Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
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Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#2Talk about a downward spiral of terrible decisions. Cut staff and add checkout machines to save money. Customers start stealing (legit or not) so they lock down items behind glass, but have no staff to help customers so they see less sales! Wild.
I hope the shareholders who accepted these changes feel pain.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#3I certainly don't. I resent having to go find someone to unlock, and then being pressured to pick what I want when I haven't had a chance to review the product differences/prices etc.
The company near me that went long on this approach (Walgreens) also spent a small fortune recently on replacing glass refrigerator doors with giant screens to serve me adverts when what I want is a cool drink. It didn't work out well.
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/06/startups-tech-for-displa...
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#4But also 99 of 100 thieves won’t steal products in locked display cases.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#5I'm torn on this. First, yes, I find locked items obnoxious. Still not happy that the easy to find nasal medicine in many stores was found to be garbage.
That said, by the numbers here, it isn't clear how often people succeed at buying the item in another store. For a truly hilarious spin, you could think that having the item out where folks can touch things is itself the dark pattern that is encouraging people to buy things they don't need.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#6> “A year ago, America’s stores declared a shoplifting epidemic,” stated the CNN article. “This year, retailers are telling a very different story—or no story at all. It’s as if the shoplifting crisis suddenly vanished.”
Or maybe because they closed down a lot of stores which were the worst and then on the borderline stores, they put up all the locked cabinets. Maybe now the rates of shrink have been reduced. There's no data here to go either way on this, just pure speculation.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#7This being an opt in survey definitely makes the numbers suspect, but I agree with the sentiment at least.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#8> Dworsky acknowledged that the results might be skewing high because it was an opt-in survey that readers took rather than a random one, and said his audience tends to be “interested in consumer matters,” which may mean they have a lower threshold for consumer inconvenience.
Well, I'm not a reader of his survey and my general solution to inconveniences is to do something else also. That said, if my purpose of going to the store was to get that item I would try to find an employee to open it.
However, I might not go to that store again if I thought items I wanted were going to be locked. Nothings lock online :/
What should the stores do? Honestly, not too sure. I don't find getting receipt checked at costco a big deal so that's definitely an approach.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#9> “If I encounter a locked case, I’m not going to start looking for a store clerk going up and down every aisle or pressing the button and waiting for someone to come over,” Dworsky told Retail Brew. “But the fact that it was over 50% of people that felt the way I did? I was really surprised.”
You're surprised that bad customer service leads people away from the business providing it? This was a 101 problem. If you lock it, you need someone around to quickly unlock it, to satisfy your shoppers.
To me, locking it up was _never_ about shoplifting, but about reducing customer service to it's bare minimum while still utilizing monopoly control and government interference and mismanagement to maintain a position without any actual competition.
I mean, who _else_ but someone unconcerned with competition would even _think_ to lock up their products, as an _opening move_?
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#10“The whole thing has a whiff of pawnshop, which might actually be unfair to pawnshops.”
Totally unfair to pawnshops: small stores typically have good service. Goods are behind the counter, but there is a person staffing that counter typically every minute that the store is open. The liquor store keeps expensive beverages behind the counter. I don't hesitate to go there, because the clerk is always there to retrieve items behind the counter.
Go to Target, Home Depot, or CVS, and good luck finding anyone to help. I'm pushing a button and standing around helplessly, or asking a nearby employee who looks up quizzically and says "I don't have the key." If someone finally unlocks it, then they might have to escort the item across the huge store, where a cashier now has to get it and ring me up.
Unlike tiny stores, big box stores are based on self service. Remove the self-service and the whole concept falls apart.