Target Stores In California Now Have Every Single Product In The Store Behind Locked Cabinet To Prevent Theft
NY Post - A San Francisco Target store has been putting all of its cosmetic and toiletry products on lockdown amid a shoplifting crisis that has crippled retailers in the Golden Gate City.
Footage of the store’s interior posted to TikTok Thursday showed aisle after aisle of common drug store products under lock and key in the megachain. While it’s common for stores to lock up small valuable items like razors, heaps of inexpensive large items like mouthwash, shampoo and lotion were also being kept out of reach of the grubby hands of would-be shoplifters, the clip showed.
The cosmetic confinement had been underway since at least October last year at the Folsom Street store near the city’s Mission District, according to WNCT-TV.
“Like other retailers, organized retail crime is a concern across our business. We’re taking proactive measures to keep our teams and guests safe while deterring and preventing theft,” a Target spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.
The Bay Area has been especially hard hit by a national organized retail crime epidemic that ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading chains such as Walgreens to close five San Francisco stores due to theft. The National Retail Federation’s 2022 retail security survey ranked San Francisco/Oakland as the second-most hard-hit metropolitan area by theft in 2020 and 2021, only behind Los Angeles.
Target has been a trailblazer in the retail game since they hit the scene. They came along when your only options for running your next door neighbor mom & pop's out of business were like KMart and Walmart.
They played up the "classy" homegood shopping vibe, threw a few cougars in the mix, like that minx Martha Stewart
and landed the mega powers Chip and Joanna Gaines in a monster licensing deal.
Target had a great gameplan and formula and everything seemed to be going extremely well until the pandemic hit and people around the country decided to just stop paying for stuff.
In California's defense, this has been happening all over the place the last two years-
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Even Chicago
So Target raising the bar once again, and ensuring our shopping experience as customer's is taken to a new level is a very welcome sign. I realize this is only in San Fransisco right now but hopefully this rolls out nationwide soon.
You used to have to go to Saks Fifth Avenue, or Neiman Marcus or one of those snooty department stores where they made you feel like you're less of a human and unworthy of shopping there to get the kind of service Target will now be offering. Granted, their sales "associates" were usually following you around, or leading you around, to make things as awkward as humanly possibly and to ensure you didn't steal anything, but now, with all of Target's merchandise behind glass, it'll be the same experience.
Remember all those employees they were able to downsize thanks to making every fucking check out lane a self check out now?
Well bring them all back!
They need to be cabinet unlockers now.
p.s. - the SF Standard did one of those snopes fact check investigations on this to prove it wrong, but all they found was that the candy and shit by the check out wasn't behind glass. So they're calling bullshit on that I guess?