Walgreens CEO Discovers That Locking Things Up Keeps People From Buying Them
Have any of these executives ever actually worked retail?
In January of 2023, Walgreens finance chief James Kehoe said to investors in a year-end earnings call that “Maybe we cried too much last year” over shoplifting.
This was the correct assessment, especially given the fact that shoplifting was actually on a downward trajectory and the stores they supposedly closed in San Francisco had had, on average, two fewer shoplifting incidents a month since 2018.
Once again, another wise Walgreens executive has landed on another incredible revelation in a year-end earnings call: “When you lock things up … you don’t sell as many of them,” CEO Tim Wentworth told investors.
Wow! You think?
Via Fortune:
Wentworth also acknowledged the ongoing struggle with shrink as a “hand-to-hand combat battle.” After reporting a 52% increase in shrink, or lost inventory, in 2020 and 2021, Walgreens invested in increased security that proved to be “largely ineffective.” And while many drug stores have taken to locking up commonly looted goods, Wentworth admitted, “When you lock things up … you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.”
He hinted at “creative” solutions in development to tackle the shrink problem and improve in-store experiences—hopefully with a decrease in those pesky locks.
As a former retail worker I would be happy to let Walgreens and other retailers in on a super creative solution for reducing “shrinkage:” HIRE MORE PEOPLE!
There are no people working there! Any time I have been there in the last few years, it has taken me at least five minutes to get someone to open a case or help in some other way. That is annoying. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of their theft was due to people being extremely annoyed by the fact that they couldn’t find anyone to help them.
I don’t understand how they expect to sell anything at all if all of their merchandise is locked up and no one can find someone to unlock it.
There’s also the fact that Walgreens likely makes (made) a huge percentage of its sales from impulse buying, rather than people just going to the store and buying exactly what they need — and no one is going to do any impulse buying if things are locked up.
Quite frankly, I do not believe that these places are suffering as terribly from shoplifting as they say they are if they don’t have anyone on the floor. Customer service (just having sales associates around and available) is the best loss prevention method there is, so if you see no one in the store other than one cashier up in the front, that is because that company has decided that shrinkage costs them less than it would to hire people to prevent it.
The problem is, the locked-up merchandise doesn’t just impact Walgreens bottom line, it also impacts how people view the world and our society. Recently, I overheard a woman more or less claim that shoplifting was up because people aren’t as good and moral as they used to be. This is bullshit. In reality, crime has been on a downward trajectory for years (though you wouldn’t know it to look at our overcrowded prisons). In 2023, crime fell in every single major category (though you wouldn’t know it to listen to Fox News).
Currently, crime is as low as it was in 1965.
But boy, it sure does seem like crime is up! After all, look at all those locked cases! It’s scary out there!
The reason shoplifting is up is because A) stores don’t hire as many workers as they used to and B) It’s easier to sell things one steals online now. If you go over to Poshmark and look up ELF (a drugstore makeup brand that is great and also super cheap), there are tons of listings, many for more than the items cost in the store or on their website. That is it. It’s not because people are worse than they were before or because society is deteriorating, it is for some very basic, boring reasons.
This bullshit, however, is not without consequence. The fact that people felt as though crime was up — a feeling exacerbated, perhaps more than anything, by Walgreens locking everything up the way they did — was easily exploited by the Trump campaign, with Trump himself declaring that shoplifters should be shot on sight.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say they did it on purpose to get Trump elected. That would be insane, of course, but it would have been effective. People were furiously angry at shoplifters, whom they blamed for inflation, and then blamed Democrats for not being tough enough on crime.
This, again, is stupid, because it’s not the harshness of the crime that is a deterrence, it’s the likelihood of getting caught. Which, again, is why having more people working in your store makes it less likely people will steal from it. Look at Sephora! Sephora has far more expensive makeup that would go for a much higher price in resale, but their products aren’t locked up and online shoplifting forums consider them a very difficult place to steal from, because there are so many people working there, constantly checking to see if people need help. (Which, honestly, a lot of people do, but that is not a discussion for today.)
This whole thing has had a chilling effect on society at large. People looked at that and thought to themselves, “What have we come to when the Old Spice is locked up? Things must be really bad!” and it’s hard to blame them. Most people aren’t going to go “Looks like these cheapskates didn’t want to hire a few extra people to work here!” even though that’s what’s really going on here.
Walgreens is now closing stores all over the place, and they keep blaming the wrong things and the wrong people, when they should instead focus on why they keep getting it wrong. I can’t help but think they’d get it wrong a lot less if the people making these decisions were people who had actually worked retail at least once in their lives.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Well, don't I feel like a dipstick. 5 minutes before this post dropped, I gave Robyn an @ on BlueSky to make sure she'd seen the Walgreen's CEO saying this.
I really gotta have more faith in my Wonkette besties.
"Have any of this country's bosses ever worked retail?"
Knowing them, the better question is, "When was the last time they had to shop retail?"
Not their spouses or their assistants, but when was the last time they had to go into any store, not even their stores, to purchase something? 🤔🧐
My guess is that it's been awhile.