Without clicking is the answer people stealing and it ending up “fulfilled by Amazon”?
Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
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Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#12Quoted post unavailable.
What part of The Economist is "left"? What part of "organized retail crime" is not a "complicated conspiracy theory"? What makes "organized retail crime" a "transparently obvious" explanation?
Pretty sure Marx called upon workers to seize the means of protection to bring forth a new world odor.
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#13Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#14I'd wondered if someone figured out how to turn deodorant into meth, since they started protecting it like Sudafed even after Sudafed was removed from the Sudafed boxes sold as Sudafed (phenylphrine is not pseudoephedrine and is not effective). Sudafed, baby formula, deodorant, and razor blades, together could sound like a Jesse Pinkman shopping list before he found a high school chemistry teacher to help him. At the…
“Sudafed” labeled pseudoephedrine is still available for sale, I have some in my cabinet, bought this spring.
True, but it's more complicated to acquire and not available right off the shelf.
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#15Same in SF, I assumed it was because of the homelessness problem. Seems more likely than shoplifting gangs..
The homeless population (including those in shelters and cars) is < 1% of SF's population. Even if they used products at the same rate as the rest of the population and stole 100% of what they used, they would be responsible for less than half of retail shrinkage.
Homeless people steal stuff mostly not for their own consumption, but to sell it.
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#16I'd wondered if someone figured out how to turn deodorant into meth, since they started protecting it like Sudafed even after Sudafed was removed from the Sudafed boxes sold as Sudafed (phenylphrine is not pseudoephedrine and is not effective). Sudafed, baby formula, deodorant, and razor blades, together could sound like a Jesse Pinkman shopping list before he found a high school chemistry teacher to help him. At the…
“Sudafed” labeled pseudoephedrine is still available for sale, I have some in my cabinet, bought this spring.
Your comment doesn't refute my comment.
It's true they removed Sudafed from most (by and large all, except by request) boxes labeled Sudafed (sub-labeling them Sudafed PE), and PE is not effective. Many consumers never realized, and even if they do, they generally do not realize the substitute doesn't really work.
Thanks to https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/pseudo-brief112013.pdf in most states you cannot buy it off the shelf yourself (only behind the counter and often with ID), some locales it's prescription only, and it's only this year that Oregon started letting you get it without a prescription again:
“People shouldn’t be asked to visit a doctor to obtain a prescription for common cold medicine, especially when Oregon is the only state requiring a prescription," Post said in a statement when the bill passed. "We can trust Oregonians more than that.”
https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2022/01...
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#17Same in SF, I assumed it was because of the homelessness problem. Seems more likely than shoplifting gangs..
It always amazes me that people somehow attribute solid executive criminal function to a bunch of people who can't actually keep a roof over their heads.
The shoplifting "epidemic" has been due to organized gangs for quite a while as the increasing legality of marijuana is impacting their revenue streams.
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Sudafed” labeled pseudoephedrine is still available for sale, I have some in my cabinet, bought this spring.
Your comment doesn't refute my comment. It's true they removed Sudafed from most (by and large all, except by request) boxes labeled Sudafed (sub-labeling them Sudafed PE), and PE is not effective. Many consumers never realized, and even if they do, they generally do not realize the substitute doesn't really work. Thanks to https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/pseudo-brief112013.pdf in most states you cannot buy it off the…
I agree, my point was only that Sudafed today is not solely phenylephrine.
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#19The article says prosecutors don't go after these thefts but I'd think the issue is with the cops and the number of arrests. After the BLM protests of 2020 (George Floyd) cops basically went hands off on these so called minor crimes, and so I'd imagine many of them don't even make it to prosecutors. We'd need a graph of incidents and arrests for years prior to 2020 (or months in early vs late 2020) to see the change.
Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan
#20Without clicking is the answer people stealing and it ending up “fulfilled by Amazon”?
Well, the only company mentioned by name is eBay, which was used as a fence for 300k in stolen goods by a single couple.
So you could maybe make a case that Amazon makes it easier for retail theft, but you also have to seemingly ban all online retailing, which seems rather anticompetitive.