Why drug stores lock their products behind plastic cases

The reason stores resort to locking these products is simple: to prevent shoplifting. But these decisions are far more nuanced and fraught for stores than you might think. Companies must walk a fine line between protecting inventory and creating stores that customers don’t dread visiting.

Shoplifting in America

Until the early 20th century, it was the norm to unlock products. When customers visited a store, clerks provided the items they wanted behind a counter.

This changed when the first self-service stores such as Piggly Wiggly in the early 1900s discovered that they could sell more goods and reduce costs by spreading goods on an open sales floor.

Although fewer in-store workers have boosted profits for chains in recent decades, it has in some cases led to stores not having as many visible personnel to deter shoplifting, crime prevention experts say.

Shoplifting has been around for centuries, but it “came of age in America in 1965,” writes author Rachel Shteir in “The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting.” The FBI in 1965 reported that it had jumped 93% over the previous five years and “was the nation’s fastest growing form of theft.”

Three years later, officials around the country said there had been a further increase in shoplifting by young teenagers. The trend became part of the counterculture, as exemplified by Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book” from 1971.

In response, an anti-shoplifting industry and corporate “loss prevention” (LP) and “asset protection” (AP) teams emerged. Technologies also emerged such as closed-circuit television cameras, electronic article monitoring and anti-theft tags.

“Hot Products”

Stores are looking to protect “the few essential” products that are most profitable for them to sell, said Adrian Beck, who studies retail losses at the University of Leicester. And they are willing to accept higher theft on “trivial lots” with a lower margin, he added.

Shoplifters target smaller items with higher price tags, often called “hot items,” which are usually what retailers unlock most often. A criminologist coined an apt acronym, CRAVED, to predict the highest-risk items: “concealable, moveable, accessible, valuable, enjoyable and disposable.”

The most stolen items in US stores include cigarettes, health and beauty products, over-the-counter medications, contraceptives, liquor, teeth whitening strips and other products.

Drug stores have a higher percentage of items that are “hot items,” so they have more things under lock and key than other retail formats, Beck said.

Organized retail crime

These include measures such as security tags on items that trigger alarms when someone leaves without paying. But this is less valuable than it used to be because alarms have become part of the general cacophony of shop noise and are often ignored.

Stores also use strategies such as shelves that allow a customer to take only one item at a time. This helps prevent shoppers from emptying an entire shelf of products.

Locking a product is the last step a retailer will take before removing it completely, and stores say they are resorting to this measure more often as theft continues to increase.

There is no national database on shoplifting, which is often underreported, and stores and prosecutors rarely prosecute.

Retailers say organized retail crime has only made their theft problems worse. Criminal gangs often try to steal products from stores that can be easily and quickly resold on online marketplaces such as Amazon and through other illegal markets.

“More products today are locked up because the problem has gotten so much bigger,” said Lisa LaBruno, senior executive vice president of retail operations at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “Criminal actors can steal large quantities of products and sell them anonymously.”

Amazon said it does not allow third-party sellers to list stolen goods and is working closely with law enforcement, retailers and other partners to stop bad actors.

“We regularly request invoices, purchase orders or other proof of purchase when we have concerns about how a seller may have obtained certain products,” a spokesperson said.

Irritated customers and lost sales

Shoppers today are more impatient. Someone will go out and buy the product on Amazon instead of hanging around for a worker.

“You’re trying to be as frictionless for the customer, but still prevent losses,” said Mark Stinde, a former vice president of asset protection for Kroger and other major retailers. “You get a lot of pushback from operations and sales teams to unlock things.”

Stores are working on new ways to unlock products while reducing customer frustration, such as a new type of case that any employee can open with a smartphone. Other cases require buyers to enter their phone number to open or scan a QR code.

“Consumers understand why you have to unlock a coat or jewelry. But they say, ‘why are we locking deodorant?'” said Jack Trlica, co-founder of trade publication LP Magazine.

Trlica expects companies to develop new technologies that protect products but don’t require flagging down an employee to unlock a shelf.

“There’s going to be an evolution of security products,” he said.