With the peak gift-giving season of the year just around the corner, big box retailers are responding to increases in product theft with fewer items on the shelf and more stored under lock and key, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
A Best Buy store in suburban Houston served as an example of this phenomenon with “hundreds of items” stored away from customers’ hands and signage in the aisles replacing the products, which were previously secured through anti-theft devices such as plastic product cases or security wire wraps, the report said.
The new signs inform customers, “This product kept in secured location,” and direct shoppers to locate an employee to assist them.
Gary Pearce, a frequent Best Buy shopper, told the Wall Street Journal, “There used to be a lot more on the floor itself than locked up in cages.”
In January, CNN reported on a major spike in shoplifting and the “emergence of coordinated and organized robberies at high-value stores.”
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What a shame the honest people have to be inconvenienced because a few thieves, which probably should still be in jail, can’t control their sticky fingers
It’s a shame that good, honest, working people have to suffer because of a bunch of thugs that find it so much easier to steal instead of working for anything. There needs to be much stiffer penalties for thieves and it would slow some of it down.