2023-09-07 00:17:27
The latest concept supermarket from the Walgreens chain in Chicago is essentially short. It only consists of two aisles full of cheap products such as batteries, snacks, band-aids and basic range deodorants. The shelves are just over five feet tall. Any client is in sight and at the ends there are alarm systems. To make any other purchase, from a bottle of liquor to painkillers or a can of Coke, you must go to a digital screen or a clerk who will say “relax while we do the shopping for you” before disappearing into a store where all higher priced or non-house-label items are kept under lock and key.
The establishment is one of the so-called anti-theft businesses that are gaining more and more presence on the streets of the United States. Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Best Buy or Macy’s are some of the large chains that have embarked on this conversion, under the threat of gradual closure of their stores due to losses due to so-called retail theft. The classic practice of snatching up a perfume or soft drink has been elevated to an industrial scale. And it’s not a joke. This type of theft caused losses of almost 88,000 million euros in 2021, according to the latest report from the US National Retail Federation, which is about to publish the figures for 2022. Worse. They are expected to be close to 100,000 million. And this campaign will not improve. Merchants have detected an increase of 26.5% in organized crime around their businesses so far this year.
???????? | In California, United States, they steal and nobody can do anything after the law that decriminalizes the practice of robbery in stores with a value of less than four hundred dollars, which also prohibits the employees of a business from facing whoever wants to rob them. pic.twitter.com/JPwBab3CB3
– World Alert (@ AlertaMundial2) August 15, 2023
Walmart announced last December the closure of 17 franchises in nine states due to continuous thefts. Walgreens has closed five in San Francisco, three in Texas, two in Florida and one in Chicago after going out of business for the same reason. The images from the security cameras of this firm show a multitude of thefts, with people taking hidden items or in full view. Sometimes organized groups enter. To the race. They take what they need or what is within their reach and leave. Perhaps some do while a diversionary maneuver. It is not always necessary. In some cases, the security guards do not even intercept them. Macy’s also planned to lower the blinds of four stores in California, Colorado, Hawaii and Maryland during this first semester, in advance of a program to close 125 stores in three years.
Products stored in cabinets equipped with security display cases in a supermarket in the United States. AFP
The phenomenon has acquired extraordinary dimensions that nobody contemplated a decade ago. Today, access to expensive brands is more difficult. Prices have risen since the start of the war in Ukraine; a general trend also in Europe, but in the US the rise has meant that it rained on the wet ground of runaway inflation that, for example, has triggered interest rates even up to 5.50%. Millions of Americans fall short of pay. And the forecast is that it will continue like this for a long time.
Retailers, however, are looking more at other factors. The first of these is what they consider to be a soft judicial policy against petty crime. What in Spain is known as entering through one door of the court and leaving through another. California, for example, has implemented the ‘shoplifting’ figure that classifies thefts under 900 euros as a misdemeanor and usually resolves them with a fine and not with jail sentences to “guarantee that prison spending is focused in violent and serious crimes.
???????? | It’s not just that they steal, it’s that they steal with pride, they record themselves or are recorded while they do it and they don’t care because in Democratic cities they are literally allowed to. It’s asquientpic.twitter.com/xTxOCXb7c9
—Emmanuel Rincon (@EmmaRincon) September 5, 2023
A survey by the national federation among consumers reveals that they have become familiar with the practice of keeping products locked up or tied to the shelves with steel cables, as well as the obligation to request items from the cashiers, but 70% They acknowledge that robberies are a problem that worries them and that the Police and judges are too lenient with this crime (51%). The merchants maintain that this concern reduces their sales after detecting a transfer of customers who opt to make their purchases online from large suppliers due to the fear of entering a store that could be robbed with them inside.
On the other hand, the sector is witnessing a disproportionate increase in organized gangs that seize everyday products such as shampoos, soaps, detergents, toothpastes or packaged foods from well-known brands that have also perfected their techniques. They know what to steal, since they arrive with ‘shopping lists’, and frequently travel from one State to another to complicate their location or create a judicial mess with thefts in different jurisdictions with “unacceptable” thefts, “far above sustainability in the long term”, according to an executive from the Target firm, and they affect small neighborhood supermarkets as well as luxury establishments in Los Angeles.
Perfectly planned assault on a Nordstrom firm establishment in Los Angeles.
A video that has become popular in the United States shows about thirty hooded men who broke into a Nordstrom store in Los Angeles, sprayed the security guards with bear repellent and took dozens of bags and accessories valued at almost 300,000 euro. It happened before Christmas. High-end gifts at cheap prices. However, the assault that offers the best example of the impunity of the thieves is that of a Walgreens in Queens where an individual covered with a hood and a mask was able to melt a burglar-proof plastic box with a torch – similar to those used in Spain to store alcoholic beverages – before taking all its contents. The attacks and the risk that the offender is armed makes many workers choose to sit idly by.
retail world
Brands like Colgate, Dove, Pantene or Tide are disappearing from the shelves of general stores. They are kept in the warehouse, next to the cash registers or simply have to be ordered online. Whoever buys a Lego often buys the empty box so that they fill it with the pieces when they go to pay.
Other merchants have simply stopped selling certain brands to avoid robberies. A large Washington grocery store has removed all national brand health and beauty products from the aisles. Vitamin supplements, honey, coffee, hygiene material, meat trays, nuts or baby items are among the merchandise preferred by thieves. Most end up in the retail world or offered for sale outside the law on the internet, dubious flea markets and even foggy thrift stores. The most sophisticated networks are capable of modifying the barcodes of the articles, impersonating sales representatives and selling them to the retailers themselves.
A client manages to subdue a thief in Arizona. Yuma Sheriff’s Office
“In many cases, organized groups attack several stores in the same day,” says the sector, which suspects that “their profits finance other illegal activities, such as illegal drugs” or even the trafficking of immigrants or “the financing of terrorist networks.” ». Faced with this escalation, each one defends himself as he can. The Whole Foods chain has signs asking for the products to be ordered from the employer. Dollar Tree has also implemented a “very defensive approach” in its stores after its profits fell 30%.
Giant Food has hired more private security guards at its nearly 200 stores, closed secondary doors and blocked a large number of high-theft products, in exchange for spreading its own-brand items, unattractive on the illegal market. Concern has reached mayors, especially in smaller cities, who consider that in these communities the existence of a supermarket generates “prosperity” and is “important for public health purposes” since hundreds or thousands of people depend on it. They open the blind every morning.
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