In another example of not fostering great relationships with the community, this store was the first local Safeway to get a closed-off anti-shoplifting section -- definitely a big downgrade from the fancy health and beauty section that was here before. This area has a few aisles filled with a strange combination of liquor and household items, which are apparently the highest-theft items (I understand that for liquor because some of that stuff is absurdly expensive, and I understand baby food because this country is absolutely terrible at taking care of people in need, but I will never understand what the deal is with laundry detergent!), and a special checkout that everyone is required to go through, with staff seemingly stopping anyone who tries to bypass it (seriously, there are more staff in this picture than are typically to be seen on the salesfloor in my entire local Safeway). Things like this have shown up at several other local Safeways in the years since, though most of them are focused on liquor -- the only other store in Seattle proper with this whole setup is the Othello one we recently looked at, which had this sort of thing installed sometime after my visit. (I recently stopped by the Rainier Beach store at the south end of the Rainier Valley, and was surprised to see that it doesn't have any of this, though there were a lot of locked cases.)
I can understand why laundry detergent is on the most stolen list given the rather inflated prices on it! While it might not be as easy to discreetly steal as something like baby food, that doesn't stop people. There are always stories around here of people stealing large cuts of meat and then reselling it. Compared to that, laundry detergent seems more understandable! All of this said, I have not seen laundry detergent (or meat) locked up here.
ReplyDeleteI say that, but I recently had an older family member who I took shopping a couple months back in Houston and they wanted to go to Wal-Mart. She wanted to buy a comb, something which isn't even $1. That said, Walmart had it on a locked peg! Naturally, there wasn't an employee in anywhere in sight so she said to forget about it and she ended up buying the comb across the street (at the aforementioned Grocery Palace Krogertsons, but this was pre-Artisan). The same family member wanted to buy an HBA item from Wal-Mart a few weeks later, but when reminded of the locked-up merchandise, she decided to buy it from somewhere else (Kroger as well? I'm not sure) without even going to Wal-Mart. I think these retailers who lock stuff up are costing themselves sales especially when their competitors are not locking things up. Well, anyway, I hope locking up 75 cent combs is worth it to Wal-Mart because they may have lost a customer over that policy!
I guess laundry detergent at least isn't perishable, unlike meat! I've heard of people stealing large quantities of meat too, and I've always wondered how anyone would think that's a good idea.
DeleteI don't shop at Walmart very much because they don't have any convenient locations around here, but that doesn't surprise me considering how customer-hostile they tend to be these days. Target does the same thing around here, with a huge proportion of stuff outside of the grocery department locked up, no matter how cheap it is. I tend to just buy most of my non-grocery stuff online these days since I've gotten so frustrated with stores around here!