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Home Depot near me has all Milwaukee M12 and M18 tools locked up. When the Milwaukee rep was getting something out of the case for me, I mentioned how unfortuna

Home Depot near me has all Milwaukee M12 and M18 tools locked up. When the Milwaukee rep was getting something out of the case for me, I mentioned how unfortunate it is that they have to do this. He said they lost over $700k in Milwaukee tools alone in that store last year. Quite amazing and almost hard to believe. I feel sorry for these stores trying to walk the line between respecting your customers and not being robbed blind.

DavidPeiffer 5y ago
I wonder if it was 700k retail or wholesale? Regardless, it was a big enough problem across the chain to justify adding complexity and cost to the product. Retailers are allergic to price increases and manufacturers tend to shy away from anything that increases the cost without being a marketable benefit or cost savings, so no doubt Home Depot recognizing the size of the problem and initiating a solution made it happen.
- np_tedious 5y ago
  Crimes (theft, drug seizures, whatever) usually reported in largest possible numbers. So likely retail
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    Exactly. News reports never respect the very important difference between a thousand grams and a kilo.
    - netrus 5y ago
      I think the downvotes are unjust. For those missing the point: When large quantities of drugs are seized, often times the 'street value' of the drug is reported. But large quantities can only be found some steps removed from the end customer in the supply chain. Given the risks in distribution, the difference in retail and wholesale price can be significant.
      - Y_Y 5y ago
        Thank you, that is exactly what I meant.
      - np_tedious 5y ago
        Agreed the downvotes are not justified. This is this clearly what parent meant and what I alluded to in preceding comment
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The power tool market is likely more responsive than your average supplier. They sell a huge volume through a limited number of retailers (Home Depot & Lowes), and there are a limited number of manufacturers [0]. So if retail says there's a problem, it becomes a problem for them. The other side of this is professional customers, who will probably use the same technology. A tool that doesn't work if it's stolen off a job site is a big value add to professional contractors. [0] https://pressurewashr.com/tool-industry-behemoths/ https://pressurewashr.com/tool-industry-behemoths/
social_quotient 5y ago
I wonder if this has increased from/due to self checkout?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  My grocery store has an app that lets me scan as I go through the store, then just pay in about 10 seconds at the self-checkout. I'd love to know what that has done to shrink numbers.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    How many cameras are there in the store? I don't usually pay much attention to self-checkout (call me a luddite, but I find regular checkout to go faster and with less hassle), but the other day when standing in a queue, I looked at the ceiling and saw a ton of cameras - one camera per self-checkout station, + some extra in the general area. Additionally, each checkout station used a big tablet as its main display, and each of those tablets had the usual built-in selfie camera - I'd be surprised if these cameras didn't take photos of customers using the stations.
    - bitwize 5y ago
      Having a trained cashier quickly scan your items for you does indeed beat fumbling with the scanning process while the GLaDOS built into the register judges you for not doing it properly.
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Yes. And then you look at it funny and it exclaims, "unrecognized item in the bagging area", and asks you to assume the party escort submission position, while it fetches the party associate clerk.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        That's why the app is nice; it's on my phone, I do it as I go along, and there's no scale involved. Faster than both self-checkout and cashier, in my experience, especially on a busy day.
eplanit 5y ago
In the bay area and California in general, they've been basically been told that they're on their own regarding thefts. One can simply walk in and take hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and leave, because the DA will not prosecute. Security guards won't intervene, and the thieves know all this. It has become a spectacle. Between online sales and this, I sympathize with anyone in brick and mortar retail sales. https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Prop-47-which-reduced-some-felonies-to-13926211.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Prop-47-which-reduc... https://news.yahoo.com/looters-ransack-san-francisco-neiman-141600425.html https://news.yahoo.com/looters-ransack-san-francisco-neiman-...
- peter422 5y ago
  I’ve spent a lot of time at Bay Area Home Depots, and I’ve only seen blatant theft once, and the security guards did attempt to intervene. What is the support for your statement? Also “the DA” is a ton of different people throughout the Bay Area, and the DA that everybody complains about has exactly 0 HDs in his jurisdiction.
  - salawat 5y ago
    It was a State level Proposition as far as I am aware, so it isn't merely the case of one problematic DA. I could be misunderstanding something though.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Statewide laws still rely on local law enforcement and prosecutors to be enforced.
    - tzs 5y ago
      The state level proposition does not require DAs to ignore shoplifting. It just turns it (and a few other crimes) from felonies into misdemeanors when the amount involved does not exceed $950. Misdemeanor shoplifting can still earn up to 180 days in county jail and a fine of up to $1000, but only if a DA prosecutes.
  - 5y ago
nyjah 5y ago
At the home depot near me if you move the set of sockets an alarm will start beeping. Recently I bought a pressure washer. When I got home I realized the hose was missing. When I got to home depot to return it I realized that it wasn't even the right pressure washer in the box. Clearly someone had bought a new one and then put their old on in the box and returned it as new. Home Depot took care of me no questions and it made me feel like they must see kind of thing a lot.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Returns are a huge source of fraud. And it's difficult to solve, for the same reasons listed in this article: any solution (e.g. checking items fully) results in a worse customer experience (longer lines and delays). So, you try and pick a sweet spot along the curve, where you prevent the worst excesses but are still able to keep your (non-thieving) customers happy.
matheweis 5y ago
I went to a Home Depot in Seattle a couple of days ago looking for an electric chainsaw (not a Milwaukee). It’s a bit of a drive and I wanted a particular model, so I checked the site for stock before going .. they had eight so off I went. When I showed up the chainsaw was nowhere to be found, and after looking high and low and triple checking their inventories, the rep said he figured they must have walked. He mentioned a similar figure saying that over $800k of merchandise had disappeared from that aisle (yard equipment) in the last year. I think it’s real. After the experience repeated itself at a second store, I looked on OfferUp and found the exact chainsaw “new and unopened” at about half the retail price. I ended up going to a third store before finding one that actually had the tool in stock. That one had installed a makeshift rig of steel bars in front of their stock, and a rep had to physically follow me to the register and watch me pay for it. There are videos in the Seattle reddits of brazen thieves going into stores and walking off with whatever they like. It’s bad enough for the big box stores, imagine being a small business trying to survive that environment!
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > It’s bad enough for the big box stores, imagine being a small business trying to survive that environment! I'd guess that small businesses aren't as targeted by organized thieves as "big box" stores are: 1) They're smaller in size which means the likelihood of getting spotted by a staff member during a theft is higher 2) The amount (and diversity) of available goods to steal is lower 3) "Big box" stores don't have people carrying guns, their staff has a "don't intervene, we're insured anyway" policy drilled into them, and this is known. A small shopkeeper however? A thief can't reasonably know if the shop owner has a firearm under their desk or will get confrontational if stopped. > After the experience repeated itself at a second store, I looked on OfferUp and found the exact chainsaw “new and unopened” at about half the retail price. The really interesting thing is: why does the police not "follow the money" and take out those advertising likely-stolen tools for sale in the open?
  - drak0n1c 5y ago
    Regarding your last question, the city has for a while now decided not to prosecute shoplifting cases. Here is an article from 2018 about the phenomenon. It has gotten worse since then and the open street bazaars of stolen goods have grown much larger. I’ve decided to move to greener pastures a few months ago, but during a company event when I traveled back the CVS next to the hotel was brazenly shoplifted from the two times I stepped inside to buy essentials. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tonight-at-5-pm-on-kiro-7-overwhelmed-with-shoplifters-underwhelmed-by-city-s-response/875696437/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tonight-at-5-pm-on-kiro-7-o...
TheHypnotist 5y ago
It's a MAJOR issue. Most hardware stores now lock them, have cameras, and every time you walk by it makes some obnoxious noise.
- spiderice 5y ago
  I hate that noise. Especially since they place them on aisles with expensive items, which are the same aisles I end up spending the most time comparing the different tools. Make me feel like I can't move for fear of being beeped at. Makes sense that they do it if shop lifting is as big of a problem as this article suggests.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    I usually flip off those beeping cameras. The store has created an aggressive environment and I'd rather actively recognize that, instead of than trying to pretend otherwise. I understand that theft is a problem, but they shouldn't be taking it out on honest customers. I bet I'm being downvoted by the kind of people who wait in line to exit a store.
somenewaccount1 5y ago
Assuming an average price of $330, that would be 2000 devices. Or ~6 items a day, every single day of the year. that's not from shop lifters, that's from the employees out the back door.
oliwarner 5y ago
I wonder why they don't just warehouse the stock, leave demo models on the floor and only get out the real one once you've paid for it. A couple of staff to power this has got to be cheaper than $700kpa in high value theft. But I also would have thought it'd be comically easy to surveil the power tool area and see who comes in lots but never seems to buy a power tool.
- prawn 5y ago
  I wonder at what point the insurance cost starts to outweigh just paying for more staff to provide a higher-touch experience for certain categories. But then, I get the impression that supermarkets are saving on staff by using self-checkout, at the risk of increased casual theft. Would be nice to see more jobs rather than more insurance pay-outs though.
- chipsa 5y ago
  The entire store is the warehouse. There’s nowhere for them to put it that’s easily accessible to the staff but not to customers, except maybe in a locked cage on the floor.
axaxs 5y ago
Yeah, I just returned hundreds of dollars of power tools to Lowes because of them locking stuff up. I buy into an ecosystem based on how easy I can get items. Lowes has most of their power tools in cages. But, they don't hire people to actually man the area. Last time I needed an impact, I had to search to find someone. That person told me they can't open it, but would find someone. Five minutes later I left empty-handed, and returned the rest of the tools and batteries I'd bought recently that week. Point being: Their 'security' is driving away paying customers.
- bombcar 5y ago
  The stores in "bad parts" of town have the cages, and sometimes service to match. The "good parts" of town - no cages in sight and you can grab what you need. It's sad.
  - axaxs 5y ago
    Very true. Oddly where I live now, the good and bad parts of town are very interspersed. You can have million dollar subdivisions a mile from a trailer park. The added bonus is that all stores treat everyone as a criminal, apparently :).
munificent 5y ago
I look at this as yet another consequence of increasing economic inequality. When you have more and more people keenly aware of the unfair distance between their economic station and that of others, they're going to realize the system isn't working. And once that realization kicks in, there is little moral incentive to follow the rules. If you can get away with stealing from a giant corporation, why not? They are arguably stealing even more from you in terms of manipulating the larger economic systems of the country.
- cafard 5y ago
  You never knew any middle class or upper middle class kids who shoplifted?
  - munificent 5y ago
    I definitely did, but I'm fairly certain that is not driving large-scale theft of tools from Home Depot.
- readflaggedcomm 5y ago
  This reduces poverty to greed, which is insulting to those in need, rather than helpful or hopeful that there are solutions other than blind levelling.

DavidPeiffer 5y ago

I wonder if it was 700k retail or wholesale? Regardless, it was a big enough problem across the chain to justify adding complexity and cost to the product. Retailers are allergic to price increases and manufacturers tend to shy away from anything that increases the cost without being a marketable benefit or cost savings, so no doubt Home Depot recognizing the size of the problem and initiating a solution made it happen.

np_tedious 5y ago
Crimes (theft, drug seizures, whatever) usually reported in largest possible numbers. So likely retail
- Y_Y 5y ago
  Exactly. News reports never respect the very important difference between a thousand grams and a kilo.
  - netrus 5y ago
    I think the downvotes are unjust. For those missing the point: When large quantities of drugs are seized, often times the 'street value' of the drug is reported. But large quantities can only be found some steps removed from the end customer in the supply chain. Given the risks in distribution, the difference in retail and wholesale price can be significant.
    - Y_Y 5y ago
      Thank you, that is exactly what I meant.
    - np_tedious 5y ago
      Agreed the downvotes are not justified. This is this clearly what parent meant and what I alluded to in preceding comment
ethbr0 5y ago
The power tool market is likely more responsive than your average supplier. They sell a huge volume through a limited number of retailers (Home Depot & Lowes), and there are a limited number of manufacturers [0]. So if retail says there's a problem, it becomes a problem for them. The other side of this is professional customers, who will probably use the same technology. A tool that doesn't work if it's stolen off a job site is a big value add to professional contractors. [0] https://pressurewashr.com/tool-industry-behemoths/ https://pressurewashr.com/tool-industry-behemoths/

social_quotient 5y ago

I wonder if this has increased from/due to self checkout?

ceejayoz 5y ago
My grocery store has an app that lets me scan as I go through the store, then just pay in about 10 seconds at the self-checkout. I'd love to know what that has done to shrink numbers.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  How many cameras are there in the store? I don't usually pay much attention to self-checkout (call me a luddite, but I find regular checkout to go faster and with less hassle), but the other day when standing in a queue, I looked at the ceiling and saw a ton of cameras - one camera per self-checkout station, + some extra in the general area. Additionally, each checkout station used a big tablet as its main display, and each of those tablets had the usual built-in selfie camera - I'd be surprised if these cameras didn't take photos of customers using the stations.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    Having a trained cashier quickly scan your items for you does indeed beat fumbling with the scanning process while the GLaDOS built into the register judges you for not doing it properly.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Yes. And then you look at it funny and it exclaims, "unrecognized item in the bagging area", and asks you to assume the party escort submission position, while it fetches the party associate clerk.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      That's why the app is nice; it's on my phone, I do it as I go along, and there's no scale involved. Faster than both self-checkout and cashier, in my experience, especially on a busy day.

eplanit 5y ago

In the bay area and California in general, they've been basically been told that they're on their own regarding thefts. One can simply walk in and take hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise and leave, because the DA will not prosecute. Security guards won't intervene, and the thieves know all this. It has become a spectacle. Between online sales and this, I sympathize with anyone in brick and mortar retail sales. https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Prop-47-which-reduced-some-felonies-to-13926211.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Prop-47-which-reduc... https://news.yahoo.com/looters-ransack-san-francisco-neiman-141600425.html https://news.yahoo.com/looters-ransack-san-francisco-neiman-...

peter422 5y ago
I’ve spent a lot of time at Bay Area Home Depots, and I’ve only seen blatant theft once, and the security guards did attempt to intervene. What is the support for your statement? Also “the DA” is a ton of different people throughout the Bay Area, and the DA that everybody complains about has exactly 0 HDs in his jurisdiction.
- salawat 5y ago
  It was a State level Proposition as far as I am aware, so it isn't merely the case of one problematic DA. I could be misunderstanding something though.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Statewide laws still rely on local law enforcement and prosecutors to be enforced.
  - tzs 5y ago
    The state level proposition does not require DAs to ignore shoplifting. It just turns it (and a few other crimes) from felonies into misdemeanors when the amount involved does not exceed $950. Misdemeanor shoplifting can still earn up to 180 days in county jail and a fine of up to $1000, but only if a DA prosecutes.
- 5y ago

nyjah 5y ago

At the home depot near me if you move the set of sockets an alarm will start beeping. Recently I bought a pressure washer. When I got home I realized the hose was missing. When I got to home depot to return it I realized that it wasn't even the right pressure washer in the box. Clearly someone had bought a new one and then put their old on in the box and returned it as new. Home Depot took care of me no questions and it made me feel like they must see kind of thing a lot.

ethbr0 5y ago
Returns are a huge source of fraud. And it's difficult to solve, for the same reasons listed in this article: any solution (e.g. checking items fully) results in a worse customer experience (longer lines and delays). So, you try and pick a sweet spot along the curve, where you prevent the worst excesses but are still able to keep your (non-thieving) customers happy.

matheweis 5y ago

I went to a Home Depot in Seattle a couple of days ago looking for an electric chainsaw (not a Milwaukee). It’s a bit of a drive and I wanted a particular model, so I checked the site for stock before going .. they had eight so off I went. When I showed up the chainsaw was nowhere to be found, and after looking high and low and triple checking their inventories, the rep said he figured they must have walked. He mentioned a similar figure saying that over $800k of merchandise had disappeared from that aisle (yard equipment) in the last year. I think it’s real. After the experience repeated itself at a second store, I looked on OfferUp and found the exact chainsaw “new and unopened” at about half the retail price. I ended up going to a third store before finding one that actually had the tool in stock. That one had installed a makeshift rig of steel bars in front of their stock, and a rep had to physically follow me to the register and watch me pay for it. There are videos in the Seattle reddits of brazen thieves going into stores and walking off with whatever they like. It’s bad enough for the big box stores, imagine being a small business trying to survive that environment!

mschuster91 5y ago
> It’s bad enough for the big box stores, imagine being a small business trying to survive that environment! I'd guess that small businesses aren't as targeted by organized thieves as "big box" stores are: 1) They're smaller in size which means the likelihood of getting spotted by a staff member during a theft is higher 2) The amount (and diversity) of available goods to steal is lower 3) "Big box" stores don't have people carrying guns, their staff has a "don't intervene, we're insured anyway" policy drilled into them, and this is known. A small shopkeeper however? A thief can't reasonably know if the shop owner has a firearm under their desk or will get confrontational if stopped. > After the experience repeated itself at a second store, I looked on OfferUp and found the exact chainsaw “new and unopened” at about half the retail price. The really interesting thing is: why does the police not "follow the money" and take out those advertising likely-stolen tools for sale in the open?
- drak0n1c 5y ago
  Regarding your last question, the city has for a while now decided not to prosecute shoplifting cases. Here is an article from 2018 about the phenomenon. It has gotten worse since then and the open street bazaars of stolen goods have grown much larger. I’ve decided to move to greener pastures a few months ago, but during a company event when I traveled back the CVS next to the hotel was brazenly shoplifted from the two times I stepped inside to buy essentials. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tonight-at-5-pm-on-kiro-7-overwhelmed-with-shoplifters-underwhelmed-by-city-s-response/875696437/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tonight-at-5-pm-on-kiro-7-o...

TheHypnotist 5y ago

It's a MAJOR issue. Most hardware stores now lock them, have cameras, and every time you walk by it makes some obnoxious noise.

spiderice 5y ago
I hate that noise. Especially since they place them on aisles with expensive items, which are the same aisles I end up spending the most time comparing the different tools. Make me feel like I can't move for fear of being beeped at. Makes sense that they do it if shop lifting is as big of a problem as this article suggests.
- mindslight 5y ago
  I usually flip off those beeping cameras. The store has created an aggressive environment and I'd rather actively recognize that, instead of than trying to pretend otherwise. I understand that theft is a problem, but they shouldn't be taking it out on honest customers. I bet I'm being downvoted by the kind of people who wait in line to exit a store.

somenewaccount1 5y ago

Assuming an average price of $330, that would be 2000 devices. Or ~6 items a day, every single day of the year. that's not from shop lifters, that's from the employees out the back door.

oliwarner 5y ago

I wonder why they don't just warehouse the stock, leave demo models on the floor and only get out the real one once you've paid for it. A couple of staff to power this has got to be cheaper than $700kpa in high value theft. But I also would have thought it'd be comically easy to surveil the power tool area and see who comes in lots but never seems to buy a power tool.

prawn 5y ago
I wonder at what point the insurance cost starts to outweigh just paying for more staff to provide a higher-touch experience for certain categories. But then, I get the impression that supermarkets are saving on staff by using self-checkout, at the risk of increased casual theft. Would be nice to see more jobs rather than more insurance pay-outs though.
chipsa 5y ago
The entire store is the warehouse. There’s nowhere for them to put it that’s easily accessible to the staff but not to customers, except maybe in a locked cage on the floor.

axaxs 5y ago

Yeah, I just returned hundreds of dollars of power tools to Lowes because of them locking stuff up. I buy into an ecosystem based on how easy I can get items. Lowes has most of their power tools in cages. But, they don't hire people to actually man the area. Last time I needed an impact, I had to search to find someone. That person told me they can't open it, but would find someone. Five minutes later I left empty-handed, and returned the rest of the tools and batteries I'd bought recently that week. Point being: Their 'security' is driving away paying customers.

bombcar 5y ago
The stores in "bad parts" of town have the cages, and sometimes service to match. The "good parts" of town - no cages in sight and you can grab what you need. It's sad.
- axaxs 5y ago
  Very true. Oddly where I live now, the good and bad parts of town are very interspersed. You can have million dollar subdivisions a mile from a trailer park. The added bonus is that all stores treat everyone as a criminal, apparently :).

munificent 5y ago

I look at this as yet another consequence of increasing economic inequality. When you have more and more people keenly aware of the unfair distance between their economic station and that of others, they're going to realize the system isn't working. And once that realization kicks in, there is little moral incentive to follow the rules. If you can get away with stealing from a giant corporation, why not? They are arguably stealing even more from you in terms of manipulating the larger economic systems of the country.

cafard 5y ago
You never knew any middle class or upper middle class kids who shoplifted?
- munificent 5y ago
  I definitely did, but I'm fairly certain that is not driving large-scale theft of tools from Home Depot.
readflaggedcomm 5y ago
This reduces poverty to greed, which is insulting to those in need, rather than helpful or hopeful that there are solutions other than blind levelling.