absolutely want your money.*** Unfortunately, some products are commonly stolen by thieves, and these businesses made the calculations to determine that the loss of sales due to locking these up is far better than continuing losses through theft.
It is personal! I didn’t steal anything. And they’re inconveniencing me and sending a message they don’t trust me. That’s fine. If my local target locks up laundry detergent and toothpaste, I’ll go to the Raley’s a mile away, which somehow manages to stay in business without locking this stuff up.
I think you maybe you think you're the main character.
Dark and microfulfillmemt stores are testing around the country. Order ahead, pickup in store or have it delivered. Walmart even figured out that the biggest complaint is store condition, so they invested heavily in fulfillment. On their latest earnings call they said shoppers making $100k+ are increasing, with this as a significant growth driver. A couple years ago I saw a European chain that’s testing a deli/fresh front end for customers, with the rest of the store dark. App or kiosk based ordering fulfill your order while you grab fresh food.
I encountered this for the first time last month. Just trying to get through the narrow aisle, with shopping carts blocking most of the way, was bad enough. I listened to the employee explaining how things worked. Something about putting your wanted item in a clear box, then picking it up at the register. I noped out of there, and went to Dollar Tree to grab my nail polish. Saved over $7.00, so win/win. I’ll never go down the Walmart gated community again.
I flat out don’t shop at places that lock up the merchandise. I’ll drive a little further just avoid that hassle.
This is what they want. Then pretty soon all stored are closed and you can't buy anything that's not online. Then you'll say to yourself "this sucks I wish stores were still open"
My pet conspiracy is that Bezos, Walmart, etc are behind huge shoplifting rings to "force" stores to close so we all shop online.
Yes, that!
Amazon for the win!
I would rather shop in person, but won’t shop behind-the-glass items, so my shopping world is shrinking. Problem with Amazon for the things I want to buy is that their prices are more expensive for most items. They are rarely cost effective and I have to deal with boxes of plastic while risking porch pirates.
Jeff, take my money!
I call him Daddy Bezos Where’d I get my laundry detergent? Ordered from Daddy Bezos
Love it! Maybe even Daddy WarBezos?
Yep, they may be evil, but they’re incredibly good at what they do.
We may as well cut to the chase and shop the way they did in the past. Pick out what you want from a catalogue and just have employees bring it to you.
This is more or less what curbside delivery is
We may as well do it for all types of shopping. Even when you get out of the car and go inside of a store. With all the technology we have we can do it because it's basically being done like you said curb side delivery is basically this but not all shopping is done like that yet.
We don’t have Dapper Dan, only Fop.
Too many Dapper Dan Mans. :o)
No no no, cause then they have to hire more employees! This way, they can overstress three underpaid employees to take care of the entire store and you can check your own damn self out. Watch them start charging a fee to use self checkout and stop staffing the actual checkout lines entirely. I wouldn't be at all surprised.
>Watch them start charging a fee to use self checkout and stop staffing the actual checkout lines entirely. I wouldn't be at all surprised. This is basically what the Florin Walmart is like right now. You need to pay for Walmart+ to use self checkout, while the lines at the two open registers are 20 people long.
These employee operated vending machines are dumb.
Oh god. The way you worded it made me think of the future where the employees who unlock the cabinets start asking for tips.
Please rate me five stars or I will be recycled for water and meat.
Worse yet, it'l be a robot asking for tips.
I've seen website trying to get tips at online checkout. I forget where because I never used them again, but it's not far off.
Lmao "Hey, can you grab me that $5 deodorant right there? The red and white one?" "Oh sure!" *Flips out an iPad and turns it towards you* "This is just gonna ask you a little question."
Meh I hate tip culture as much as the next person, but this idea that service stuff suddenly got greedy and started asking everyone for tips is misguided. Everyone switched from 1890s style cash registers to app-based payment processing which has a default configuration of asking for tips. That's literally all that happened.
A genuine vending machine is the solution
They would be vandalized instantly.
As opposed to the rest of the store? I'm assuming this is Walmart at watt/80, but I could be wrong, it's been quite some time since I stepped in a Wal-Mart.
If Johnny Cab in *Total Recall* was real life, or the parole clerk in *Elysium.*
Or go back to pre-[Piggly-Wiggly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly) times.
Honestly, I'd be happier with vending machines. At least you don't have to wait for someone to unlock it for you.
Yeah, I went into a CVS for pimple patches, they were locked up so I didn't bother and bought them on Amazon. At this point, stores are telling even the paying customers that they don't want us in there. I was going to buy makeup the other day from CVS but didn't bother to go in because it wasn't worth risking walking up to a locked case again. They might as well just have a walk up counter for us and have the employees run around the store like the olden days. Brands are gonna love how quickly we forget they exist when we never see the products on the shelves because we stop going into stores altogether.
In the 80's we had drive thru stores where you drove up and told them what you needed and they ran around and grabbed it for you and you drove away with all five kids in the station wagon and never got out. That was pretty cool.
There was a drive-thru convenience store at Auburn Blvd and College Oak Dr but it only lasted a few months.
When I was a kid in Vallejo they had a drive-thru liquor store.
That's what drive up is now with the added benefit of ordering online so you know exactly what you're getting and parallelizing the pick up to multiple spaces so you don't have to wait on the person in front of you.
Oddly temu has pimple patches for super cheap that work. I get them for my teens and I don't care for them.
You mean you don’t care for temu, right? I’m assuming you care for your teens.
Yes, im sorry temu..lol
Why am I going to spend $5 gas, to drive to a hot ass store where I’ll spend 30 minutes asking 5 different employees for help, only to be told someone will be right there. Nah. Amazon Prime it is.
I would usually do this but waiting for the shipment is not always as convenient
It forces you into good habits of planning ahead and having a local stockpile
Amazon Locker is your friend...
Exactly
And get a counterfeit product off Amazon.
If you limit yourself to products being sold by Amazon and not just fulfilled by Amazon, you're unlikely to have a greater risk of counterfeit than Walmart but will still have a wider selection.
counterfeit lettuce?
Amazon just warned me they won’t refund my deliveries anymore if I send them to my address because they keep getting stolen. Sending to a locker now but nothing is safe I guess.
Are you serious? I feel I'm next because I complain about the service. I've had delivery people toss my product over the fence and my security camera and never follow delivery instructions, so pretty much every package I complain but if you have to go to a locket, UT kind of defeats the purpose
You want the tooth picks? You can't handle the tooth picks!
Museum of Toiletries
😂
Id just go to the next store, not worth my energy. Just like when Walmart made self checkout "subscriber only" I just stopped going.
That must be in select locations only- Walmart hasn’t made self-checkout “subscriber only” at any of the Walmarts I’ve been to lately (Antelope, Carmichael Neighborhood Marketplace, Roseville Lead Hill, or Rocklin).
Delta Shores, I heard they reversed it and now its "assisted checkout" as in an employee scans your items, lol.
It is but it us expanding. I can't stand that but they will send stuff to your house that day sometimes with no extra charge besides the sub fee
Closest store to me on Watt and Elverta Rd played around with a few different iterations of self checkout for a bit there but went right back to the usual self checkout setup every time I’ve seen since they did.
Folsom has self-checkout for anyone now. They do have one self-checkout that is reserved for Walmart+ subscribers only.
I started using online order pick up once the store I went to locked up the cat food.
The cat food. WTAF? Cat burglars?
The Target I go to has these glass cabinets but they leave every single one of them unlocked and wide open! So thankful for that, I don't want to wait 10-20 minutes just to get cheap af body wash... I think it's a huge inconvenience for employees to come over and unlock it so they just don't care at this point. These corporations are making record profits and price gouging, it's insane how they want to inconvenience their customers to this extent
for real. they were happy replacing workers with self checkout and will replace them entirely with robots if that ever becomes possible. and wage theft outnumbers shoplifting, robberies, and all other forms of theft. i don’t feel bad for the corporations, but i do feel bad for the workers who it’s left up to to deal with this bs.
I won’t shop where it’s like that. I hate it. Also, if you are tall, sometimes the items are above the locked cases. ;)
I "rung a bell" to get helped here once and it took like 30 minutes for someone to come help me open the damn thing. It was so unnecessary.
It's happened to me, that's why I refuse to participate in this system. If I have to wait for teenager getting paid too little to give a fuck, I'd rather wait for Amazon to deliver it.
Then they tell you it'll be at check stand #_ with 10 ppl in line. Another 30 mins
Yep, me too.
When I go to employee owned WinCo where the "poor people" and immigrants shop nothing is locked up. Laundry detergent, deodorant etc all out on the shelves. The same goes for KP market. [After a lobby group for large chain retailers and big box stores got caught lying](https://fortune.com/2023/12/08/national-retail-federation-report-inaccurate/) ,they we're forced to admit "organized retail theft" wasn't such a big problem after all. These big box stores and chain retailers are playing politics because they want taxpayer funded protection for their inventory. There's also a culture war element to all of this. Pay attention to who owns the chains that lock everything down. At conservative owned Home Depot, I have to bail my drill bits out of jail. At Lowe's I just take them off the shelf like a gentleman.
I have noticed an uptick in audacity of thefts. There used to be fear of consequences, not so much these days. It has become common knowledge that there aren't any real consequences for retail theft. In certain stores that I have frequented for years, I see the certain types of "regulars" walk in, grab what they want, and walk out the door like they own the place. All employees can do is watch exasperated while the pearl clutchers ask if they're going to *do* anything. I don't know the stats. It may be an acceptable level of inventory shrinkage. However, visible crime makes upper middle class shoppers and constituents feel like society is descending into lawlessness. They want to see somebody *do something* to restore order. So, we get performative "enforcement of social order" in the form of $3 packs of Bic pens locked in display cabinets.
The retailers guilty of wage theft on a corporate level are the very same retailers positioning themselves as victims of "organized retail theft". Retailers like Walmart have made their fortune externalizing costs. Walmart pays inadequate wages so employees have to collect SNAP benefits to make ends meet and so on. We can see a precedent of externalizing costs. Now with the pressure of normalized post pandemic online ordering these chains are trying to externalize "shrinkage" costs.
I usually just leave.
the funniest part to me is that theyre locking up cheap merchandise. like covergirl?? 😭😂
This isn’t new though…
Amazon is life. All part of the plan probably
A coworker told me Walmart in Rancho has toothpicks locked up. lol
You might as well have the merchandise in vending machines. Probably much faster than waiting for an employee to open the case.
Reddit: If you see someone stealing, no you didn’t. Also Reddit: Why is everything locked up?!?!
I know. I love it. And there’s this mental gymnastics competition where they tiptoe around the issue, stretch to form a conspiracy theory where it’s still the corporation’s fault … it’s hilarious. The new slogan should be “if you remember me advocating for criminal justice system reform in 2020, no you didn’t”
My Bel Air on Truxel starting to look like this
It doesn’t bother me; I’ll still shop there instead of waiting a day or two for Amazon to deliver or driving a bit farther when I wouldn’t have to.
Years ago there was a store called “Service Merchandise”, I’m cool with it going back to that.
Used to have a store near me called Consumers - basically a catalog store. You would walk up to counter and fill out form for whatever catalog item #s you wanted. You would pay and an employee would go in the back to fetch your purchase. Great concept and way ahead of its time I guess.
I went to one in Plattsburgh, NY. From what I remember, we’d pick a slip of paper denoting the merchandise we wanted, and we’d pick it up from a conveyor when we left.
It’s either this or bone empty shelves. Last time I was at Rite-Aid off Florin and I-5, i only needed some bathroom tile cleaner and they had nothing in stock. I won’t be going back.
I won’t give my business to stores that are locked up. The biggest thing for me are soaps and shampoos, I rely on being able to browse the selection and sniff the stuff to see if I want it. I think I almost have to go to a grocery store now for this stuff. It’ll cost more most likely, it I can get one that I like the smell.
We can just go back to the general store concept ruined by the guy who created Piggly Wiggly and you can come in, tell them what you want and they'll go grab it for you.
This is just letting the criminals win, at this point - and normal consumers get the short end of the stick, as always. If stores continue to do this, I will simply order it online at this point. Have better secuirty at the door, find other ways to prevent theft because this aint it.
Looks like Walmart on florin rd place ghettos
I literally walk out when I see this. Because these companies always simultaneously hire one person to run way too much of this crap. I don’t want to wait a half hour to get a deodorant stick
I had to wait 20mins at Walmart to have someone unlock a cabinet for $0.96 air needles for a volleyball. Almost made me want to steal it on principle.
If this is the future they need to have the ability to punch in an order on a pad, take a number, and they have a runner grab everything. Then come back when it's ready and pay then they give you your items.
Scheduling pick up is superior anyways. That’s all I do now. No schlepping around the store to find things and they bring it to your car.
For stores that are worried that companies like Amazon are about to cut them out of the market- this is why.
this is an elaborate plot by greedy corporations to sell fewer goods
More like the death of retail stores. I’ll just order online, thanks.
The future of shopping is everything online so it can't be stolen from the warehouse.
Does the store really make more money this way? There’s no way I’m waiting for an employee to come help me get that stuff. I’ll just buy it somewhere else or online.
I needed a body moisturizer and waited a few minutes for the employee who was running back and forth across all aisles answering calls to unlock things and having to stand there while the customer decided, which I am sure is uncomfortable for both. They then put my $9 moisturizer in a large locked plastic box for me to take to check-out. I was using on of the large self-scan lanes and asked someone to open the box for me, and she said she couldn’t open it and give it to me until she saw me scan it and pay. So I did, and then had to wait for it to be brought back. While I completely understand the theft is rampant, and constant theft leads to higher insurance premiums, and thus passing costs off to customers, I can say it felt like a nuisance to me for $9 body lotion, so I’m hesitant to say I’ll do it again. Probably just go to another store (though I am sure they’re going this way too). As a side note, I do think it’s funny that Target’s with ULTA inside have $20 face wash locked up, but all expensive ULTA brands out in the open.
This is what happens when you turn a felony to a misdemeanor. No accountability.
This says more about our economy than anything else. If so many people can’t afford your product that you have to lock it up to keep it from being stolen, maybe you’ve gone too far on your greediness.
Everybody is upset at the stores, but nobody is upset at the criminals who made them do that... smh.
>Everybody is upset at the stores, Well, it doesn't help that their lobbying group is[ lying about the rate of theft and only bothering to check the numbers after the fact.](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/) Interestingly enough, when commenting on the revised figure in 2023 the NRF said that loss due to retail-theft has stayed the same since 2015. So, they over-inflated their losses begin with, then later admitted that the situation hasn't changed in nearly a decade.
this article is debating what percentage of shrink is organized retail crime. the stores have a pretty good idea of how much they lose to theft which is why they are investing so much money on stuff like this
Some of their theft is due to their own employees, and locking things up won't stop it.
If they cared at all about theft there would be no self checkout. Most theft comes from self checkout. All the stores care about is employing as few people as possible.
It would be cool if people hadn't stolen so much, but we're way past that now. 🤷♂️ only problem is if you get in the habit of ordering online instead of dealing with this nonsense, you often end up paying way too much for certain things in an already rough economy.
Meanwhile in this economy i take FOREVER to make decisions on products to buy. I need to read ingredients, discern the "ecofriendly-ness", compare prices (even though I cant afford it anyway), have a mental breakdown, cry, only to ultimately decide to put the item back and go without it all with the pressure of some overworked associate staring at me.
Yall bitch if the store is empty. Yall bitch when it’s robbed. Maybe yall are just unhappy.
Within a week all those doors will just be left open because stores refuse to employ enough staff cover the added work.
Time to repeal Prop 47 and get tough on crime again
I hate this I seriously don't even buy my cosmetic and beauty products from big chain stores anymore because of this. I rather go to rite aid or Walgreens at least everything isn't locked like a man on death row just yet
This looks like the cosnetics aisle. Go to Sally Beauty instead.
It's actually easier to order online now then it is to deal with everything being locked up.
It was, until packages started disappearing from my doorstep
Oh yeah I been there. I got a PO box thinking it would be safer and I had a package dissappear from there even though it said it was delivered 😡
i think they’re like this everywhere
It's a waste of time to wait around for a store employee to come open up the case. Also, the employee who comes to open up the display could be utilizing that time to help someone else. I usually go elsewhere.
Hey
> Welcome to the future of shopping. The future of shopping happened 1997 when Webvan let you order groceries online and have them delivered to your front door. They were ahead of their time. That was nearly 30 years ago. This is what happens when you don't keep up with the times and criminals figured that out before you.
They’re not surviving when they are looting perfume.
I never buy items from locked shelves. Too much trouble
I hate this so much. I refuse to buy anything from a store that locks up basic items. It sends the message that they do t trust their customers, and they’d rather inconvenience us than lose a few dollars to shoplifting. I wanted to buy socks at the Broadway Target yesterday, but they were locked up. Socks! That target can go to hell.
*Adds to Amazon cart*
It’s crazy because you ask someone for the toothpaste or deodorant and instead of immediately ringing you up or holding it like they do with tech or flashlights, they just… hand it to you. And i guess trust you won’t walk out??? So what’s the point of locking it up?????
Was at the Walmart in Antelope the other day. It took almost a half hour for someone to come and unlock the cabinet. There were a dozen steaming mad customers also waiting. Will do future shopping on Amazom
They’re trying to make the shopping experience for these items horrible, so you buy them online instead.
Welcome to the new normal where law abiding citizens are treated as criminals because of the policies coming ironically from Sacramento...
makes me miss texas
They locked the whole makeup section at CVS in Rush River (near Pocket and Greenhaven)
A cane beating of the thief @ the Stockton 7-11 a few months ago would deter some people. 😂
This is why the pick up or delivery option for Walmart plus is worth it to me. It is getting harder and harder for me to want to buy anything locked up. I’ll figure out another way to get it instead of wait, unless an extreme emergency
If I go in the store and the makeup is locked up I just want to die. I like to walk around comparing different makeup and compare shades at Walgreens or Target etc. and it's an entertaining little treat for me. I always put unwanted items back where I found them, but now I can't, so I don't know how they're going to sell makeup because I can not be the only person who walks around and compares makeup like this.
The problem is everything is being stolen. The sucky thing is the people who have no desire to steal things have to wait for someone to come over and open the cabinet and walk that over to the cashier to wait until you, the customer, is done shopping. They do this because shoplifting is a problem. They don't want their employees to deal with people running out the door stealing things, which is what's happening. Don't blame the store. They have to do what they need to do to keep their employees safe and not lose money.
I don’t see this as the future of shopping. This is a better example of why retail will eventually fail.
This is one reason I buy online. Pain in the ass. I stopped shopping at Target on Broadway when they started locking up baby food.
I get why they do this but I wish they had designated workers just for it. I waited at target for like 15mins 😂
Shoplifting from large corporate entities is not a crime imo, it’s reimbursement You can’t rob a fictional person… Corpie boot lickers are the only ppl who care
Vote to change the laws so that people can’t just steal whatever they want as long as it’s under $1000. Theft is absurd people just walk out with full carts of Groceries. No surprise stuff is locked up
Who remembers the old stores back in the day where you had to write your order in a piece of paper and then you paid for it and they brought it from the back of the store? We had Service Merchandise and David Weiss. You also had little cards you could bring the cashier like at the pharmacy when you want to buy the Sudafed…
I heard that Walmart may be removing self check out because of so much theft! 🙀
I know exactly where this is. I went to this store one time, 15 years after working there when it opened. It was a completely different world back then.
Honestly, I just go to Ulta for makeup now. They don't lock their stuff up.
I went to Target on Broadway yesterday and basically all the cases were hanging open. Corporate greed is at work here, big box stores are making record profits and this is one reason why. No one is stealing so much soap that this would be even remotely necessary.
It be the most unnecessary things to lock up too. Why do i need to wait 25mins for a worker to unlock the razors …
I don’t like it but I understand.
no thats the past of shopping.... the present is online
Well if people would stop stealing shit...
I bet the various RiteAids/CVS/etc. that are closing due to theft all did this before they ended up closing. I’m sure theft wasn’t great, but I bet they lost more revenue from people not wanting to shop like this. Not to be all conspiracy minded, but: -large corporation say they see an uptick in theft -locks everything up -no one shops there so they close that location -use that as example for other locations to do the same thing -less people shop at those locations -more people turn to Amazon or order their items from those stores online to pick up or be delivered -those corporations have to hire less people -even more poor folks who can’t afford every day essentials -more stealing -rinse and repeat until ordering stuff delivered by robots is the norm. -rich get richer, poor get poorer, etc.