Walgreens CEO: “When You Lock Things Up… You Don’t Sell as Many of Them”

Why Walgreens’ anti-shop-lifting strategy backfired

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Storefront of a Walgreens Pharmacy building showing brand logo
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Published: January 21, 2025

Rhys Fisher

Tim Wentworth, CEO of Walgreens, has admitted that the company’s anti-shop-lifting measures may have contributed to lower in-store sales.  

The American pharmacy chain decided to place more items under lock and key in a bid to combat shoplifting and retail threats.  

In practice, this means that in-store customers needed to ask a member of staff to unlock a container every time they wanted to purchase/peruse certain items.  

These measures were introduced in response to a significant increase in ‘shrink’: the loss of inventory not accounted for by sales, which could include loss or theft. 

The issue was first raised in 2022 by the company’s former CFO, James Kehoe, who claimed that Walgreens’ shrink rate had increased by 52 percent in the previous decade.  

Speaking during the company’s Q1 earnings call, Wentworth admitted that the pharmacy giant was still having issues with shrink, describing it as a “hand-to-hand combat battle.” 

While he did not expound on whether the lock and key system had helped to decrease the shrink rate, he did state that it had negatively impacted sales:  

It does impact how sales work through the store because when you lock things up, for example, you don’t sell as many of them.  

“We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.” 

Locked Items = Poor CX

Unsurprisingly, Wentworth’s blunt remarks sparked a lot of debate among the customer service and experience community, with almost everyone agreeing that the decision to store more products behind lock and key is counterproductive to a good customer experience.  

In a Reddit thread on the topic, a number of customers shared examples of their own shopping experiences at Walgreens and other stores that operate similar shoplifting precautions.  

In a sentiment that was shared by many, a Reddit user named SecretPresentation54, wrote: 

“As soon as I see it’s locked up, I turn around and order it off Amazon. Sometimes right there in the aisle so I don’t forget.  

“I’m not paging someone or hunting an employee down for deodorant.” 

At a time when companies like Amazon can provide such a convenient service, one of the major CX advantages to in-store retail is the speed at which a customer can pick up an item. 

Adding this additional friction to the shopping journey is clearly frustrating customers. Even those who will persevere the first time this occurs have suggested that they will avoid stores operating a lock and key system moving forward.  

This point was summed up nicely by Reddit user, Naganobu, who wrote: 

Every time you add another roadblock between the customer getting the item, purchasing it and walking out is another opportunity for the customer to re-evaluate how badly they need the item and if there are alternatives elsewhere.

Another common complaint raised across the forums is the atmosphere that keeping items behind bars creates.  

Reddit user Denis026 described the “prison vibe” of their local Walgreens as a “turn-off,” while a user named MarthaGail wrote that they didn’t like being “treated like a thief.” 

This is another example of retailers shooting themselves in the foot.  

A further advantage of in-person shopping is the environment and aesthetic that stores are able to create to transform a shopping trip into a true experience.  

Being surrounded by locked-off shelves and frustrated employees rushing back and forth to open containers rather than being able to assist and offer support/recommendations is robbing both the customer and retailer of the enjoyment of customer service.  

Not Just a Walgreens Issue

As mentioned above, Walgreens is far from the first major retailer to decide to implement a lock and key shoplifting policy.  

study from September 2024 conducted by market research company Numerator found that in the previous 12 months, 61 percent of shoppers had noticed more products being secured behind locks. 

Of the 5,000 customers surveyed, over a quarter admitted abandoning their purchases when items were locked up, with 17 percent switching retailers, and 10 percent forgoing buying the item entirely. 

Interestingly, despite the negative comments, the pharmacy chain was actually one of the better-performing retailers in the survey when it came to assisting customers with accessing locked-up items, achieving a +12 percent net rating.  

While this may appear to be good news on the surface, given the criticism from customers and the company’s own CEO admitting that the move has been detrimental to Walgreens’ business, it highlights just how deep an issue this is across the retail space.  

Indeed, in a post on LinkedIn about Wentworth’s comments, Ted McCaffreya Top Retail Expert for RETHINK Retail – wrote:  “This approach is unsustainable…we all see it!”

Pascal Uffer, the Founder and CEO of retail company Boost Inc., was also critical of the approach, claiming that “retail loves to disrupt itself, and I mean it in a bad way.”

90 percent of ‘innovation’ is technology looking for a problem no one asked to solve.

“Cameras, smart sensors plus a sprinkle of AI: driving costs up and revenues down.”

Although it is encouraging to hear Wentworth admitting that locking up products has negatively impacted the customer experience, he did not provide any further details on how the company will look to rectify the issue. 

The only allusion to remedying the problem was a vague mention of a meeting with Walgreens’ Head of Asset Protection to discuss “some creative things” that relate to CX and shrink.  

It will be interesting to see whether this materializes into something more concrete moving forward, and how Walgreens’ actions could potentially impact the wider in-store retail customer experience.  

 

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