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Locking Up Items To Deter Shoplifting Is Pushing Shoppers Online (axios.com) 276
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Axios: Locking up merchandise at drugstores and discount retailers hasn't curbed retail theft but is driving frustrated consumers to shop online more, retail experts tell Axios. Retail crime is eating into retailers' profits and high theft rates are also leading to a rise in store closures. Secured cases can cause sales to drop 15% to 25%, Joe Budano, CEO of anti-theft technology company Indyme, previously told Axios. Barricading everything from razors to laundry detergent has largely backfired and broken shopping in America, Bloomberg reports.
Aisles full of locked plexiglass cases are common at many CVS and Walgreens stores where consumers have to wait for an employee to unlock them. Target, Walmart, Dollar General and other retailers have also pulled back on self-checkout to deter shoplifting. "Locking up products worsens the shopping experience, and it makes things inconvenient and difficult," GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders said, adding it pushes shoppers to other retailers or to move purchases online.
Driving the news: Manmohan Mahajan, Walgreens global chief financial officer, said in a June earnings call that the retailer was experiencing "higher levels of shrink." Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spoke of the "speed and ease" of ordering online versus walking into pharmacies on a call with investors last week. "It's a pretty tough experience with how much is locked behind cabinets, where you have to press a button to get somebody to come out and open the cabinets for you," Jassy said. schwit1 adds: "The American-style retail shopping experience was invented in a high-trust environment. As trust erodes, so does the experience."
Aisles full of locked plexiglass cases are common at many CVS and Walgreens stores where consumers have to wait for an employee to unlock them. Target, Walmart, Dollar General and other retailers have also pulled back on self-checkout to deter shoplifting. "Locking up products worsens the shopping experience, and it makes things inconvenient and difficult," GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders said, adding it pushes shoppers to other retailers or to move purchases online.
Driving the news: Manmohan Mahajan, Walgreens global chief financial officer, said in a June earnings call that the retailer was experiencing "higher levels of shrink." Amazon CEO Andy Jassy spoke of the "speed and ease" of ordering online versus walking into pharmacies on a call with investors last week. "It's a pretty tough experience with how much is locked behind cabinets, where you have to press a button to get somebody to come out and open the cabinets for you," Jassy said. schwit1 adds: "The American-style retail shopping experience was invented in a high-trust environment. As trust erodes, so does the experience."
not to mention (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not to mention (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll have to let my employer know. If they have the time to listen, what with counting all the money coming in and all.
Locking high theft items up is not, in and of itself, a cause of driving customers away. Doing so while having crap customer service is. If you have to wait longer for someone to unlock the display than it takes to look the thing up and order on your phone, yeah, sure, you're going to order online. But if there's an employee nearby who is paying attention, you have what you want now instead of in a couple of days.
Interestingly, that same good customer service is also the most effective deterrent to shoplifting. The last thing thieves want is for an employee to be nearby paying attention. Not because they look suspicious, but because that's the job - take care of customers. All customers.
Of course, that requires hiring enough staff, and wages are the second biggest expense in any retail operation after cost of goods sold. Bean counters see that as a cost to be minimized. Competent retail managers see it as an investment that returns more than it costs.
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I'll have to let my employer know. If they have the time to listen, what with counting all the money coming in and all.
Locking high theft items up is not, in and of itself, a cause of driving customers away. Doing so while having crap customer service is. If you have to wait longer for someone to unlock the display than it takes to look the thing up and order on your phone, yeah, sure, you're going to order online. But if there's an employee nearby who is paying attention, you have what you want now instead of in a couple of days.
And even if you’re not getting the best service in the store and have to wait 5 minutes more, you’re still getting your product immediately, as compared to waiting hours or days for ANY online order.
Perhaps humans complaining about the machines taking their human jobs, shouldn’t be so impatient with demanding machine-like performance and perfection.
Interestingly, that same good customer service is also the most effective deterrent to shoplifting.
Being gainfully employed and punishing crime, is what deters shoplifting. Stop deluding yourself. Even the unemployed judge will steal to put
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It depends on the items too. Locking up 1800 tequila is one thing. Locking uo shampoo, even small packs of tide poss, and sticks of deodorant, well to hell with that store.
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I'll have to let my employer know. If they have the time to listen, what with counting all the money coming in and all.
Locking high theft items up is not, in and of itself, a cause of driving customers away. Doing so while having crap customer service is. If you have to wait longer for someone to unlock the display than it takes to look the thing up and order on your phone, yeah, sure, you're going to order online. But if there's an employee nearby who is paying attention, you have what you want now instead of in a couple of days.
Interestingly, that same good customer service is also the most effective deterrent to shoplifting. The last thing thieves want is for an employee to be nearby paying attention. Not because they look suspicious, but because that's the job - take care of customers. All customers.
Of course, that requires hiring enough staff, and wages are the second biggest expense in any retail operation after cost of goods sold. Bean counters see that as a cost to be minimized. Competent retail managers see it as an investment that returns more than it costs.
Its more of a case of shops not having enough stock for me. Drive all the way to the nearest supermarket (10-15 mins each way assuming there's no traffic stoppages) only to find out 3 out of the 5 items I went for either aren't in stock or aren't even stocked at the shop at all. Especially when it comes to things that are product specific like replacement bags for a vacuum cleaner. Even my shampoo has become easier to order online and cheaper if I buy 3 bottles at a time.
Food is pretty much the only thin
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At my grocery store they have 3 isles full of beer, wine, and liquor. Yet they have some high theft liquor locked in a glass case. This means. you don't get to steal padrone you get to steal 1700. In all serious though, if it's in the glass case I don't buy it because of the delay to get service, so instead I go to the liquor store next door and buy it where it's on a shelf.
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My local Walmart keeps the men's underwear behind lock and key. I'm not going to ask the clerk to unlock the underwear cabinet and won't you please get me this pair and size. I'm just not.
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The Target in DT Minneapolis has quite a few items behind lock and key. I used to shop there from time-to-time for convenience over lunch since it is skyway connected. However, I haven't stepped foot in there in a while due to their increasingly hostile stance toward shoppers. With the constant police presence and foot traffic barriers/routing, I feel like they don't really want me, or anyone, to shop there.
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I still like to buy in store better and encourage the local economy. I didn't read TFA so how can they tell locked plexiglass cases are what is really pushing shoppers to go on-line instead?
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The store locking up their goods will get a good idea of the effect it has, both on theft and on purchases. A 15-25% reduction according to the summary. And I would definitely contribute to that number.
like to windowshop outside and inside too (Score:2)
Those nice locked up products can be window shopped inside the store, avoiding the rain, cold and other elements....
No more window shopping outside in the weather.
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Good point. I don't visit several stores anymore because of this. I'm not like boycotting them because of some principle or something, its just that its not very pleasant to go there anymore and I don't feel like it.
I wonder who has that data that pushy salesmen bothering customers is a great way to drive long-term profits?
Supermarkets which want you to download and use their app to get discounts make me feel like I'm getting ripped off by other secret, weird deals that I don't know about. And its a huge ha
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I actually think that those supermarket apps (YMMV, though) are generally a great idea.
My wife and I can now go to my local supermarket and not interact with anyone else. Whip out my phone, scan the products we buy, see the itemized list and total cost in real time, go to self-checkout, scan the generated barcode, pay and be on our merry way.
Out of over a hundred occurrences, we were stopped a total of two times, both times by newly-hired guards who didn't know us (yet) as regulars.
We occasionally have to i
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Its cool you have a different perspective on those apps. Maybe I should give them a chance. The total cost in real time would be very nice.
I've never been stopped by guards at a supermarket in my entire life though and I'm pretty sure I'd be extremely annoyed by that. If I got searched by guards once every 50 visits for no reason I would never go there again, it would give me a bad feeling about that place - but I have like 10 supermarkets around me so I have a lot of choices.
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Walmart often tries to search me on the way out, I tell them no thank you and keep going. You're not required to comply unless it's somewhere like Sams which I don't go to.
Re: not to mention (Score:2)
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Gas stations with armed guards?!?!
Geez, where the hell do these people live?
I mean unless you are where lawlessness rules like Baltimore, NYC or big cities in CA....you don't generally see everything locked up behind plexiglass, nor armed gua
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Good point. I don't visit several stores anymore because of this. I'm not like boycotting them because of some principle or something, its just that its not very pleasant to go there anymore and I don't feel like it.
I tried to buy local and in person. I really did. But over time, it was just not worth hopping in the car, driving to three different places to find simple things that I once could.
Case in point. The local Lowe's apparently had accountants tell them what to stock, with a focus on profit per item. So finding say, 4-40 screws became impossible. After the initial store stock was gone through, apparently the accountants didn't think that such a low profit item was needed.
Even worse, the local Lowe's had al
Re:not to mention (Score:4)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
oh wait...
It Moves The Problem To Your Home (Score:4, Insightful)
I saw this for... (Score:2)
I saw this for the first time a week ago in a CVS near were a relative lives. Am Item I was going to buy was locked. I decided not to buy it and off another store. I have to wonder how much sales are lost due to this.
And yes, if the item was locked in the other store, I would have used Amazon. I hope CVS sees this post.
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About 30 years ago I went to an Off License (booze shop) in Liverpool, UK (in a particularly crappy bit of town). It was locally known as the Silence of the Lambs because it had a narrow transparent plastic sided walkway down the middle, with a counter at the end. You'd ask for what you wanted, and the staff would walk up and down the shelves to get it for you. They, and their products were always a sheet of plastic away from you.
That's a pretty extreme example, but I guess they'd had so much theft and the
Lock them up. (Score:5, Insightful)
If we lock up shoplifters, there will be less shoplifting.
Re: Lock them up. (Score:2)
I thought "tough on crime" wins votes in America. Would love to know why the politicians won't change the laws and policies to crackdown on shoplifters...
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The laws don't need to change to lock up shoplifters. Just the enforcement policy. But are you really sure it's a good idea? Prison is often a school in advanced criminality.
That *something* should be done is fairly clear, but just what I find much less certain.
Re: Lock them up. (Score:5, Interesting)
In many jurisdictions, "prison" is somewhere people get put for more than a year, with "jail" used for less than that.
Shoplifting isn't normally a crime that gets prison time. In fact, it rarely gets even jail time nowadays. In many cities, they won't even arrest you; a ticket is the most you get.
The result? In many of those cities, shoplifting has become a group activity. A group of people will simply walk into a store, load up shopping carts, and push them out to their cars, with little fear of being stopped. Milwaukee news reports on them regularly, sometimes with video.
So people move to having their stuff shipped from online sellers... and stolen off their porches.
Unless the thief happens to trip and break a leg while doing it, they won't be there when people get home. If they DO, they'll sue for injury.
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In certain states, the criminals put in their elected representatives. "tough on crime" doesn't play there.
How's that working out for you, Cali? How's that working for you, NYC?
Yeah, that's what I figured.
See, what happens is this -- when the crime's done removing all the decent people and good businesses, it falls to ruin. Then, when someone else comes in and does get "tough on crime" and clean up the place, new people and new businesses move in. And then, in a rising choir, the locals yell "GENTRIFICA
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Ok so if employee theft is the real problem, why aren't stores doing more about it? (at the very least, grabbing evidence of said thiefts and then firing the employees who are doing the stealing)
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Start shooting the thieves and there will be even fewer left.
Pay no attention to the large uptick in murdered shopkeepers though.
Re:Lock them up. (Score:4, Interesting)
Some idiots actually seem to take offence at this notion, e.g. the "flamebait" mod on my comment.
They would rather pay someone's free bed and board in prison than try to ensure they become productive members of society.
Throw in a bit of racism for good measure.
It's like they have been conditions to screw themselves while enriching the prison-industrial complex, who take the money right out of their pockets.
They had ONE advantage (Score:4, Insightful)
Brick and mortar had two significant advantages over online. You could easily hold the product in your hands to make your decision, and you could just grab it and head directly to checkout to have it today.
The same places that lock everything up are the ones that never have adequate staff. You're lucky if you don't find the checkout uninhabited, much less getting someone with the right key to show up any time soon to unlock the case.
If you're not going to get a good look at it anyway and can't just grab and go, might as well get it cheaper online and you don't have to go beyond your front door. When you shop online, nobody cares if you're in your underwear.
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Sears Roebuck was a century before their time. Just deliver everything, that's where we are going because civilized society can't get our criminal punishment in order. Tolerance only works the first time, after that you become a doormat (-- society is here).
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Brick and mortar had two significant advantages over online. You could easily hold the product in your hands to make your decision, and you could just grab it and head directly to checkout to have it today.
The same places that lock everything up are the ones that never have adequate staff. You're lucky if you don't find the checkout uninhabited, much less getting someone with the right key to show up any time soon to unlock the case.
If you're not going to get a good look at it anyway and can't just grab and go, might as well get it cheaper online and you don't have to go beyond your front door. When you shop online, nobody cares if you're in your underwear.
Went to Home Depot to buy a power tool. The poser tools were locked up so looked for someone to open the case but there was no one around so went home and bought it at Amazon.
False (Score:2)
Retail crime and high theft rates are not what is eating into their profits. The companies are literally eating too much of its own profits by paying all their useless executives way more money than they have ever deserved, while at the same time offering literally zero upsides to go into their stores. These companies quite literally just keep making the worst possible decisions because none of them know anything about how to actually run a real business.
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Well, technically WE'RE paying their executives by paying exorbitant prices.
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Well, those who are paying. Steal everything from these places. They don't deserve to exist and function to begin with.
There are three things to watch out for at a retai (Score:2)
Re: There are three things to watch out for at a r (Score:2)
So they've started locking up the wire at Lowe's (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just the 10/3 and up but even the 18/5 thermostat wire that sells for like $20 per spool.
Now if only the people that run this great and glorious people's republic of Massachusetts were boasting about locking up the crooks and petty thugs instead of preening about lowering the prison population and reimagining criminal justice, all while sinking a billion a year on $200/night hotel rooms for all the illegals just showing up...
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Locking stuff up is probably more to do with reducing staff than a rise in theft. Cheaper to install a lock than to employ someone to monitor CCTV.
Not Shoplifters, Look what is locked up (Score:3)
Right! South Park , the characters on missing underpants discover a society of tiny, magical gnomes who are stealing their undergarments for a supposed profit. When asked about their plan, the gnomes describe their method as,
Step 1: Collect underpants.
Step 2.
Step 3: Profit.
The gnomes are branching out to other products!
The store owners are simply not imaginative enough to make their own profit plan.
Walmart! (Score:2)
The local Walmarts here have locked up a lot of their items, that requires an employee to open the cases - even things like cheap hand lotion and men's underwear! (not ladies underwear? Huh.) And many more products are behind these flip covers, mainly intended to collect fingerprints, that scream "THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT WALMART, BITCHES! BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP" when you lift them.
The entire thing is really damn insulting. And for some kinds of people that is simply a no go. Personally, I would smash one of th
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Have you been shopping? The shops worry about your anus when you leave, not when you enter.
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As for locking everything up, no one wants to visit a prison, why would I shop in one?
Anyone remember Best or Service Merchandise? They used the catalog display model. The way it works is the public area is just models on display and the rest of the store is a warehouse. You see the product but can't just walk out with anything. You
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In a traditional store you told the shopkeeper what you wanted and he gathered it or you.
Society being honest enough for the way we now do it is a fairly new thing, and it looks like it wont last.
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I'd rather we nuke the shoplifters. Stop tolerating it. It's no longer an individual that is the problem, it is now an organized crime; we should start treating it as such.
As for locking everything up, no one wants to visit a prison, why would I shop in one?
You want to make the whole world a prison, instead of a school. Why should I buy your ideas?
Education (Score:2)
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That's why the whole system is broken, of course. You can't operate education on a capitalist basis. It will never work like x dollars in, y dollars out, and even if it did it's not the same people paying as benefiting.
Depends on where the store is (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience whether or not some items are locked down depends a lot on the neighborhood the store is situated within. I generally consider shelves with locked items a strong signal to end my shopping experience and drive away before real trouble starts. That sort of response would certainly reduce sales.
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While there are bad neighborhoods for sure, I suspect you will find that prior to recently, shoplifters were as much of a problem in lilly-white upper-tier suburbia as anywhere else.
Things are different today than they were 20 years ago.
How do you suppose these "flash lootings" are organized? They didnt all meet up in someone's living room and discuss their evil 30 man plot. This i
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Sure maybe, I've not been in a CVS for a long time but I was in a RiteAid last year as well as a Walgreens, and their stuff wasn't locked up. It was in a small peaceful sleepy town where I own a house. I went to a few of those sorta places in LA a few times, and immediately walked out and got out of the area.
Some places are still nice. Stay in those places and try to make sure the factors that made LA a cesspool stay in LA.
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You live in constant fear, don't you?
Punching out Pubic Lice (Score:5, Insightful)
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The end result may be the end of these chains, large ones especially. Their stores are a more attractive target for organized looting because of how uniform and predictable they are, while their size makes good solutions highly cost-inefficient and as well as a poor experience.
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Very few employees is part of the problem. (Score:2)
Employees cost a lot of money, but now you're forcing customers to bother those very few employees you still have left.
If you want to post a person there all the time... I'm sure it'll lower shrink too, even without the security cases.
If you won't... then people won't buy as often from you. Seems you need to provide something to customers... sorry, no more free rides (simply stock a shelf and money rolls in).
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This type of defense from shoplifting is best done differently. If an employee needs to fetch most of my items, then thats a service provided by an employee, and they are doing that service very wrong. At the very least its terrible presentation of that service.. where the customer has to both find the item and then find an employee that will provide the necessary service, possibly repeatedly.
In th
Online order and then pick up (Score:2)
CVS? (Score:2)
Whats actually new here besides who is affected by these policies? I dont imagine men were stealing razors.
I think women were stealing those mens razors because the womens selection sucks and soccer moms have a lot of mid-day free time on their hands.
Meanwhile a man will use a mens 3 blade disposable for 2 months because they are that good.
I could imagine they were experiencing double digit shrinkage on such products wi
I got an idea for an invention (Score:2)
"Vending Machine". If you lock it up, fine, but don't make me wait 15 minutes for a human to unlock it, automate fetching and paying.
Some people are just awful (Score:2)
We both had to agree that some people are just awful.
shoplifting? (Score:2)
You get what you vote for (Score:2, Troll)
What, did you think they were joking? They said that they thought shoplifters were justified, oppressed, etc.and they meant it.
So we let shoplifters run wild, and then stores lock stuff up ... before they simply close. Leaving you with utterly predictable (and predicted) "food deserts", "pharmacy deserts", etc.
What did you think was going to happen?
Or... (Score:2)
You know, we could just arrest and punish criminals?
We used to do that, when we were a high trust society.
How we got here (Score:4, Informative)
Fundamentally retails forgot how we got to where we are and why. They reacted to the problem of increased shoplifting neglecting to consider why they oppertunity exists in the first place.
In the early 19th century you would have gone into the mercantile. Almost everything would have been behind the counter. You might have even handed a shopping list to the clerk and he would have gone and pulled it all from inventory, rung you up and handed you the goods. In other cases like for hardware you'd have asked, "what have got in the way of door hinges" and he would have flipped his inventory book open to the hardware section, it would have had descriptions and maybe even drawings and he would have spun it around for you to look. Then you'd pick something and he'd either go in the back and find it or, add it to the order list..
Meanwhile, everyone else was waiting inline to be helped.. Self service retail was invented so you could help yourself, go thru the inventory on your own, compare items physical place the items not selected back on the self etc, all while others did the same thing. It was supposed to be efficent. It was supposed to make it easier for the shopper unsure of exactly what they wanted to see the range of available things in the category, once you move it all behind the glass we back to the catalog but with more walking and pointing...
The drug store in particular. I don't even know what the hell SuperClearHDX is even supposed to treat! Seeing the front of the box does me no good. I need to be able to turn them over, look at the active ingredient, look that symptoms listed, see things like how often I can reapply in 24 hours. If I can't do that quickly, I might as well scroll thru stuff on web page, or look book at the storefront if its about getting something right now.
Why on earth would I want to wonder around a 2k sq foot store, wondering if eyecare products or east or west of skincare or north or south of haircare only so I can see only the front of the boxes, have to pull out my phone to look the product details up online, and then search the store for an employee with keys who I must lead back to the item I selected and get them carry it up to the register...
Its a process that reeks of forgetting the original problem..
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Research indicates that employee theft and external theft are about equal. https://www.retaildive.com/new... [retaildive.com] It doesn't seem that "almost all" fits here.
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When employee theft occurs at warehouse stores, it's not employees carrying stuff out the front past security. It's employees carrying stuff out the back where there is no security.
That said, Costco does have a lower shrink rate than other chains. https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com].
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But that is not going to apply to every single retailer, every single store, in every single location. Walgreens and CVS are not locking things down in every neighborhood, just certain ones where the theft is significant and in most cases done openly and brazenly.
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I didn't suggest that the statistics apply evenly to every single store. What would make you think that's what I said?
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It can be hard to tell the difference, but yeah, that seems about right. And most external theft, dollar wise, is professionals who are not at all deterred by locked cabinets.
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Every data set is flawed. That in no way makes your opinion--backed by no data at all--superior to the "flawed" data set.
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Dishonest people think they are just unusually honest about their dishonesty, like racists think they are just unusually honest of their prejudices. Their self-image depends on avoiding the constant reminders of their sub-normalcy and it warps their ability to understand basic statistics and events.
But a high trust society depends on everyone. If you lie about high theft [cnbc.com] to cover up for poor management, that erodes social trust. If you steal people's wages [cbsnews.com], that erodes social trust. If you have a buzzer
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Dishonest people think they are just unusually honest about their dishonesty, like racists think they are just unusually honest of their prejudices.
Neither is entirely wrong. Most people are pretty dishonest and biased. If you've never had people pretend to be your friends while lying about you behind your back, then you're either a small child or you've lived a very sheltered life. And if you've never had people prejudiced against you because of something you can't control, you've probably never left a five-mile radius around your hometown, if that.
I'm not saying that everyone is biased or dishonest, of course, just that both of those behaviors are
Re: Almost all is employee theft. (Score:2)
I agree to all of that, especially the comment about people. What really sets me off is all the bad and stupid liars.
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District managers come around on a weekly to monthly basis and barrage the staff wit
Re: Almost all is employee theft. (Score:2)
What a nice example of a totally stupid AdHominem pseudo "argument"!
Re:Almost all is employee theft. (Score:4, Informative)
And in the US larceny has been steadily dropping for decades. You can always tell if someone is an uninformed moron who watches too much cable news when they think there's a shoplifting epidemic.
Why are they locking up items in stores if there's half as much actual theft as there was 30 years ago? I have no idea. Managers do a lot of stupid stuff.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
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Possibly the margin of profit has gotten thinner. I don't know. I have known places where EVERYTHING was behind the counter, and the cashier was behind a sheet of plexiglass (or at least something hard and transparent). For some reason I didn't shop there.
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Possibly the margin of profit has gotten thinner. I don't know. I have known places where EVERYTHING was behind the counter, and the cashier was behind a sheet of plexiglass (or at least something hard and transparent). For some reason I didn't shop there.
This is what a lot of convenience stores are like in developing countries, Filipino sari-sari stores, Dominican Colmados. Less plexiglass and more just a hole in the wall with a window with heavy steel bars on it. You tell the shopkeeper what you want, they go and get it for you. Difficult if you're not fluent in the local language (or like me, have no idea what you want).
Usually its in countries (and neighbourhoods) where if things turn violent, the situation becomes deadly as there are enough guns and
Forced 'improvement' over time... (Score:2)
When 'where we are at' is never good enough, you start doing stupid things to improve what doesn't really matter.
Gotta love capitalism's false assumption, right? Permanent growth... forever! Or death...
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This is probably it.
At the costco I shop at they have 2 people checking your card at the entrance + 3 people checking your receipts at the exit + at least 1 security guard. If they're all working at local minimum wage that's at least $96 an hour they're spending. Not to mention most of the expensive stuff is locked behind glass or too big to hide. I live in a suburban sprawl with a lower than average crime rate.
I wonder if they would really lose $96 an hour in thefts if they didn't have those people? Maybe
It's because they're hoping to get taxpayers (Score:2)
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Probably because of stuff like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think its the brazen flashmob thefts they watch videos of. Or employees describing people walking out the stores with shopping carts full of shit and nobody stopping them. That shit didnt happen in the 80s. If you shoplifted in the 80s they would follow you outside the mall, bodyslam you into the concrete sidewalk, grind your face a bit into the pavement ‘by accident’, and slap handcuffs on you. Somewhere around the time Lndsey Lohan got caught and claimed she was practicing for a role, came t
Re: (Score:2)
The reason is lies and statistics, but I repeat myself.
Re: Almost all is employee theft. (Score:3)
Why are all these shops investing all that money to lock items up then?
And why are many shops closing then from getting broad day light stolen from?
Re: Almost all is employee theft. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's funny. We don't have anything locked up behind glass around here. What's the difference?
Re: (Score:3)
Going to shops in the UK is an awful experience.
Parking is expensive and limited, and public transport is crap.
The shops have very little stock or variety. It's rare to come away with everything you want, and if you do you will probably pay a premium for it.
Every town is exactly the same. Same chain stores, no variety or reason to go there over anywhere else. And usually filthy.
The high street is dying because it's crap. Shops have become a showroom for Amazon, which is a showroom for eBay, which is a showr
Re: (Score:2)
Retail business people are telling lies, you say?
I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!!!