Locking up retailer merchandise can deter shoplifters and paying clients alike, in keeping with Walgreens.
The pharmacy chain’s CEO Tim Wentworth mentioned in Walgreens Boots Alliance’s first-quarter earnings name Tuesday that “Whenever you lock issues up … you do not promote as a lot of them. We have form of confirmed that fairly conclusively.”
Preserving retail merchandise beneath lock and secret’s a maneuver designed to thwart rising retail theft. Nevertheless it additionally irks — and turns away — would-be paying clients who haven’t got the persistence to attend for a retail clerk to retrieve items they want to purchase.
Walgreens and different retailers have needed to fight so-called “retail shrink,” or the lack of stock from causes aside from gross sales, Wentworth famous. The corporate took steps to safe extra merchandise after it discovered retail theft accounted for a rising share in shrink. Nevertheless, locking merchandise behind a see-through case has not proved efficient, he mentioned.
The corporate’s asset safety division is growing “inventive” options to battle retail theft, Wentworth mentioned Tuesday.
“I haven’t got something magnificent to share with you at present. It’s a hand-to-hand fight battle nonetheless, sadly,” Wentworth mentioned.
The corporate reported an working lack of $245 million for the quarter, in contrast with $39 million for a similar quarter one yr earlier.
Walgreens plans to shut a whole bunch of shops by the top of 2025 to show round its flagging gross sales. It has already closed roughly 2,000 areas over the previous decade and has “loads of expertise with retailer closures,” the corporate mentioned.
“Naturally, we count on our future footprint to help stronger efficiency,” Wentworth mentioned.
