As it turns out, a Walgreens store in Chicago has had it with the constant theft. They’re completely redesigning the standard shopping experience.
With anti-theft detectors at the door, the store chain decided to downsize their stores to just two aisles; whereas everything else will be behind the counter, effectively reducing the number of things one can actually steal in the store.
Limiting store inventory won’t do much
However, this is definitely going to impact the average, law-abiding Americans who just wanted to browse the store on their own without anyone handing them the products they need.
The change is likely not going to be well-received.
Walgreens in Chicago unveils anti-theft store in response to shoplifting
There are only 2 aisles in the entire store
Everything else needs to be ordered at a virtual kiosk pic.twitter.com/ebDwAt8hmf
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 2, 2023
However, these changes are only limited to one store in the South Loop Area of Chicago; though the new arrangement of the aisles doesn’t prevent shoppers from getting their groceries digitally.
One Walgreens spokesman explained the changes are only some of the improvements to the shopper experience that the store chain will be implementing, with a new focus on convenience and digital shopping.
That being said, it’s hard to hide the fact that the “improvements” were likely a response to the incredible amounts of theft previously happening in Chicago Walgreens stores. This inadvertently ruined grocery shopping for everyone else.
US of LOOTING – No More!
Chicago Walgreens Debuts New Anti-Theft Store—You Can Only Browse 2 Aisles. The Rest Of The Store Is Locked Away & needs to be ordered from a kiosk⚠️REACTIONS:
“I don’t understand why they had to move everything … There’s crime everywhere,” Gunn said.… pic.twitter.com/JGIlayOhLy— AGNEWSLIVE (@AMErikaNGIRLLL) June 2, 2023
The shopping experience is ruined
Instead of browsing endless aisles of products, shoppers will now be met with a white tablet where they can choose to pick up their orders and browse some of the products hidden behind the counter.
Of course, this does come with some form of convenience. It allows you to sit back and relax while the store staff fetches all the products you asked for from the warehouse or from behind the counter.
On the other hand, some of us really enjoy browsing the many aisles a store has to offer and it’s part of the fun of shopping for groceries.
Apparently Walgreens is testing, in Chicago, a “new” concept: almost all goods (save two aisles of “essentials”) behind a barrier, passed over it to the customer in response to an order entered on a kiosk.
This is almost a return to the retail experience of the late 1800s.
— Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) June 3, 2023
Without the ability to see what the store has to offer, finding something new is practically impossible; running into discounted products will be a thing of the past.
Even though this change will drastically reduce the amount of theft in the stores, Walgreens assured they won’t be lowering the amount of security, but rather, increasing it.
Company Chief Financial Officer James Kehoe believes security companies they’ve used in the past have been largely ineffective at doing their job; they’ll now focus on private security instead.
By increasing the amount of law enforcement in their stores, Kehoe believes theft will no longer be as present in Walgreens stores; although only time will tell how that will work out in the long run.
