If Walmart is going to keep locking up items, the least they can do is have a better unlocking system, this frustrated husband said.
More and more people are taking to social media to share how bad the shopping experience has gotten as anti-theft measures become the norm at major retailers, grocery stores, and pharmacies.
One woman shared that the meat at her Walmart was literally locked up. And another Walmart shopper said it took nearly 40 minutes for someone to unlock a craft item for her.
Not only are retailers losing business in the moment, but they might be inadvertently directing dollars to their competitors. One person told the L.A. Times that while they’re not proud of it, if an item is locked at the store, “I’ll just give Daddy Bezos my hard-earned cash” and buy it on Amazon instead.
A broken system
In a viral video, Gary Cassibry (@garywcassibry) explains that he and his wife placed a delivery order with their Walmart+ account that was sitting at their doorstep. Yet, they still had to haul themselves to Walmart to buy an item that was missing for his wife.
Usually, that happens because an item is out of stock, but in this situation, it was because the Walmart worker literally couldn’t access it, Cassibry says.
Like everyone else trying to shop, the Walmart worker had to leave a product behind because it was behind lock and key.
Despite being dedicated shoppers for the brand, the employee didn’t have a key and couldn’t seem to get a fellow worker to help them in a reasonable amount of time.
Cassibry saw three “pickers” (the Walmart workers fulfilling delivery orders), but none of them could help them because they didn’t have keys or a way to page someone.
“You’ll have to go up to customer service,” they told him. Cassibry tried the help button, but it didn’t work.
“They need to make sure every picker has a key to every case in Walmart so they can be able to pick the items and deliver. It’s insane to me,” Cassibry says in the clip.
They eventually found a manager with keys, but she warned them that she might not be able to help since she might not have that specific key.
“If you gonna lock stuff up, you need to have keys to everything. I understand that there’s theft and stuff like that, but for the people that don’t steal, you’re making it harder on us,” Cassibry says.
Cassibry was confused why the item was even under lock and key since it wasn’t an expensive item. In fact, it was a Walmart-brand item that cost $4.
@garywcassibry #walmart #walmart+ #frustrating ♬ original sound – Gary W Cassibry
Corporations are getting out of hand
Retail corporations have largely taken these measures to combat organized retail crime (like the case of a California woman who stole nearly $8 million worth of beauty products to resell on Amazon). But everyone is facing the consequences.
Retailers know that this frustrates shoppers. They also know that it’s losing them money to the tune of a 10% to 25% loss in sales, the L.A. Times reported.
“These measures are last-ditch efforts,” David Johnston, vice president of asset protection and retail operations at the National Retail Federation, told the California paper.
New technology is underway that may ease some frustration, allowing customers to unlock cases themselves by scanning their faces or inputting their cellphone numbers. But that also brings in more concerns over the day-to-day tracking of people’s lives and turning them into data points.
This won’t be certain to solve the problem until it is tested with actual customers.
Customers react
“Pickers are timed and can be written up for not meeting that time limit and eventually fired. Keys are controlled and have to be signed out and in by each employee for their shift. Usually things that are locked get skipped by the picker and the supervisor who has a key is supposed to go back and get all the things the picker couldn’t find or access,” a commenter explained.
“I have given up on online ordering, stuff would say not in stock but when I walk into the store there is tons in stock,” a person said.
“We have Walmart plus but I order stuff to be delivered, from online not the store. Seems to go easier for us with this type of thing. Frustrating,” another wrote.
The Daily Dot reached out to Cassibry for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Walmart via email.
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