Shopping trips to places like Walmart have become less pleasant in recent years.
That has no negative impact on the retail atmosphere.
Instead, it’s the retailer’s way of forcing an end to massive product shrinkage — the name the woke mob gives to shoplifting.
More and more items, from expensive flea medications for dogs to basic hair care products, are being locked behind glass doors.
The specific items getting the lockdown treatment vary from store to store.
For example, Tracy has some items locked that Manteca doesn’t have, and vice versa:
It’s clear.
Retail theft hurts us all.
Yet it can be so difficult to deal with that it is putting more and more people off shopping at a specific store or shopping in person altogether.
You know the drill.
You want to buy an item as cheap as a $5 hair care product.
But there is a closed glass door that separates you from what you want.
So you press a button.
Then you wait. And wait. And wait.
Sometimes a clerk to whom Walmart has entrusted a key arrives quite quickly.
Usually this is a few minutes.
And there are more than a few times when it lasts 5 minutes or more.
One of three things happens.
Or you invest time in waiting.
You hunt for the Walmart clerk with the magic key.
Or you walk away and choose to stop at a competitor to purchase the product.
That doesn’t make you happy.
It doesn’t benefit Walmart either.
That said, technology is on its way to helping.
Walmart is testing ‘smart keys’ on smartphones to open display cabinets.
It is being used by Walmart associates at approximately 400 locations to test its effectiveness and troubleshoot problems.
If it works, the smart keys will be accessible to loyalty members.
Obviously, there’s technology involved that allows Walmart to track who’s opening businesses, right down to where they live, thanks to the data the loyalty program collects.
If the system proves effective, Walmart will roll it out to many, if not all, of their 4,600 stores.
Locking things behind glass doors is nothing new.
Walmart did it 30 years ago with everything from spray paint to Trac II razor cartridges.
But in recent years, as shoplifting and organized shoplifting skyrocketed, more and more products have been placed behind closed glass doors.
It’s not unusual for chains like Walgreens and CVS with locations in major cities like San Francisco to often keep the majority of their products locked up in some parts of their stores.
This is frustrating for paying customers.
And it is labor intensive – read as expensive – for the retailer.
The decriminalization of shoplifting in more “progressive” states led by California has become epidemic.
Of course, the powers that be at Wake say the numbers are exaggerated and there are other reasons for shrinkage losses via employee theft, breakages and the like.
But it is also true that shoplifting in California has become not only blatant but widespread.
It’s no wonder that Proposition 36 won by a landslide on Tuesday.
And to be clear, this is a measured adjustment from the thefts under $950, which had become merely citation-issuing events and not crimes.
It’s not a return to the Three Strikes, but rather locks them away for ten years after the third shoplifting.
Instead, a middle ground is needed for punishment that fits crimes.
As an added bonus, it adds criminal liability to those who traffic fentanyl if one of the people using what they supply dies.
If personal responsibility is anti-woke, then so be it.
To be clear, Walmart et al. aren’t just going after shoplifters.
They have changed the protocols and technology for self-checkout lines to address consumers who knowingly or unintentionally do not scan all items.
The solution reduces the maximum number of items one customer can scan.
This makes more efficient monitoring possible.
But the real winner is the technology that uses scales that require an item to be placed in a container before the next item can be scanned.
It’s frustrating at first.
But if you get used to it, like the system Food-4-Less uses, that’s no problem.
The change is not only good for the retailer’s bottom line, but also for the consumer.
All the losses a company incurs – just like the taxes they pay for things most of us can’t imagine – are summed up in the price of the goods we pay for.
And if the losses become too great for businesses to absorb, they could eventually close, causing communities to lose places to shop.
The only losers are those who use shoplifting to “earn a living” or to support substance abuse habits.
No one likes putting away products and having to drive a clerk to open cases.
And the fact that we need a smartphone to shop and participate in a customer loyalty program may not make us happy.
But the bottom line is that passive measures designed to reduce crime are the most cost-effective way to do so.
It also reduces problematic confrontations that could be unsafe.
Rest assured, there will always be criminals who can find ways to outsmart or game the system.
However, if the right amount of technology is paired with reasonable consequences, as Proposition 36 will mandate, we will hold the key to significantly reducing low-level crime.
And it’s low-level crime that affects us all.
If shoplifting is not brought under control, it will mean fewer options for law-abiding citizens.
The product blocking at the moment is sometimes more than difficult.
The smart key technology will reduce this to less than an adjustment to the way we shop.
It won’t be more intrusive on our shopping experiences than how you now have to scan items at Food-4-Less.
This column is the opinion of editor Dennis Wyatt and does not necessarily represent the views of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at [email protected]