4 ms·

Unless these retail stores are letting their employees profile customers, and refuse to unlock the cases for undesirables, I fail to see how these are any real

Unless these retail stores are letting their employees profile customers, and refuse to unlock the cases for undesirables, I fail to see how these are any real deterrent to shoplifting. Just ask to unlock the case, get the item, walk around for another minute, then walk out with paying. ... and if they are profiling customers, the settlements are going to make their shrinkage losses look like pocket change

patch_cable 3y ago
Employees may still be able to limit the amount that is stolen. You may be able to steal one item, but are blocked from filling up a bag.
skyyler 3y ago
>I fail to see how these are any real deterrent to shoplifting. Just ask to unlock the case, get the item, walk around for another minute, then walk out with paying. Most people do not get handed the item from the lock case. I believe it's policy at most stores, the item goes to the front where the person requesting the item asks for it at the register. People like you or I may be handed items from the lock case, but that's because we look trustworthy to the employees. (Wearing nice clothes, hair kept tidy, etc)
- thfuran 3y ago
  >Wearing nice clothes, hair kept tidy, etc I can tell you've never met me.
- defrost 3y ago
  Thieves adapt, there was an Australian shoplifting gang in London in the 1960s that robbed jewellry stores, art and high fashion outlets blind by dressing well and working as a team; building trust on contact and using the distraction of a "dirty hobo undesirable" | sudden argument | nuisance customer to cover lifts.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    > dressing well and working as a team An argument against incarceration is that it might turn minor criminals into hardened criminals. Maybe transporting undesirables to a continent inhabited by cockatoos wasn't the full shilling?
    - defrost 3y ago
      > Maybe transporting undesirables An uncomfortable truth about transportation is that while there were hardened criminal types sent over, the great demand was for skills .. the convicts sent were largely desired - stonecutters, wood workers, draftspeople were needed to build a new world and those early Colonial megaliths didn't erect themselves. The majority of convicts worked without chains or imprisonment, which allowed political prisoners such as the Fennians to make with The Great Escape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalpa_rescue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalpa_rescue Abel Magwitch was quite the benefactor after all.
      - 082349872349872 3y ago
        "One would think he was going to have his throat cut," said the Controller, as the door closed. "Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson."
        082349872349872 3y ago
        A little research reveals that Huxley was born two decades after transportation ended, but he was certainly familiar with the upper class variant: the remittance man.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
It is easy to profile someone in a ski mask and nobody is going to win that lawsuit. Same for someone who wants to pick up $500 tool, can't produce a wallet, cash, or credit card.
FireBeyond 3y ago
Not to mention in my local Safeway, I often have to press the help button multiple times, and wait sometimes 5 minutes or more to get assistance with the liquor cabinet... ... which is still one step ahead of the battery area. Where there's no button, and when you do flag down an employee, they tell you that you have to go to customer service, because they have a key, wait in line there behind returns, lottery tickets, cigarette sales, to have them walk with you to the battery area, you point out what you want, and then they take it to a register that you then have to go through that register, regardless of the line, if you were still shopping. It's ... fucking dystopian. And I don't live in an economically challenged area.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  >> And I don't live in an economically challenged are Sounds like you do. The stores are losing sales, why else would they do that?
dialup_sounds 3y ago
In a typical department store the employee would escort you to the register to pay immediately or hold it there until you're ready. There is usually a register in the department. If they do just hand over the merchandise there's a decent chance that loss prevention personnel are watching you all the way to checkout.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > If they do just hand over the merchandise there's a decent chance that loss prevention personnel are watching you all the way to checkout. I don't know, that doesn't match my experience, unless the store employees are really darn good at being discrete.
tempnow987 3y ago
They walk to merchandise up to the register. Once you pay you get it. How does that not reduce shrink? In terms of profiling - some folks are sick of theft - so the sentiment change if they start taking a harder line on theft may be smaller than you think. The profiling is easy. Pushing a shopping cart past the registers and out the front door without paying. A local place cracked down majorly on this - I think it's been good for the business. The locked up merchandise is an absolute mess to deal with though - they don't have enough staff and so much is locked up so you spend a lot of time waiting to get stuff. I've started going to another location of this one store that is in an area much less impacted by retail theft - it is night and day just in atmosphere and accessibility.
- onecommentman 3y ago
  “[the store staff] walk the merchandise up to the register” and once you pay you get it — called the “catalog showroom concept”. Used by “Best Product” department stores for four decades from the 1950s to 1990s, roughly 200 stores US nationwide by the time of their closure in the 1990s. Some stuff was in self-serve aisles, but the majority was delivered when requested by submitting a paper form to staff, the box rolled down a conveyor belt and I seem to remember you physically took possession from staff after you paid. A 2024 version would have less paper and more robotics, but the retail concept in the US worked quite successfully for decades. Treated staff decently as well…

patch_cable 3y ago

Employees may still be able to limit the amount that is stolen. You may be able to steal one item, but are blocked from filling up a bag.

skyyler 3y ago

>I fail to see how these are any real deterrent to shoplifting. Just ask to unlock the case, get the item, walk around for another minute, then walk out with paying. Most people do not get handed the item from the lock case. I believe it's policy at most stores, the item goes to the front where the person requesting the item asks for it at the register. People like you or I may be handed items from the lock case, but that's because we look trustworthy to the employees. (Wearing nice clothes, hair kept tidy, etc)

thfuran 3y ago
>Wearing nice clothes, hair kept tidy, etc I can tell you've never met me.
defrost 3y ago
Thieves adapt, there was an Australian shoplifting gang in London in the 1960s that robbed jewellry stores, art and high fashion outlets blind by dressing well and working as a team; building trust on contact and using the distraction of a "dirty hobo undesirable" | sudden argument | nuisance customer to cover lifts.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > dressing well and working as a team An argument against incarceration is that it might turn minor criminals into hardened criminals. Maybe transporting undesirables to a continent inhabited by cockatoos wasn't the full shilling?
  - defrost 3y ago
    > Maybe transporting undesirables An uncomfortable truth about transportation is that while there were hardened criminal types sent over, the great demand was for skills .. the convicts sent were largely desired - stonecutters, wood workers, draftspeople were needed to build a new world and those early Colonial megaliths didn't erect themselves. The majority of convicts worked without chains or imprisonment, which allowed political prisoners such as the Fennians to make with The Great Escape: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalpa_rescue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalpa_rescue Abel Magwitch was quite the benefactor after all.
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      "One would think he was going to have his throat cut," said the Controller, as the door closed. "Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson."
      - 082349872349872 3y ago
        A little research reveals that Huxley was born two decades after transportation ended, but he was certainly familiar with the upper class variant: the remittance man.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

It is easy to profile someone in a ski mask and nobody is going to win that lawsuit. Same for someone who wants to pick up $500 tool, can't produce a wallet, cash, or credit card.

FireBeyond 3y ago

Not to mention in my local Safeway, I often have to press the help button multiple times, and wait sometimes 5 minutes or more to get assistance with the liquor cabinet... ... which is still one step ahead of the battery area. Where there's no button, and when you do flag down an employee, they tell you that you have to go to customer service, because they have a key, wait in line there behind returns, lottery tickets, cigarette sales, to have them walk with you to the battery area, you point out what you want, and then they take it to a register that you then have to go through that register, regardless of the line, if you were still shopping. It's ... fucking dystopian. And I don't live in an economically challenged area.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> And I don't live in an economically challenged are Sounds like you do. The stores are losing sales, why else would they do that?

dialup_sounds 3y ago

In a typical department store the employee would escort you to the register to pay immediately or hold it there until you're ready. There is usually a register in the department. If they do just hand over the merchandise there's a decent chance that loss prevention personnel are watching you all the way to checkout.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> If they do just hand over the merchandise there's a decent chance that loss prevention personnel are watching you all the way to checkout. I don't know, that doesn't match my experience, unless the store employees are really darn good at being discrete.

tempnow987 3y ago

They walk to merchandise up to the register. Once you pay you get it. How does that not reduce shrink? In terms of profiling - some folks are sick of theft - so the sentiment change if they start taking a harder line on theft may be smaller than you think. The profiling is easy. Pushing a shopping cart past the registers and out the front door without paying. A local place cracked down majorly on this - I think it's been good for the business. The locked up merchandise is an absolute mess to deal with though - they don't have enough staff and so much is locked up so you spend a lot of time waiting to get stuff. I've started going to another location of this one store that is in an area much less impacted by retail theft - it is night and day just in atmosphere and accessibility.

onecommentman 3y ago
“[the store staff] walk the merchandise up to the register” and once you pay you get it — called the “catalog showroom concept”. Used by “Best Product” department stores for four decades from the 1950s to 1990s, roughly 200 stores US nationwide by the time of their closure in the 1990s. Some stuff was in self-serve aisles, but the majority was delivered when requested by submitting a paper form to staff, the box rolled down a conveyor belt and I seem to remember you physically took possession from staff after you paid. A 2024 version would have less paper and more robotics, but the retail concept in the US worked quite successfully for decades. Treated staff decently as well…