You mean that Target wasn't closing stores because of theft after all?! I'm shocked.
I’ll give Target a bit of lee at here because they were only there first to admit they were wrong, they also shared a bunch of data about how their shrink calculation methodology, which much of the retail sector shares, is flawed.
I have worked for target. Their logistics methodology is incredibly on point. They are highly invested in getting things right, if no other reason, for the sake of their own profitability.So as there are being open, they have some credibility here, I would say, especially given that others here are so closed. This interest certainly serves their profit motive as much as it services our our motive. 
There is, at least, for now, no reason to distress them.
Let's practice this together, folks. "Corporations never put their employees or customers ahead of profits."
If you believed them at their word, you'd be wrong.
Target: logistics methodology....
laughs in Canadian
No they don't.
laughs in Canadian
eh eh eh
Canadian vampire counting
Canadian logistics sucks in general because Canada is one of the worst places, in terms of how population is scattered, to deliver any goods to.
As a result, Canadian drivers often get US transport authority so they can make more money, but American drivers will rarely get Canadian authority.
No, not really. 2/3rds of the population lives along the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence River. The only out of the way centers are Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. But goods coming from Asia are going through those anyways.
Target executives were explicitly told by HBC executives that their logistics weren't up to par, before the company moved up here.
I have friends who worked for Target here who described their logistics as a bad joke. And they work for the government now in logistics.
I worked in logistics for years and ran a decent amount of international (both from ports and into Canada). I'm commenting about why Canadian logistics, not Target specifically, is tougher than it otherwise would be
I'll take your word on things regarding Target specifically for sure, because it isn't my forte. Looking at your post, the Canadian gov probably knew their infrastructure wasn't up to the different challenge from the jump.
HBC is Hudson's Bay Company. Not the government.
Target has for the last 15 years or so owned a controlling share of the company hence the high degree of cooperation.
Ahhh makes sense. Also makes sense how they'd understand the realities of logistics there to a much greater degree than Target. Here's hoping their influence helps.
Oh it didn't because it was ignored. Target's expansion into Canada failed roughly 8 months after they launched, mainly on a complete logistical failure and that they tried to charge us more than the exchange rate suggested.
Economies of scale. Canada has a population of 39 million spread across a very large geographic area. Compared to other G-7 countries, retailers don’t benefit from economies of scale in Canada unless they operate across the entire country. A regional operator in the northeast U.S., for example, has a potential market of more than 125 million, while a regional operator in Canada is lucky to have a potential market of 15 million.
Probably doesn't help though
Theft clearly doesn't affect their overall profits considering how many chains have had record profits.
Looking at you Walmart
Of course it affects it.
Not meaningfully
Depends where you set the bar. Does it make it more likely that certain locations are closed? Probably.
Let me guess. The stores they closed tried to unionize, so they made up some shit about shoplifting.
This, with a generous side of pushing right wing narratives about urban crime panic because they think it will help Republicans win.
And yet this was all done by the "national Retain Federation".
Literally complain, yell, cry, and fire people because of unions and yet they are in a corporate Union themselves.
Unions work.
I thought it was just because real estate is expensive af now
I'm not going to trust "boingboing.net", but that's just me
Boing boing .net has been a reputable site for years. I think it started as a blog for author and journalist Cory Doctorow, but has become a news site of its own. The recent term enshittification was coined by Doctorow.
A pro-gun lawyer was shot by his own weapon while visiting a hospital when a powerful magnetic field from an MRI scanner set the pistol off.
Leandro Mathias de Novaes was taking his mother for a scan at the Laboratorio Cura in Sao Paulo in January and entered the facility with a concealed handgun.
Despite warnings from staff to remove jewellery and metal objects in the MRI room, Mr Mathias kept his weapon on his waistband.
The magnetic field from the machine was so strong that the weapon was pulled from his waist and fired off a round, which hit him in his stomach.
The 40-year-old Brazilian was treated in hospital for more than two weeks before he died from his wounds.
Don't fuck around with MRIs. Magnets don't care.
When you go into an MRI room you hear this weird but very distinct sound from the liquid helium pumps keeping the giant superconducting magnets near absolute zero.
Then when it runs, the vibrations from the current being pushed through the gradient coils is significant enough that you need hearing protection.
It’s serious business in there. But it lets us see inside our bodies without incisions or ionizing radiation, so it’s also awesome. But jeez some people and their guns.
I’ve had two and recall an eerie feeling but the only noise I remember was some clanking. Maybe my mind is just shot. Is the noise you are referring to just when they are first starting things up?
The pump sound is always there and never changes. However, maybe you don’t hear it in some facilities with different layouts. I’ve used a few facilities and always heard it.
For the loud noises from the vibration, that happens while they’re actually doing the scans. Different portions of the scan create distinct sounds, though I don’t know which sound goes to which measurements. There’s gotta be a YouTube video about it.
The sounds have a harsh buzz to their tone, like somebody is playing sound effects through a Tesla coil.
I’ve told people that getting an MRI, particularly one where you need to go head-first into the tube, can feel like an alien abduction!
Holy shit, boingboing.net?
That's a site I haven't heard of in a long time.
It was one of the first websites I remember regularly visiting in the 90s, and looks like they haven't changed much since.
The only meaningful theft, by the numbers, is wage theft.
ITT: People who haven't been on the internet long enough to know what BoingBoing is.
I'm old.
If you know what BoingBoing is, your knees probably crackle when you squat and stand.
Yup. I also groan when I sit down. You just had to call me out, didn't you?
At least a decade old and still has a better reading experience than that "paid" news sites.
It really went downhill when Doctorow left
Damn you had to come for me like that
I feel seen
I wonder how Slashdot is doing...
Looks like it's still going strong, but each article has like 15 comments. And the poll has a CowboyNeal option...
3 digit UID here, I still visit daily but rarely comment
I have a 5 digit UID, and I just checked that I can still log in. Looks like my most recent comment was in November of 2015, which is a lot later than I would have guessed.
I visited a few times right after the reddit blowup, while checking out other options for this sort of thing. I might have to go back more.
I doubt I could log in now, since I haven't for so long
Edit to add: nope. Browser doesn't know, password manager doesn't have it, and it's not tied to the oldest email address I still use :(
Oh wow, forgot about Slashdot...
Fark, Slashdot, and BoingBoing were pretty much my daily go-to in the pre-Digg/reddit internet
I skipped the Digg era. I didn't join reddit until probably 2015, after I kept coming across extremely useful information there that wasn't available elsewhere. I think it was the advice on what to do with asbestos that finally tipped it over for me.
I was an early reddit adopter. I preferred its hyper minimalist style, as well as the type of conversations I saw, to Digg at the time. Well before the whole Digg 2.0 debacle.
Remember when Cracked was good?
Fuck Auntiememe
If you liked that and aren't aware of Some More News channel on YouTube, then... well you're welcome I guess?
I’m tired, boss.
It's one of those new upstart weblogs right
I remember getting something I did linked to on BoingBoing back in the day and I felt like I was famous for a little while.
Yeah I think i was visiting Boing Boing on the regular a couple decades ago or nearly so.
I was just thinking about 1up the other day
This turning out to be true is unsurprising, but if it were, follow it to its logical conclusion and you would see large retailers lobbying the government to increase wages. Like, we live in a fucking police state, the problem is not that we're suddenly an outlaw country, the problem is that people don't make enough money or have enough safety nets to live. It's the same with all of the "Americans feel bad about the economy even though the dow is up, why?" Well, because we can't afford housing and groceries. Simple fucking problem.
Those stock indexes only show how the top corporations are doing. A company gets removed from the index if it performs poorly and is replaced by another company that has increasing stock price. The markets as it is displayed in media only show how corporations are doing. So basically the ruling class is selling economic performance to everyone else to keep people in line and their heads securely on their bodies.
I was looking at Bidens approval rating compared to other presidents on 538 and it's crazy seeing the last time this really was so bad, aside from Trump, was the Great Depression...which says alot about the disconnect today spouting Dow successes but normal people struggling to stay afloat.
No one is going to do that, because if the peasants have more then the nobility can't mock them for being lesser.
They’re all insured for these kinds of losses anyway (I used to work in big box retail operations).
Insurance isn't going to cost less than what they're losing. It just smooths out the losses and avoids any surprises.
They’re self insured for this… and it’s priced into the products they sell.
What do you suppose "self insured" means?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for sticking it to big corporations, but we could just be honest about what we're saying: I don't care if shoplifting costs retailers money.
You're 100% right on the second point, though, they anticipate some amount of shrinkage when setting prices.
Don't worry, people will completely ignore the retraction and continue to blame their fellow poor people (just not themselves) for the outrageous behavior of our corporations.
Kind of like how any game developer who says that piracy is the reason that they failed financially, even though some of the greatest games of all time are the ones that get pirated the most.
Does this qualify as a news article?
It's a parody website, I'm a bit surprised it isn't marked as such as people seem to think otherwise
Going to leave my comment but I am thoroughly impressed that this is not a parody.
Thank you for the link! I am so used to seeing headlines like this that read like a joke. I stand very corrected
They are talking about organized retail theft. Individuals stealing still could make up a large amount of loss. Article doesn't seem clear to me on that point.
Stores have insurance to protect them against theft.
Having insurance isn't a free money glitch. Insurance companies wouldn't be able to operate if the insurance didn't cost more than the claim payouts.
And the more they use the coverage, the more it costs.
Have you ever filed claims against your home or auto insurance? Even when it was fully in policy and not your fault, your rates likely spiked.
And the more they use the coverage, the more it costs.
Oh no! Anyway…
Costs running high means something isn't as profitable. Meaning they might close a store.
Why don't you care what happens to poor people?
You think a corporation wil just eat those costs? Not a chance, they're going to raise the prices on you and all of your neighbors to compensate.
Yes, I'm well aware corporations never miss an opportunity to fuck people over.
Then what was the point of your previous comment? Theft has a real and measurable impact on your community.
They literally closed those stores without actual theft issues. You think they're gonna reopen them now that they've admitted they were lying? Of course not. Sounds like imaginary theft has a ReAl aNd MeSUrAbLe impact on my community too. Fuck 'em.
I never commented about Target closing or reopening stores. My comment was relating to insurance not just being free money that covers bad stuff happening. There's also such a thing as being uninsurable.
I'm all for bashing corporate greed but claiming theft isn't a big deal because they have insurance is a bad take.
Let's take a step back from this pointless argument. Shrink rates have been between 1-2% for arguably forever. Retailers currently are aghast that their shrink losses went from $90 billion to $120 billion! Yikes! That sounds like a big increase!
Yet, that shrink percentage has not significantly increased. It's been around 1.5% for a few years now. Doesn't that make you wonder though? If the percentage of shrink loss isn't increasing, how are the losses increasing 33%? And even more perplexing is, how are these companies posting record profits? Quarter after quarter their profits are increasing as much as 6% even with these record breaking shrinkage losses.
It's almost as if they have taken advantage of the publics attention of COVID era inflation, and price gouged the retail market. It's like they priced their products 33% higher than they were, in order to make record profits, and those higher prices can easily be conflated into record shrinkage losses.
Weird. I'm sure that can't be what's happening though. My always friendly Walmart has always been set on giving me the cheapest prices possible. They couldn't be trying to change the narrative to make it seem like customers are thieves. They love their customers, and would never patronize them for something as greedily evil as a drop in their revenue bucket.
Why are so stores spending so much money and labor redoing stores to add locked shelving display units for basic goods?
The cost of the shelving and maintenance increases, and the required labor increases because every customer will need an employee to unlock the displays every time they need an item like video games in the 90s.
Stores don't want to lock up toothpaste and bottle neck their sales but they're doing it en masse, why is that?
If you walk into basically any CVS in America, you'll notice the number of employees working the floor is inversely proportional to the amount of merchandise locked behind plastic cases. It's far more cost efficient for the corporation to just pay fewer employees and lock up as much of the high-margin merch as possible.
Without a doubt, they lose sales because of this tactic, but they also have less overhead and almost nonexistent theft. I don't think this trend came as a result of high levels of shoplifting, it was just the inevitable outcome of corporate cost-cutting practices. The companies won't hesitate to blame these decisions on rising levels of theft and organized crime, though, as if the act of shoplifting isn't as old as commerce itself. It's not a new problem, it's just a new convenient solution that saves the retail giants a ton of money.
And even more perplexing is, how are these companies posting record profits?
Your amount of profit is not necessarily tied to your pricing. With 0 change in pricing, you can make more money by simply selling more things.
Stores like target will charge whatever they can, do you think target is saying well we could charge more but we won't to be nice but now that shit is getting stolen we're going to increases prices to make up for it.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that prices are at least partially a result of the cost of doing business.
What's part of the cost of doing business? Theft. Estimated shrink rates are factored into profit forecasting.
It's factored into profits but that doesn't mean it's going to change the price. The reason cost is a factor is because competitors can't charge lower than what it costs for the product. But when you have online as a competitor then things like cost of stolen items have less of an impact because you need to compete with them or other chains who have figured out how to prevent theft at a cheaper cost than you.
Wait are you telling me insurance is a scam because if you ever need to use it it'll cost more money? That's crazy dude, I feel so awful for the massive multimillion dollar companies that are forced to pay for it...
Enjoy paying higher prices for everything and having to track down every time you want to purchase an item when they lock all the shelves.
Not sure where you live but it's getting really old seeing toothpaste and basic necessities getting locked up like video games in the 90s.
I mean as you yourself noted they are already locking up stupid shit like toothpaste. Nobody is fuckn stealing enough toothpaste to effect profits. Hell I'm not sure who would even bother stealing toothpaste, it's not exactly expensive. Saving yourself like a buck at most by not buying the cheap (just as effective) stuff.
And I'm not advocating for theft sheesh. I just think it's funny that the oh so wonderfully for profit insurance companies fuck over retailers too. I was trying to comment about how insurance is maybe kind of a scam...
I'll also note that there isn't actually a widespread theft problem. Stores aren't locking up toothpaste because people are stealing it more than they used to. There were a few places, notably New York which did some really stupid shit with petty crime essentially just publicly saying they weren't gonna deal with it that caused a lot of problems but by and large toothpaste isn't locked up because people are stealing it. The company is just a dick
It's not that the toothpaste itself is the high theft item, it's just easier to lock the whole shelf rather than specific items. Notably items like Razor blades have crazy high theft rates and are usually near the toothpaste, causing them both to be locked up.
Check out some metropolitan areas for a preview of what's coming to a store near you. Denver has been locking stuff up for years already.
"I hate Amazon and Jeff Bezos! Anyway, watch me steal from this store."
Lemmy users.
Why wouldn't I steal petty shit from a large chain store like Walmart? They stole living wages from workers in many communities, they stole the diversity of local businesses that used to be in many communities, most importantly they steal from every single one of us by not paying a genuinely fair share back to the society they profit off of in terms of taxes. Sorry, not gonna feel bad for stealing some toothpaste, especially when it is a store that fired all the cashiers and has one person frantically running around helping people in a sea of obnoxious self checkout machines that all blare the same audio loop out over and over and over again.
Why wouldn’t I steal petty shit from a large chain store like Walmart?
Drives prices up for other people on your community
At first they thought at first it was greedflation, that it was the 1% siphoning off all the profits from the economy to shareholders, they thought it was massive corporations hedging families out of the housing market, austerity and lack of social safety net.... but the whole time it was ME stealing toothpaste from walmart, slowly undercutting the heart of america. They didn't realize until it was too late, I had become too powerful. I have a whole bathroom full of stolen toothpaste tubes and I am ready.
If you think shoplifting doesn't cause prices to go up, you're just wrong, man. Yes, there can be, and are, other factors, too.
Me, I prefer to not contribute to the problem.
It literally doesn't, that is the whole point of this discussion? I am telling you, there is zero mathematical/economic evidence that shoplifting even registers as a problem worth investing time and energy into for massive corporations. They do invest time and energy, but it is because the narrative is useful to them. That is what this is about, it is about a story. Not economics, not math, not hard cold reality, it is about a narrative that emotionally engages you and gets you upset. It is about a story that rationalizes the world for you in a way that directs your anxiety and fear. There is zero scientific grounding in your beliefs about shoplifting, it might as well be a spiritual or religious belief you hold and just the way people will try to take advantage of you by preying upon your spiritual beliefs, so will corporations and politicians try to take advantage of you by preying upon your belief that shoplifting actually matters to economic behemoths that shape and undermine our entire economy.
Literally THE ENTIRE point of being a massive chain is that random noise like shoplifting disappears into the overwhelming roar of economies of scale.
Well, ease of regulatory capture is another bonus but that just strengthens my argument...
I am telling you, there is zero mathematical/economic evidence that shoplifting even registers as a problem
Stores invest millions in anti-theft security, in technical, logistical, and physical ways. All of those things cost money.
Stores make money by selling things.
Literally THE ENTIRE point of being a massive chain is that random noise like shoplifting disappears into the overwhelming roar of economies of scale
That's not the entire point of it at all. Efficiency is.
That type of knee jerk conjecture is really weak. The data collected on shrinkage, as noted in the linked Reuter's article, is noisy. You can't differentiate lose due to theft or shipping mistakes or cliericsl error.
More importantly, and not mentioned directly in the boingboing article, was the cited number of rising organized theft was based upon an analyst from a security firm. The report was created in partnership with that firm. With the recent redaction, there is no mention of that firm.
You mean that Target wasn't closing stores because of theft after all?! I'm shocked.
I’ll give Target a bit of lee at here because they were only there first to admit they were wrong, they also shared a bunch of data about how their shrink calculation methodology, which much of the retail sector shares, is flawed.
I have worked for target. Their logistics methodology is incredibly on point. They are highly invested in getting things right, if no other reason, for the sake of their own profitability.So as there are being open, they have some credibility here, I would say, especially given that others here are so closed. This interest certainly serves their profit motive as much as it services our our motive.  There is, at least, for now, no reason to distress them.
Let's practice this together, folks. "Corporations never put their employees or customers ahead of profits."
If you believed them at their word, you'd be wrong.
Target: logistics methodology....
laughs in Canadian
No they don't.
eh eh eh
Canadian vampire counting
Canadian logistics sucks in general because Canada is one of the worst places, in terms of how population is scattered, to deliver any goods to.
As a result, Canadian drivers often get US transport authority so they can make more money, but American drivers will rarely get Canadian authority.
No, not really. 2/3rds of the population lives along the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence River. The only out of the way centers are Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. But goods coming from Asia are going through those anyways.
Target executives were explicitly told by HBC executives that their logistics weren't up to par, before the company moved up here.
I have friends who worked for Target here who described their logistics as a bad joke. And they work for the government now in logistics.
I worked in logistics for years and ran a decent amount of international (both from ports and into Canada). I'm commenting about why Canadian logistics, not Target specifically, is tougher than it otherwise would be
I'll take your word on things regarding Target specifically for sure, because it isn't my forte. Looking at your post, the Canadian gov probably knew their infrastructure wasn't up to the different challenge from the jump.
HBC is Hudson's Bay Company. Not the government.
Target has for the last 15 years or so owned a controlling share of the company hence the high degree of cooperation.
Ahhh makes sense. Also makes sense how they'd understand the realities of logistics there to a much greater degree than Target. Here's hoping their influence helps.
Oh it didn't because it was ignored. Target's expansion into Canada failed roughly 8 months after they launched, mainly on a complete logistical failure and that they tried to charge us more than the exchange rate suggested.
A couple of regions aren't enough to make it worthwhile, at least according to an article I read recently.
From the link:
Probably doesn't help though
Theft clearly doesn't affect their overall profits considering how many chains have had record profits.
Looking at you Walmart
Of course it affects it.
Not meaningfully
Depends where you set the bar. Does it make it more likely that certain locations are closed? Probably.
Let me guess. The stores they closed tried to unionize, so they made up some shit about shoplifting.
This, with a generous side of pushing right wing narratives about urban crime panic because they think it will help Republicans win.
And yet this was all done by the "national Retain Federation".
Literally complain, yell, cry, and fire people because of unions and yet they are in a corporate Union themselves.
Unions work.
I thought it was just because real estate is expensive af now
I'm not going to trust "boingboing.net", but that's just me
Boing boing .net has been a reputable site for years. I think it started as a blog for author and journalist Cory Doctorow, but has become a news site of its own. The recent term enshittification was coined by Doctorow.
You may be right but when I read headlines like this: A woman took her gun to an MRI appointment. It shot her in the ass.
it makes it hard to take boingboing seriously.
edit: strong opinions about boingboing lol. I guarantee half of you who are downvoting have no clue whether its a reputable source.
It's an actual story though.
Thats happens fairly often because people are stupid as fuck.
Another source butt shot lady:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/woman-shot-in-butt-after-sliding-into-mri-machine-with-loaded-firearm/ar-AA1laLzt
Some guy even died earlier this year:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/10/pro-gun-lawyer-shot-gun-mri-scanner-dies/
Don't fuck around with MRIs. Magnets don't care.
When you go into an MRI room you hear this weird but very distinct sound from the liquid helium pumps keeping the giant superconducting magnets near absolute zero.
Then when it runs, the vibrations from the current being pushed through the gradient coils is significant enough that you need hearing protection.
It’s serious business in there. But it lets us see inside our bodies without incisions or ionizing radiation, so it’s also awesome. But jeez some people and their guns.
I’ve had two and recall an eerie feeling but the only noise I remember was some clanking. Maybe my mind is just shot. Is the noise you are referring to just when they are first starting things up?
The pump sound is always there and never changes. However, maybe you don’t hear it in some facilities with different layouts. I’ve used a few facilities and always heard it.
For the loud noises from the vibration, that happens while they’re actually doing the scans. Different portions of the scan create distinct sounds, though I don’t know which sound goes to which measurements. There’s gotta be a YouTube video about it.
The sounds have a harsh buzz to their tone, like somebody is playing sound effects through a Tesla coil.
I’ve told people that getting an MRI, particularly one where you need to go head-first into the tube, can feel like an alien abduction!
Holy shit, boingboing.net?
That's a site I haven't heard of in a long time.
It was one of the first websites I remember regularly visiting in the 90s, and looks like they haven't changed much since.
That's cool.
Been hanging in there, all the way from when they were in print in the late 80's. https://i.imgur.com/4yMYB1u.png
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
I don't know why they post the boingboing piece when it links to a much better Reuter's article.
The only meaningful theft, by the numbers, is wage theft.
ITT: People who haven't been on the internet long enough to know what BoingBoing is.
I'm old.
If you know what BoingBoing is, your knees probably crackle when you squat and stand.
Yup. I also groan when I sit down. You just had to call me out, didn't you?
At least a decade old and still has a better reading experience than that "paid" news sites.
It really went downhill when Doctorow left
Damn you had to come for me like that
I feel seen
I wonder how Slashdot is doing...
Looks like it's still going strong, but each article has like 15 comments. And the poll has a CowboyNeal option...
3 digit UID here, I still visit daily but rarely comment
I have a 5 digit UID, and I just checked that I can still log in. Looks like my most recent comment was in November of 2015, which is a lot later than I would have guessed.
I visited a few times right after the reddit blowup, while checking out other options for this sort of thing. I might have to go back more.
I doubt I could log in now, since I haven't for so long
Edit to add: nope. Browser doesn't know, password manager doesn't have it, and it's not tied to the oldest email address I still use :(
Oh wow, forgot about Slashdot...
Fark, Slashdot, and BoingBoing were pretty much my daily go-to in the pre-Digg/reddit internet
I skipped the Digg era. I didn't join reddit until probably 2015, after I kept coming across extremely useful information there that wasn't available elsewhere. I think it was the advice on what to do with asbestos that finally tipped it over for me.
I was an early reddit adopter. I preferred its hyper minimalist style, as well as the type of conversations I saw, to Digg at the time. Well before the whole Digg 2.0 debacle.
Remember when Cracked was good?
Fuck Auntiememe
If you liked that and aren't aware of Some More News channel on YouTube, then... well you're welcome I guess?
I’m tired, boss.
It's one of those new upstart weblogs right
I remember getting something I did linked to on BoingBoing back in the day and I felt like I was famous for a little while.
Yeah I think i was visiting Boing Boing on the regular a couple decades ago or nearly so.
I was just thinking about 1up the other day
This turning out to be true is unsurprising, but if it were, follow it to its logical conclusion and you would see large retailers lobbying the government to increase wages. Like, we live in a fucking police state, the problem is not that we're suddenly an outlaw country, the problem is that people don't make enough money or have enough safety nets to live. It's the same with all of the "Americans feel bad about the economy even though the dow is up, why?" Well, because we can't afford housing and groceries. Simple fucking problem.
Those stock indexes only show how the top corporations are doing. A company gets removed from the index if it performs poorly and is replaced by another company that has increasing stock price. The markets as it is displayed in media only show how corporations are doing. So basically the ruling class is selling economic performance to everyone else to keep people in line and their heads securely on their bodies.
I was looking at Bidens approval rating compared to other presidents on 538 and it's crazy seeing the last time this really was so bad, aside from Trump, was the Great Depression...which says alot about the disconnect today spouting Dow successes but normal people struggling to stay afloat.
No one is going to do that, because if the peasants have more then the nobility can't mock them for being lesser.
They’re all insured for these kinds of losses anyway (I used to work in big box retail operations).
Insurance isn't going to cost less than what they're losing. It just smooths out the losses and avoids any surprises.
They’re self insured for this… and it’s priced into the products they sell.
What do you suppose "self insured" means?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for sticking it to big corporations, but we could just be honest about what we're saying: I don't care if shoplifting costs retailers money.
You're 100% right on the second point, though, they anticipate some amount of shrinkage when setting prices.
Don't worry, people will completely ignore the retraction and continue to blame their fellow poor people (just not themselves) for the outrageous behavior of our corporations.
Kind of like how any game developer who says that piracy is the reason that they failed financially, even though some of the greatest games of all time are the ones that get pirated the most.
Does this qualify as a news article?
It's a parody website, I'm a bit surprised it isn't marked as such as people seem to think otherwiseGoing to leave my comment but I am thoroughly impressed that this is not a parody.
No it isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing
Cory Doctorow even used to be an editor.
Thank you for the link! I am so used to seeing headlines like this that read like a joke. I stand very corrected
They are talking about organized retail theft. Individuals stealing still could make up a large amount of loss. Article doesn't seem clear to me on that point.
Stores have insurance to protect them against theft.
Having insurance isn't a free money glitch. Insurance companies wouldn't be able to operate if the insurance didn't cost more than the claim payouts.
And the more they use the coverage, the more it costs.
Have you ever filed claims against your home or auto insurance? Even when it was fully in policy and not your fault, your rates likely spiked.
Oh no! Anyway…
Costs running high means something isn't as profitable. Meaning they might close a store.
Why don't you care what happens to poor people?
You think a corporation wil just eat those costs? Not a chance, they're going to raise the prices on you and all of your neighbors to compensate.
Yes, I'm well aware corporations never miss an opportunity to fuck people over.
Then what was the point of your previous comment? Theft has a real and measurable impact on your community.
They literally closed those stores without actual theft issues. You think they're gonna reopen them now that they've admitted they were lying? Of course not. Sounds like imaginary theft has a ReAl aNd MeSUrAbLe impact on my community too. Fuck 'em.
I never commented about Target closing or reopening stores. My comment was relating to insurance not just being free money that covers bad stuff happening. There's also such a thing as being uninsurable.
I'm all for bashing corporate greed but claiming theft isn't a big deal because they have insurance is a bad take.
Let's take a step back from this pointless argument. Shrink rates have been between 1-2% for arguably forever. Retailers currently are aghast that their shrink losses went from $90 billion to $120 billion! Yikes! That sounds like a big increase!
Yet, that shrink percentage has not significantly increased. It's been around 1.5% for a few years now. Doesn't that make you wonder though? If the percentage of shrink loss isn't increasing, how are the losses increasing 33%? And even more perplexing is, how are these companies posting record profits? Quarter after quarter their profits are increasing as much as 6% even with these record breaking shrinkage losses.
It's almost as if they have taken advantage of the publics attention of COVID era inflation, and price gouged the retail market. It's like they priced their products 33% higher than they were, in order to make record profits, and those higher prices can easily be conflated into record shrinkage losses.
Weird. I'm sure that can't be what's happening though. My always friendly Walmart has always been set on giving me the cheapest prices possible. They couldn't be trying to change the narrative to make it seem like customers are thieves. They love their customers, and would never patronize them for something as greedily evil as a drop in their revenue bucket.
Why are so stores spending so much money and labor redoing stores to add locked shelving display units for basic goods?
The cost of the shelving and maintenance increases, and the required labor increases because every customer will need an employee to unlock the displays every time they need an item like video games in the 90s.
Stores don't want to lock up toothpaste and bottle neck their sales but they're doing it en masse, why is that?
If you walk into basically any CVS in America, you'll notice the number of employees working the floor is inversely proportional to the amount of merchandise locked behind plastic cases. It's far more cost efficient for the corporation to just pay fewer employees and lock up as much of the high-margin merch as possible.
Without a doubt, they lose sales because of this tactic, but they also have less overhead and almost nonexistent theft. I don't think this trend came as a result of high levels of shoplifting, it was just the inevitable outcome of corporate cost-cutting practices. The companies won't hesitate to blame these decisions on rising levels of theft and organized crime, though, as if the act of shoplifting isn't as old as commerce itself. It's not a new problem, it's just a new convenient solution that saves the retail giants a ton of money.
Your amount of profit is not necessarily tied to your pricing. With 0 change in pricing, you can make more money by simply selling more things.
Stores like target will charge whatever they can, do you think target is saying well we could charge more but we won't to be nice but now that shit is getting stolen we're going to increases prices to make up for it.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that prices are at least partially a result of the cost of doing business.
What's part of the cost of doing business? Theft. Estimated shrink rates are factored into profit forecasting.
It's factored into profits but that doesn't mean it's going to change the price. The reason cost is a factor is because competitors can't charge lower than what it costs for the product. But when you have online as a competitor then things like cost of stolen items have less of an impact because you need to compete with them or other chains who have figured out how to prevent theft at a cheaper cost than you.
Wait are you telling me insurance is a scam because if you ever need to use it it'll cost more money? That's crazy dude, I feel so awful for the massive multimillion dollar companies that are forced to pay for it...
Enjoy paying higher prices for everything and having to track down every time you want to purchase an item when they lock all the shelves.
Not sure where you live but it's getting really old seeing toothpaste and basic necessities getting locked up like video games in the 90s.
I mean as you yourself noted they are already locking up stupid shit like toothpaste. Nobody is fuckn stealing enough toothpaste to effect profits. Hell I'm not sure who would even bother stealing toothpaste, it's not exactly expensive. Saving yourself like a buck at most by not buying the cheap (just as effective) stuff.
And I'm not advocating for theft sheesh. I just think it's funny that the oh so wonderfully for profit insurance companies fuck over retailers too. I was trying to comment about how insurance is maybe kind of a scam...
I'll also note that there isn't actually a widespread theft problem. Stores aren't locking up toothpaste because people are stealing it more than they used to. There were a few places, notably New York which did some really stupid shit with petty crime essentially just publicly saying they weren't gonna deal with it that caused a lot of problems but by and large toothpaste isn't locked up because people are stealing it. The company is just a dick
It's not that the toothpaste itself is the high theft item, it's just easier to lock the whole shelf rather than specific items. Notably items like Razor blades have crazy high theft rates and are usually near the toothpaste, causing them both to be locked up.
Check out some metropolitan areas for a preview of what's coming to a store near you. Denver has been locking stuff up for years already.
"I hate Amazon and Jeff Bezos! Anyway, watch me steal from this store."
Why wouldn't I steal petty shit from a large chain store like Walmart? They stole living wages from workers in many communities, they stole the diversity of local businesses that used to be in many communities, most importantly they steal from every single one of us by not paying a genuinely fair share back to the society they profit off of in terms of taxes. Sorry, not gonna feel bad for stealing some toothpaste, especially when it is a store that fired all the cashiers and has one person frantically running around helping people in a sea of obnoxious self checkout machines that all blare the same audio loop out over and over and over again.
Drives prices up for other people on your community
At first they thought at first it was greedflation, that it was the 1% siphoning off all the profits from the economy to shareholders, they thought it was massive corporations hedging families out of the housing market, austerity and lack of social safety net.... but the whole time it was ME stealing toothpaste from walmart, slowly undercutting the heart of america. They didn't realize until it was too late, I had become too powerful. I have a whole bathroom full of stolen toothpaste tubes and I am ready.
If you think shoplifting doesn't cause prices to go up, you're just wrong, man. Yes, there can be, and are, other factors, too.
Me, I prefer to not contribute to the problem.
It literally doesn't, that is the whole point of this discussion? I am telling you, there is zero mathematical/economic evidence that shoplifting even registers as a problem worth investing time and energy into for massive corporations. They do invest time and energy, but it is because the narrative is useful to them. That is what this is about, it is about a story. Not economics, not math, not hard cold reality, it is about a narrative that emotionally engages you and gets you upset. It is about a story that rationalizes the world for you in a way that directs your anxiety and fear. There is zero scientific grounding in your beliefs about shoplifting, it might as well be a spiritual or religious belief you hold and just the way people will try to take advantage of you by preying upon your spiritual beliefs, so will corporations and politicians try to take advantage of you by preying upon your belief that shoplifting actually matters to economic behemoths that shape and undermine our entire economy.
Literally THE ENTIRE point of being a massive chain is that random noise like shoplifting disappears into the overwhelming roar of economies of scale.
Well, ease of regulatory capture is another bonus but that just strengthens my argument...
Stores invest millions in anti-theft security, in technical, logistical, and physical ways. All of those things cost money.
Stores make money by selling things.
That's not the entire point of it at all. Efficiency is.
Also: https://blog.gitnux.com/walmart-shrinkage-statistics/
That type of knee jerk conjecture is really weak. The data collected on shrinkage, as noted in the linked Reuter's article, is noisy. You can't differentiate lose due to theft or shipping mistakes or cliericsl error.
More importantly, and not mentioned directly in the boingboing article, was the cited number of rising organized theft was based upon an analyst from a security firm. The report was created in partnership with that firm. With the recent redaction, there is no mention of that firm.