I’ve seen multiple videos of American stores locking up their products (even cheap items like toothpaste and soap), especially in cities like SF and NYC.

Is shoplifting in America really that bad to justify this? How common is it? And how does it work, you go grocery shopping and have to ask an employee to unlock every single item you pick up?

29 comments

  1. Not near me regularly. I think last time I was in Target some of the big ticket items that were easy to walk off with were locked up. Usually stuff isn’t locked up around me.

    But we have a big country with a lot of variation.

  2. It’s typically very few items that might be locked up – often small, relatively expensive things – so on a typical shopping trip it probably doesn’t affect you at all.

  3. It’s not nationwide.

    Some large cities are struggling yes.

    A combination of factors contribute. The pandemic saw a rise in all types of crime. A bad economy will lead to more shoplifting. Short staffed retail stores don’t have the staff to watch, short staffed police forces have stopped coming out for “petty” crimes.

    But most places are not bad enough to lock up all their stuff, no.

  6. I would say it’s not as common as it looks on the news. I live in a pretty big Metro and rarely see more than a few items locked away, and those things are usually big ticket items or certain over the counter medicines. San Francisco and NYC are shown a lot in media, but are not a very good representation of most of the country.

  7. It’s not everything or every store but there’s places where some high value items are locked up. Off the top of my head it’s electronics and baby formula usually.

  9. It depends entirely on the city or neighborhood the store is in. In my city, only expensive but rather small items like razors might be locked behind a case. Most stores don’t even lock them up, rather just have a small alarm go off when the top of the case is lifted to call attention to anyone accessing it.

  11. Even in less populated areas, it’s still valuable for high value cosmetics, medications such as naloxone, baby formula, and other easily stolen items to be locked up so that they either require an assistant to purchase, are in dispensers that only dispense one at a time, or are kept in locked boxes unlocked at checkout.

    It’s extremely common anywhere for electronics to either be in locked boxes or locked cabinets.

  12. I’ve never seen a store like that in real life. if I encountered one, I’d probably just leave and order online lol

  14. Yes. I don’t live in SF or NYC, but some drug stores in my major metropolitan area have empty shelves and locked glass cabinets where the products are displayed. You have to tell a cashier what you want, and they’ll unlock the cabinet. I don’t know how they stay open. Shopping there is such a hassle that I buy my drugstore stuff online. There’s a supermarket that has removed all brand name items from its shelves, selling only their store brand. Brand name merchandise is stolen and resold online. Organized gangs of teens raid stores. They fill bags with stolen stuff and bring it out to a waiting van. I feel I’m living in a dystopia.

  15. >And how does it work, you go grocery shopping and have to ask an employee to unlock every single item you pick up

    ​

    There’s nowhere in the country where this is the case. It’s specific stores, in specific places, for specific things.

  16. It depends.

    For example. All of the hardware stores near me have secured their power tools and lawn implements. Stuff that you can fill a cart up with and walk out and then resell fairly easily for a decent amount of money.

    The Walmart near me has their entire Lego aisle behind a glass case. When I went to go pick up a set for my nephew’s birthday, I had to get an employee to unlock it and he had to walk it to the computer check out counter himself. But even that’s store dependent, as the Target just a little ways down the road keeps their Lego unsecured.

    A sports store near me also had someone run out of the store with a gun a few months back, and the jackass had the audacity to come back and try it again with the exact same gun model.

    At that same store, a few months back, as I was walking out of a different store, I saw their LP team make a stop and recover merchandise from a walk-out theft. The shoplifter abandoned his (presumably) stolen Jeep and fled on foot.

    It’s not every single item. It’s items that are high theft. Items that are easy to resell, sell for high prices, have a demand for it. People aren’t stealing detergent or hair care products because they need it for themselves. They’re stealing them to resell on Facebook marketplace. During the formula shortage, formula stocks were popular theft items due to the shortage of them and the need for them. Every single cent the thief makes selling them on places like Facebook is pure profit, as Walmart et al. have already done the expensive part of acquiring, transporting and stocking it.

    You’ve also likely seen accusations of racism flying around because some stores have locked up black(African) hair care products. They aren’t locked up because Walmart et al. hates black people. They’re locked up because local management has identified these products as the most likely to be stolen at their stores.

    No store wants to secure their entire product stock behind lock and key. So they have to do targeted securements.

    If you come to US and go to some place like Home Depot or Lowes, you can expect to see ad hoc cages made out of wire shelving preventing you taking pushmower boxes or power tool boxes because these are the most common items taken and are the ones the company is going to lose the most money on if they can’t sell them.

    These major retail shoplifters want items that are worth a lot of money, have a high demand and can be quickly grabbed. It’s why you often see clothing, make up and power tools as the subject of these thefts.

  18. It can be, but also consider bullshit knee jerk corporate responses. Once I see shit locked up, I do not shop at that store for that product anymore.

    What happens is Target sees the “shrink” number increase. “Oh my god, customers are stealing from us! And someone shared a video of a theft that went viral! Lock everything up, that will solve it!” Then they lock way too much stuff up and their sales suffer further. While their shrink number goes down, it doesn’t go down as much as they thought it would, because they’re ignoring shipping mistakes and their own employees stealing from them.

  19. I went to LA, on vacation, this past April and visited a Best Buy to buy headphones. The shelves were completely empty. No merchandise on the shelves. No video games, phone cases, nothing. It was the most bizarre thing. I asked the security guard why the store was empty, theft.

  22. >Is shoplifting in America really that bad to justify this?

    IN some places, yes, but overall,no.

    > How common is it?

    It depends. In larger cities and towns, quite. Probably the same as it is in any major economy. It appears worse because of those videos, and the size of our economy. The major issue that has led to the explosion of these videos and the image of shoplifting being out of control is Organized Retail Theft. We’re not talking about a tube of toothpaste being stolen, rather a large mob rushing a store and stealing an entire display shelf of a product to resell on a black or grey market, both domestically and abroad.

    > you go grocery shopping and have to ask an employee to unlock every single item you pick up?

    No, Not at all. For 90% of your shopping in 90% of stores it won’t be a concern. In most stores, high ticket items are secured in some way (TVs, game systems, games). In other areas you find smaller items that are stolen and sold on the street locked up (Laundry detergent, toothpaste, deodorant), and in other places, especially places where drug use or production happens, the common products used in drug production are locked up (baby formula, Cough syrup, allergy medication).

  23. I have never needed to ask an employee to unlock every single thing I need at any grocery store I’ve been in. I do know that medication containing pseudoephedrine is often kept behind the counter now, because it can be used to make methamphetamine.

    This isn’t to say that shoplifting never happens where I live; a local boutique was robbed a few weeks ago, and people robbing carryout stores are, unfortunately, a pretty common story on my local news. That doesn’t mean every store is getting robbed all the time.

    It’s not uncommon for places that sell electronics to keep certain items locked up or stored elsewhere, however.

    Edit: word change

  24. Walmart stops basically everyone to check their receipts. I’ve had them stop me when an employee was pushing stuff out to my car.

    And yes, they do lock up a ton of stuff. I’ve had to wait like 15 minutes for them to unlock a goddamn wifi adapter.

  25. The whole store isnt locked up lol.
    Stores will know what items are stolen the most in their area so they lock those particular items up. In my area only two stores lock anything up and theyre both major retailers. They lock up expensive electronics and bqby formula. So yes if you want either of those things you find an employee and ask

  26. It gets so bad that they will close the stores down in high theft areas. Some areas nothing is locked up and some areas you will see laundry detergent locked up

  27. I live in Milwaukee. Yes, it can be. Walmart is closing some locations by us. People walk out with shopping carts full of stuff.

  28. I was parked by the front door of a grocery store. This couple came out each with a full shopping cart. Followed by employees with their cell phones pointed at them. The woman yelled, “You can’t touch me.” They put the stuff in their car and drove off.

    It is rampant.

  29. this is a terrible sub to ask this in tbh. has a very conservative lean and conservatives always overstate crime because a fundamental part of their belief system is the fear that society is deteriorating.

    anyway, SOME stores in SOME places lock things that get stolen more often. dont know how they decide when something gets stolen often enough that it should be locked up. it could be electronics, could be something that has chemicals that can be used to make drugs, could be cosmetics, could be energy drinks. i live in chicago, which is apparently a liberal hellhole, and if a store has anything locked its usually one of those things. it all just depends on what, if anything, that specific store is having problems with theft. in actual bad neighborhoods, whats more likely is they just wont let you bring bags in and will make you leave it with someone at the door. or they will hire independent security to deter shoplifting. tbh locking things is done more often in nicer areas in my experience. i would guess because they have less room for loss due to rent and utility costs

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