comment: >
  
  So, they basically decided hiring security guards was too expensive to protect their staff and now they're going to leave them high and dry.
  In case anybody doesn't understand how to read between the lines.
context: I was in a Walgreens in Albuquerque recently and every single thing in the store was locked up behind plexiglass. I had to get an employee to tour the store with me to get what I wanted.
  Edit:  here's a pic I took of one of the rows. They were all like this. >
  
  Honestly i would have just walked out >
  
  I recently went to Home Depot for jigsaw blades while in the middle of a project and I had to wait a long time to get someone to open the case, then they took the blades up to the cashier. By the time I made it through the long line, they’d lost the blades and it took them another 10 minutes to find them. If I hadn’t needed the blades that day, I definitely would have walked out. I’m ordering blades early online going forward. I hate it, but I can’t stand them pulling this shit while also being understaffed. >
  
  I just get home depot to deliver now, I guess its a bit pricier but the hassle of dealing with that place can be just more than whats worth it for a weekend day. >
  
  I'd just recommend a different hardware store if you could, Ace isn't bad and I think country wide, but Menard's was amazing for my bathroom renovation recently >
  
  I hate the Ace by my house because a bunch of Old Crazy MAGA owns it. >
  
  We'll, the guy who owns Home Depot is a right wing, long time Republican party donor. 
  That said, he claims to feel "betrayed" after Jan 6, and urged people to support Biden, but I don't think that will continue in 2024. >
  
  Home Depot is publicly traded and appears to be mostly owned by institutional funds, though that can get murky.
  You're referring to the cofounder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus. And yeah...he's a nutter. >
  
  No, Ken Langone as well >
  
  I said fuck it and started buying my condoms online after every single place I went to had them locked behind glass and had 1 person working. 
  I assume I'm not alone with the mounds of products locked up in stores. It may deter theft but it also deters sales. >
  
  Shoplifting deterrents are also shopping deterrents. >
  
  Yep.  I refuse to ask for a product to be unlocked.  I'll go home and buy it on Amazon instead. >
  
  What?  You're not interested in having everything you've bought compared to the receipt, so they can verify, every. single. time. that you aren't a thief, even though they fucking watched their fellow emp ring up every fucking item?
  Talk about self-entitled shoppers.. sheesh. >
  
  I did 2 transactions at Walmart the other day:  4 items and 12 items.  Had 3 bags with 16 items in my cart.  Showed the greeter my receipt listing 4 items, he checked it, said have a nice day. >
  
  Tbf, if you worked at Walmart loss prevention, would you GAF about doing a thorough job? >
  
  Nope, my point was that I've never seen Walmart ones check thoroughly, only a few people at sometimes Costco do. >
  
  Costco and Sam's club both count items ime. But Walmart employees generally never give a real shit about it. >
  
  From the few times I've been in either they have that nifty hand scanner.
  Hit the receipt and a handful of random items in your cart and if the scanner doesn't go off, out the door. 
  Smart and interestingly fast way of doing it. >
  
  No kidding. I’ve entirely stopped shopping at CVS bc I don’t feel like having to wait 10 minutes for someone to give me a random brand of tampons from the Period Safe. >
  
  We just get all our basic pharmacy stuff from the grocery store now. I still do my prescriptions at CVS but thats literally it. >
  
  I guess they've discovered that locking up toothpaste deters people from buying it.
  Meanwhile, they scan the local paper price as a dollar more than the price printed on it . . . >
  
  In Quebec that means you get it free. If they scan in an item (that is under 10$) and the price if not the same as the advertised price, they have to give it to you free. If you are buying more then one of that item then only the first is free. The rest need to sold at listed price. 
  Got a couple free cakes this way. >
  
  Walgreens used to be a great company that treated employees well. Once the last executive named Walgreens left, it was all downhill.  Shrinking reimbursements from insurance led them to diversify.  But they’ve taken a shotgun approach and are grasping at straws trying to see what works.
  First it was Theranos, which was almost 20 years ago so it can’t be blamed completely on that.
  They tried to buy an insurance company like cvs and bailed.
  They bought AmerisourceBergen.
  They tried to become a mini Ulta, didn’t work.
  Now they’ve partnered with Labcorp, Village Medical, etc.
  But most importantly, they’ve cut staffing so much that employees cannot do the impossible that they want and it’s a miserable place to work having to deal with all the unhappy customers.
  They froze raises for years and even cut salaries for some.  They flex hours so you may be full time in the winter and barely work one day a week in the summer when they cut hours.  They lost employees who had been there for decades and they can’t compete for good employees on the shit salaries they were offering.
  Source: I worked for them for 16 years >
  
  In the PNW they bought out the pharmacies from BiMart and bungled that too.  They really feel like they're failing pretty hard tbh. >
  
  I just don’t shop at Walgreens any more. I’ll be damned if I wait twenty minutes just to get some batteries and THEN still have to wait in line for the single, bitter cashier. I can just hit Dollar General and have THEIR bitter, burnt-out cashier get me out of there in ten minutes instead. >
  
  Dollar general coming hard with the grocery and fresh veggies in their new stores here in the Carolinas >
  
  Dollar General just sprouted like mushrooms all over the damn place.
  Gotta say though, they are definitely filling a food desert niche. >
  
  People don't realize how many Dollar Generals exist, but there's more Dollar Generals than there are McDonald's or Starbucks. >
  
  That’s because McDonalds and especially Starbucks want high traffic hi volume locations. At least in rural areas dollar general aimed for convince. There is a lot of small towns that can support a single convenience level store that could never support a full grocer or restaurant and the thread hold for a coffee shop is even higher. >
  
  Dollar generals are just smaller Walmarts. They kill every other store around them. They are an invasive species. >
  
  The small farming community I was a kid in recently had one built, that's the only store there besides the post office and bank now. Before that it was a 20 mile trip either way to a Walmart or grocery store. >
  
  Can anyone please explain it to me why pharmacies in the US as such as this have so much of the cheap shit (like deodorant) on lockdown? I can get most everything at a grocery store without feeling like a teenager. Genuinely curious >
  
  Poverty. People may have easier access to pharmacies and giant stores like Walmart than to grocery stores, and stealing small necessities is easy.
  What I don't get is why the laundry detergent at all the stores in my area is locked up now. Why are these bulky containers such a hot item now? >
  
  I used to work at a Grocery store back in high school about 10 years ago.
  Believe it or not, Tide detergent (and specifically Tide), was always a hot item for thieves. They would often try to sneak out a cartload of the stuff. 
  From what I was told, Tide has a healthy resale market in poorer neighborhoods. >
  
  Why Tide? What sets it apart from the rest? >
  
  You know, I asked that same exact question and never really got a satisfactory answer. The answers I did get were that Tide is a traditionally popular name brand detergent that many households have used for many years, so it's hotly preferred. Apparently, even poorer folks buying stolen detergent from the back of some dude's van still have brand preferences and won't take the generic stuff or brands viewed as lesser. 
  I don't quite understand it, because in my house we've used Gain for years, and I've used other stuff in a pinch. I don't really notice any major difference in most modern detergents. >
  
  Walgreens stores look like they are always in a state of closing down.  Absolutely zero employees on the floor, bare shelves everywhere, and terrible selection.  Walgreens runs their business like shit and blames it on theft, when the real answer is they aren't running a functioning business with enough employees. >
  
  Spot on. We have one in my small town and it is literally on permanent gridlock. The pharmacy is a war zone. Always expect 20-30 minutes to get out of there. We have banned them as a family. Walgreens is dead to us. >
  
  Not to mention, Walgreens generic brand shit is the cheapest, shittiest, version of Alibaba products you can find. Their nail clippers from Walgreen's own, generic, brand are basically stamped metal that have super sharp edges along the effort point that hurt your thumb to press down on because the edges are so sharp. Like they don't sand or polish the edges at all. Just raw cut, assembled, sold. >
  
  perhaps if they ever had more than one employee in the store at a time it'd deter theft. one person is left to do price changes, stocking, facing, cashiering, signage and planos... then corporates like "why didn't you catch the guy 6 aisles over just walking out with 45 bags on candy?" >
  
  I’m a manager a health and beauty store, that’s owned by Bed Bath. When we get robbed for stuff the #1 thing upper management always says if why weren’t you watching them. I always say gee it’s hard when it’s 1 cashier that has to stay up front and me on the floor that’s on the other side of the store helping a customer to watch out for these things. >
  
  And what do you even do when you watch them and see them stealing stuff? >
  
  They think you greeting them and being in the area is some how going to deter them from stealing. That happens about 0.01% of the time. The rest of the time they will just walk around and when they see you helping a customer just steal then. >
  
  It works on teens stealing for a thrill.  It doesn't work at ALL on the basically professional thieves.  People on an almost daily basis come into my store with like a backpack or trashbag, fill it up, and just walk out the door because they know there's nothing we can do to stop them.  People take whole carts out the door too. >
  
  Ha ha according to the article, almost all their losses were due to losing their case about their promotional role in the opioid crisis they colluded in causing. >
  
  Wait they had a promotion on opioids? Did I miss those coupons? >
  
  Did you check the back of the recipt? >
  
  Which mile was it on? >
  
  Mile marker 147. >
  
  Fuck Walgreens. I was a pharmacy tech with them for years. They treat their employees like shit and are definitely (at least partially) responsible for the opioid crisis. 
  There was a group of doctor’s selling oxycodone scripts and we KNEW they were illegally being written and Walgreens told us to just keep filling them. This went on for nearly a year until the doctors were finally arrested by the DEA. Absolutely ridiculous. >
  
  This is heartbreaking to hear as someone with a severe disease that leaves me unable to function because of the pain. >
  
  Same, I’m in chronic pain and have been suffering horribly for over 10 years and these doctors and resulting drug addiction has stopped many doctors from treating people with chronic pain >
  
  The sad part is, it is incredibly easy to tell the people who actually need the medication vs those who are addicts.  
  I had a patient who got oxy ER and IR for pain management as part of a woker's comp claim and the billing had to be done in a specific way.  They were the most patient people as I spent hours initially figuring out how to get it all billed and then dealing with the multi day affair to get it billed each month.  Super nice lady, I kind of miss her.
  meanwhile, your addicts want it 8 days early and will scream because they think it will get them what they want.  It wont. >
  
  I try to be patient and kind. Even tho some days it’s all I can do to make it to the pharmacy and wait very long. I appreciate how hard everyone at my pharmacy works. They put up with a lot as it’s located in a tourist area. Yikes that a whole other story. I’ve had awesome pharmacists and techs and I try to take them little gifts at Christmas because I, too have caused them extra work I’m sure. 
  No excuse for all that crazy behavior. Everyone is on a monthly schedule and if you’ve worked with your pharmacy they know when to expect you and no reason for anyone asking for anything early. That is very Sus I’d say!  
  Up until recently, the last year, most people wouldn’t know about my disease just from looking at me. So I always worried some people might question why. Except of course I have always been on other disease modifying drugs, etc. 
  Anyway thank you to all who work in pharmacy’s. It’s a tough gig. But you are appreciated!! Even on the days we may not feel like smiling much. ❤️ >
  
  Worked for Walgreens as a manager for years and let me tell you the shop lifting is unreal and the top level is so horrible at coming up with ideas on how to stop it. Never hire more people or kick out the problems they just wanted you to keep locking stuff up. And then blame you for continuing loses. Glad I’m not there anymore. >
  
  If your store has stuff locked behind glass. I’ll just go elsewhere. >
  
  I’ll accept it for fine jewelry. I won’t accept it for shavers, pads, and fucking detergent >
  
  I saw chapstick behind a hanger lock the other day.
  Fucking chapstick. >
  
  We have a busy Walgreens near us and they don’t have enough staff for the constant “ding dong song” assistance needed in the blah blah department since Everything is behind glass.  Suck a dick corporate. >
  
  Well last night as I was checking out some police came into a Walgreens to fill out a report on some thefts of I think shampoo bottles >
  
  The squeaky clean bandit strikes again >
  
  They can't keep getting away with this! >
  
  Yeah. 
  Because they
  1) refused to discuss their horrible investment into theranos. 
  2) over saturating the market with too many stores. >
  
  And the actual reason: 
  They lost millions in a court case that argued that they were partially responsible for the opioid crisis because they had opioid BOGO 50% deals with 7 day timers on them. Scum bag company >
  
  
  because they had opioid BOGO 50% deals with 7 day timers on them.
  
  I saw this higher up in the thread and thought it was a joke! How does that even work? Weren't they a prescription? >
  
  "Talk to your doctor about Flunestra today!"
  Just because something requires a prescription doesn't mean we, as a society, aren't okay with companies trying to convince individuals to buy more of it as often as possible. >
  
  I stopped using Walgreens after the second story of clerks there being allowed to decide if their religious beliefs allowed them to refuse to sell certain pregnancy preventatives to women. >
  
  i am expecting that at some point you will be required to show ID and be photographed to gain admittance to stores. if you go in atypical fashion, admittance and exit may not be possible. >
  
  I think that’s now facial recognition? Hello xyz I notice you bought X last time, would you like y this time? >
  
  after i went and the toothpaste was locked up, never going there again lol >
  
  Yeah, I used to buy a Lego set from the store (not Walmart, but another) every other trip.
  Then they started locking them behind glass, having to page an employee, wait around a few minutes, they'd grudgingly open it up while giving me a suspicious look. Often they'd insist on walking it with me to the counter. 
  Terrible experience overall, so I just stopped buying them. Now they have well-protected inventory that just sits there stagnating. >
  
  I had this experience buying spray paint at Hobby lobby.  Not just any employee can unlock it apparently.  I had to wait for one very specific guy who took so long I waited 15 minutes and I asked two other employees where he was and thought he’d forgotten me before he finally appeared. Then he wanted to walk it to the register with me, but I still had other stuff to get.  He said he’d leave it for me up there. He didn’t.  I had to then wait for him to be paged to the register while 10 angry people waited behind me. We are living in a clown world. How many people really huff it right there in the store??  It can’t possibly be so many that this is their policy but maybe I’m sheltered. >
  
  Probably not huffing it in store but once the employee leaves the items sight they think you'll just put it in a bag or down your pants or something. >
  
  I know a guy that got fired from Walgreens for opening and eating a bag of chips while he waited in line to pay for it because “theft.” >
  
  I got written up by Walgreens for this. And they fucking coerced me into admitting it, too. I'll never forgive them. >
  
  Maybe if they had more than two people working in the store theft would be less of a problem. >
  
  I'm honestly so tired of every time I leave my house dealing with business with less than a skeleton crew. I go to the grocery story, half the produce is rotting, a lot of shelves are empty, I wait in line wrapped around the corner because there's only two people running check out. I go to a restaurant for take out and my food isn't ready half an hour past the pick up time, it's wrong, I wait an hour to get it fixed. (I literally spent an entire Saturday dealing with an IHOP to give me half the food I payed for). I go to a walgreen or something to grab a quick item I couldn't get at the grocery store and I'm running around trying to find anyone to help me.
  I'm exhausted all the fucking time with this shit. >
  
  The investment class is getting very nervous that the Proles are getting uppity. What with their never ending need for health care and living wages and all. Every time that seems to happen they crash the economy into the ground and buy up the pieces for pennies on the dollar. It seems to be working because the standard of living for the middle and lower classes keeps getting lower and the rich keep getting richer. Same as it ever was. >
  
  Only really a couple options to fix that kind of behavior. >
  
  Zing, swing, savor the sting, Flash, slash, glisten and gash ... >
  
  Shopping at TMobile is also now a pain, can't pick up and try the products out, they're all tightly under lock and key. Store employees also can't or won't unlock them for you. Bad shopping experience. >
  
  It's like phone shopping online,
  but with less options and in first person! >
  
  And you get to pay more because online has discounts! >
  
  Walgreens, on the corner of Happy, Healthy, and Why Bother? Fuck It, Let's Just Go to Rite Aid. >
  
  All the Rite Aids near me are Walgreens now >
  
  Tip for you all. DO NOT GIVE WALGREENS YOUR EMAIL. You WILL receive spam constantly and when you try to unsubscribe, it will not take. Even calling them will not do a thing. They will forever send you spam. >
  
  I straight up transferred all of my regular prescriptions away from Walgreens a few months ago, unsubscribed from everything and like every two weeks I still get calls that they have refilled my prescriptions. I've called them up and everything and THEY STILL KEEP REFILLING MY PRESCRIPTIONS. >
  
  Call them back and ask: if you're not on autofill, are you on save a trip?
  Save a trip is their thing where they try to line up all your scripts to be ready at the same time. Annoyingly, if you're on it, your stuff will show in the system as not on autofill, but they actually are, as save a trip is done above the store level.
  If that's not the answer, I got nothing. That's usually the culprit though, assuming they weren't dumb enough to actually leave you on autofill after you called. >
  
  Lol they are losing profits because they made it inconvenient to shop. >
  
  All of the men’s underwear was behind glass when I needed to by some. >
  
  Walgreens has always been batshit crazy about theft... Prob about 10 years ago I walked into Walgreens an as soon as I get past the door, someone gets on the speaker an says code 99... Im not sure the exact number but as soon as they said it every visable employee in the store systemiaclly looks at me. Then I was very obviously followed around by one or two employees the whole time shopping.. I googled the code when I got home an sure as shit its for a person suspected to steal or is activily stealing... That shit still makes me feel a lil bad every now n then.. >
  
  Judging by my local Walgreens, non-working refrigeration and freezer for drinks and groceries cost them a decent amount also. >
  
  I see this a lot in Dollar Generals in my area. So many freezers and refrigerators empty or just leaking. They suck up so much profit but put none of it back into the business for upkeep and wages. >
  
  I love how Little Rock, Arkansas and Jacksonville, Florida have higher crime rates than Chicago and San Francisco, but because the first two have Republican governors/mayors and the last two have Democrat governors/mayors, then you never hear FOX mention the former. >
  
  This drugstore hassle transitioned me to online ordering for pretty much all my toiletries.  Amazons subscribe and save program is probably benefiting from this. >
  
  The Target by me is right across from a Light Rail station, and has a ton of homeless.  
  The store does not stop people from stealing - the security WILL of course yell at someone if they catch them, but they won't restrain them or stop them in any way.  
  I am sure the homeless people know that Target is like this, because they openly steal stuff. I saw a guy walk out of the store with a scooter in his hands, and 3 security guards were yelling at him as he exited (with the item in hand). >
  
  This coming from the store that has locked up the whole store, and has pharmacy clerks refusing to fill perscriptions because "religious beleifs" Wahlgreens can jump off a cliff >
  
  I’m in the UK and I don’t know why but the name Walgreens goes though in a way I can’t really describe. It goes from cringe to hatred. Maybe I read a bad story about them. >
  
  They're also the chain that allows their pharmacy employees to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions or sell condoms based on their religious beliefs. 
  Women having a miscarriage have been denied their prescription being filled so that they can continue to miscarry at home, making an already traumatic event worse. Others have had trouble getting birth control prescriptions filled in a timely manner, which made them sick or gave them horrible cramps, because they were taking it to lessen some severe PMS symptoms. >
  
  Have they tried paying their employees nothing and giving it all to the ceo? >
  
  Wait a minute wasn't Target considering just allowing people to keep returns recently and now they are complaining that 400$ million in shrinkage is really hurting them? >
  
  So the deterrence cost more than the losses ostensibly prevented or themselves deterred customers?
  I do not have a high opinion of Walgreens & CVS for how much they upcharge their wares compared to a grocery store. Its not just grabbing necessities while picking up a prescription, its deliberately placing stores in retail/food deserts to target that demographic.
  Fuck thieves, but Walgreens knows what its deep urban branches are in for. The company has the mass to relocate branches as needed compared to small businesses that are stuck with their investments for decades before breaking even.
  I live on the outskirts of DFW. When I have to go into downtown, fuck that, I packed all the supplies needed for the day, or I'll stop at a gas station in the suburbs. Heavy security measures automatically repel me as a consumer, because I'm thinking who the fuck shops here, and what are the chances I am going to have a negative encounter with those local folk? >
  
  Wild thought but maybe, just maybe shit is too expensive and people aren’t paid enough if a corner store needs to lock things like toothpaste up >
  
  Walgreens and other retail "crying too much" contributed to a sense that American cities were crime infested hell holes, which may have pushed voters towards voting more law and order in terms of mayors and DAs. >
  
  Fuck Walgreens. >
  
  reading through the comments, i think it’s pretty clear why they’re walking this back:
  1) the steps some stores took made shopping a miserable experience—needing to find a clerk to open cases for everything you buy is an awful experience. 
  2) it just wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be, much of their messaging was their own internal hysteria that just didn’t match actual facts—the whole “omg crime is on the rise *everywhere*— that just wasn’t based in reality, as he alludes to. >
  
  At Walgreens in Minneapolis, the city subsidizes their security budget by posting a cop there 24/7 >
  
  Store pick up or ship to home, unless I’m buying food or clothes I order online >
  
  Yep, I used to shop at Walgreens, but after trying to buy locked up goods with no one to call over to unlock them a few times, I just left and haven't gone back for over a year now.
  You want to treat me like I am not here to buy things? Fine, I won't. >
  
  Agreed. And so many of the locked-up items are ones easily accessible elsewhere, which means I’ll just buy them at a store where I don’t need to call for non-existent staff to unlock a cabinet. >
  
  Every time I walk into a Walgreens I feel like I’m in a KMart, always feels like they’re going out of business >
  
  I wonder if this only happens in high theft areas or if it’s coming everywhere eventually. Where I live none of the shelves are like this, but I went into a Walgreens on a less good side of town to pick up a gift card and the shelves were like this. >
  
  Meanwhile there’s never less than 20 people already in line when you try to pick up a prescription. >
  
  When loss prevention gets to this point it just becomes sales prevention. Might as well turn all their stores into a counter-service business. Walk in, tell the counter what you’re looking for, purchase the product from the counter. >
  
  They hired people to solve a problem. The problem gets solved. Their conclusion is not that the hired people did a good job. Their conclusion is that there wasn't really a problem. >
  
  Yeah, no shit. 
  Just so people understand, only about ⅓ of shrinkage is external threat (shoplifting). The other ⅔ is employees and supply chain. So most of their problem is internal. But they sure as shit didn't sell it that way. Paying employees more, maintaining higher staffing levels, all help solve that problem. 
  On the external threat, the real growth was in organized theft - basically crime rings. Adding security doesn't really help with that problem. That's a proper law enforcement exercise and law enforcement just isn't interested because of ways that we've politicized the role of law enforcement. >
  
  Your take  was good until you said “politicization of police”- police politicize themselves. You can’t shoot unarmed citizens, investigating yourself to find no wrong doing or dole out paid vacations and expect no blowback. Qualified immunity is a travesty- there needs to be real consequences. 
  Regardless of that, police are told to do many jobs they’re not qualified, nor actually wanting to do like constant domestic disputes, mental health calls, ODs… essentially non criminal activities like theft rings, chop shops, murder, or whatever. They could use to outsource that kind of thing so they can focus on crime. >
  
  Police politicize themselves, and we do it as well. The police didn't get that military gear without congress wanting them to have it. Trump directly endorsed police brutality in some of his rallies. 
  I wasn't assigning blame as to *who* politicize them, or even how, just that they are, and that politicization has consequences at you note. >
  
  Totally took what you said wrong and completely agree. Thanks for the clarification I could of asked for instead of assuming your meaning. >
  
  Don't sweat it. That's just how the internet works. ;) >
  
  Too much time crying about theft and no time protecting a teen employee from a creepy inappropriate older employee that she complained about a year before he killed her in the break room. >
  
  Yikes, what are you referencing? >
  
  Are we supposed to care about this executive's hindsight for some reason? I could not give less of a F. >
  
  Much of the theft is likely due to rising costs. People have to eat.  If they have to steal in order to feed themselves or their kids, they probably will.  Quit raising prices on essentials to the point where people can’t afford to feed themselves even with full time employment. >
  
  Almost every basic thing you could think of was locked up in a store near me, and it took 15 minutes for an employee to show up and unlock shampoo and toothpaste for me. 
  I've already decided never to return and go to Rite Aid instead, which for now isn't doing this (at least in my location.) >
  
  I mean this was obvious and people tried to make political statements about it but during the pandemic and for a bit after the lockdowns it was clear people were going to resort to theft to just get by. I swear these people are so privileged they don’t realize what people will do when there’s no other options left so they just make a big deal out of something that’s bound to reverse. >
  
  I was in a Walgreens in Costa Mesa about a year ago, and the guy in front of me was buying a Red Bull. His card declined twice, and then he just shrugged his shoulders and walked out with it. 
  I asked the cashier if they even do anything about it and he said not unless it was a significant amount of money. It was only a couple bucks, the police wouldn’t care to even come out. 
  So idk, maybe change your policies or hire security or something Walgreens.