In the Bay Area, I saw stores with gates and turnstiles which are presumably intended to make running out of the store harder, especially for someone holding a lot of stuff. I wonder if they work any better.

One store I went to there even had a guy letting people in one by one after looking them over, like a bouncer.

This logic frustrates me:

these claims were unfounded, with a mere 23 shoplifting incidents occurring between 2018 and 2021, according to police records

That's less than one shoplifter a month, which is obviously not an accurate count.

The police barely even respond to shootings. Are they going to do anything if you call them and report someone stealing a box of shaving supplies? Why bother even trying to report that?

If it's locked up, I won't buy it. I don't have time for that nonsense and large companies only understand money (or a lack of) before they will make a change.

Walgreens is God awful, 25 min In line for a prescription yesterday and everything is locked up.

Walgreens is why I joined Dollar shave club years ago. Nothing like needing to flag down an employee to fetch another employee who can unlock the razorblades.

Putting the actual issue aside for a moment, the lock pictured is pretty stupid. It would be so easy to simply unscrew the screws.

Yeah turns out people don’t like:

1. Being treated like criminals
2. Having their time wasted

Walgreens’ inventory shrinkage is not my problem. Locking everything up rather than paying loss prevention staff is just going to piss everyone off.

It's really simple: either you accept shrink, or you hire enough people with keys to handle your anti-theft shit.

I don't go to target anymore, CVS, or Walgreens if it's at all avoidable because it's going to take an hour to get in, buy a few things, and leave.

They want to lock shit up, but then only have one employee covering the whole damn store that can unlock shit, meaning if you want some laundry detergent, it's going to take you half an hour.

Of course, the local grocery stores, Walmart, Amazon, and various other retailers don't lock shit up, so yeah, I just go there and don't have to deal with stupid bullshit pushed by morons who haven't gone shopping in one of the stores they run.

The only thing worse than shaming your customer is inconveniencing them.