One of the most commonly stolen items from retail locations is cosmetics. This is probably due to their relatively small size, making them a prime target for folks with sticky fingers who may want to nab a few tiny containers of beautification for themselves or two.
And it appears that at least one Walmart location isn’t taking any chances when it comes to its makeup offerings, according to this viral TikTok.
The video, which was uploaded by a user who goes by Sherrii (@thereal.sherriii), shows how an entire makeup aisle was put under lock and key in clear glass containers as if they were in a jewelry store.
Sherrii records herself walking through the aisle and testing the locked glass doors. “Yo, Walmart is standing on business. They not playing. They standing on big business, yo, it was not like this last week,” she says, laughing.
Another woman can be heard speaking off-camera in the video, who agrees with the TikToker’s sentiment: “It was not like this yesterday,” she says.
Commenters who saw the video were shocked to see the extent of the security measures implemented by the retail location. One person quipped, “Why i thought this was the frozen food section.”
Another viewer highlighted a nagging problem many Walmart shoppers seem to have with the chain: getting an employee to assist in accessing locked items is often a time-consuming experience. “And nobodys gonna be around to open the door,” they said.
This was a sentiment expressed by someone else who said: “It’s not even a lot of employees attentive enough for allat.”
“My pet peeve is workers don’t assist you fast. Like now im waiting 20+ for a worker to show up. Im gone,” another complained.
One Walmart shopper previously went viral on TikTok upon airing their grievances pertaining to this very phenomenon, stating that they left the store without buying anything because it was such a hassle to get a $4 battery from out behind its locked shelf.
Someone else joked that the extreme nature of the security measures enforced by Walmart is tantamount to having a store worker walking with you throughout every step of your shopping experience. “Might as well have a personal employee walking with you at this point,” they wrote.
Back towards the end of 2022, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said that the chain had been documenting more cases of theft than ever before and that locations with the highest rates of stolen goods would be inevitably shut down if the trend didn’t change.
A few months later in Spring 2023, it was announced that 17 different Walmart locations across 9 different states were shut down: four of them in Chicago.
There have been other retailers that have purportedly been afflicted with a persistent epidemic of thievery, like Target, which has also put its products under lock and key at various locations, shoppers complained.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Walmart via email and Sherrii via TikTok comment for further information.
