A few minutes of research showed the top 5 most common items for theft:
~designer clothing. This does not surprise me. Clothes can be easy to steal.
~laundry detergent. Ok, I guess even thieves need to wash their stolen designer clothing, right?
~designer handbags.
~deodorant. Really? I appreciate the usage of deodorant, but I don't see it as busting my bank account.
~laptops and tablets. How in the world do you walk out of the store with a laptop? How does this happen? I guess I don't get it at all.
The list goes on and on. You can go here if you are curious....
Anyway, being totally clueless to the stats, I was really shocked to see it. If I want a gallon of Tide, how does having it behind a locked door prevent me from stealing it, once I've bothered an employee to open it and give it to me?
I get why some people steal. Some go for the thrill, some resell the items to make money, some just don't have any money. Desperate people do desperate things.
I also saw a photo of a grocery store in San Francisco with those same locked cabinets....I feel sorry for brick and mortar shops, who are trying their best to compete with Amazon and other online retailers, and now have to shell out money for these cabinets to try to cut down on theft.
I know things are bad, but wow, I had no idea.
Love, 365
Many store chains are closing their stores in cities that are shop lifting meccas, which are in blue states like the one I live in. How sad, and employees lose their jobs and local people lose choice for shopping.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad. I was looking into it a bit more, and San Francisco is apparently "the shoplifting capital" of the US, partly due to their governor basically decriminalizing thefts worth less than $950....now a misdemeanor. I can see why stores are closing up, how can they stay in business?
DeleteI remember reading during the start of the pandemic stores had to do this (locking things up) but can't remember why, lol :) I know baby formula is now locked up whereas a few short years ago when buying it for grandson, I just could get it off the shelf.
ReplyDeletebetty
The locked cabinets in Target are new here in Albuquerque, I was shocked to see them. One Target had an obvious security presence in front of the store as well. My guess is we'll start seeing more and more of this type of anti-theft measures.
DeleteThose seem very odd things to have to lock up. An interesting post. Makes me even more glad I live far from the madding crowd. I would like to be able to shop at Target though
ReplyDeleteTarget is my Walmart. For many reasons, I just can’t do Walmart, although there is a nice Walmart grocery not far from me. I just have a thing, you know?
DeleteIt would be nice to live in a small town, but Romeo would hate it.
I live in northern California - certain things are locked up due to the homeless vagrants coming in and stealing supplies like deodorant, razor blades etc. It's a really big hassle especially when the department store doesn't have enough workforce to open up the locked cages - so you wait and wait and wait till you finally just leave.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine told me that she witnessed a guy with a full cart of groceries, simply walk out of the store with it all. No one went after him, although I'm figuring the store manager called police. It's really crazy.
DeleteThose locked cabinets are one of the reasons I end up buying from Amazon. Example... on a Friday afternoon before LEGO camp starting on Monday I realized I was going to need some batteries. (If I buy them, I get reimbursed, just so you know) and we were in sprawlmart, so I asked a helpful store person where to find them. She said, "Oh they're in a locked cabinet over there, I can call someone to come get them for you if you have a few minutes."
ReplyDeleteWell, no. I don't want to stand there and wait, I want to go home, so I said no thanks.
Came home and ordered what I needed from Amazon and they were here the next morning before 9.
Exactly my point, that I am sympathetic to brick and mortar stores. Romeo loves Amazon, and says he finds things he needs faster, cheaper and he doesn't have to deal with people.
DeleteIn Walmart in my little town in NC, the face cream is all behind locked doors. I realize that some of those creams sell for $25+. The brand I usually purchase used to be $4, then $5 and the other day it was $8. The allergy medications are behind glass but not locked (yet). When I purchased Mucinex recently, person monitoring the self-checkouts had to approve my purchase. It's all so strange.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly is. Those cabinets at Target were recently placed, and although I don't think it will last long, it'll be awhile. I don't know what else they could do though. They would need tons of employees to keep an eye on suspicious shoppers!
DeleteI've seen razors and other assorted things for personal use all under lock and key for years at target, walgreens etc. Razor blades are very expensive and easy to steal I would assume. Vagrants? Hardly. When I worked in a pharmacy those that stole were those who could afford it but didn't want to pay that price.
ReplyDeleteRight. When I was a teenager, my friend asked me to put a pair of earrings in my purse. I asked her "don't you have money"? She said no, but I still said, no, I'm not doing that ~ those sales ladies are watching us. We finally leave, and are brought back into the store with security. She is caught with the earrings, and when they checked her wallet, she did have enough for them. I was pretty pissed. ......... My friends mother called me a few days later and said I needed to come clean. Right.....
DeleteAs you would expect, this article immediately brought out the right wingers lying about California, and San Francisco in particular. In fact, here are the first 13 cities on the list:
ReplyDeleteGreat Falls, MT 3,335 theft cases per 100,000 residents
Fairbanks, AK 2,961.5
Salt Lake City, UT 2,842.9
Memphis, TN-MS-AR 2,693.4
Shreveport-Bossier City, LA 2,681.3
Alexandria, LA 2,647
Joplin, MO 2,646.4
Spokane-Spokane Valley, WA 2,594.6
Monroe, LA 2,536.2
Florence, SC 2,524.5
Anchorage, AK 2,523.4
Lubbock, TX 2,487.1
Billings, MT 2,456
As far as I can tell, virtually all in red states. San Francisco was actually no. 45 on the list.