CVS Might Let You Open Locked Shelves With Your Phone (theverge.com) 209
A new update to CVS's mobile app includes a feature that allows some customers to access items on locked shelves using their phone -- "without having to summon an overworked employee to open it first," reports The Verge. The feature is currently being trialed in a handful of stores, but will be expanded to many more locations later this year if it goes well. From the report: According to The Wall Street Journal, "app users need to be logged in, on the local store Wi-Fi, and with their device's Bluetooth enabled to activate the feature." You've also got to be a member of the CVS loyalty program if you want the convenience of grabbing secured merchandise without calling for help. Signing up for that gives CVS plenty of insight into your shopping habits, so keep that in mind as you weigh the convenience of not waiting around.
"People really, really dislike locked cabinets," Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president of ventures at CVS Health, told the Journal. Walmart has apparently come to the same realization, as the massive US retailer conducted a similar test last year. CVS aims to expand the program to around 15 stores soon and eventually reach national availability if all goes well.
"People really, really dislike locked cabinets," Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president of ventures at CVS Health, told the Journal. Walmart has apparently come to the same realization, as the massive US retailer conducted a similar test last year. CVS aims to expand the program to around 15 stores soon and eventually reach national availability if all goes well.
CVS is still a thing? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought Git won the version control wars.
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I thought Git won the version control wars.
Oh, come on now Slashdot. Laugh and mod this up.
Not like we’re telling jokes like that anywhere else.
Re:CVS is still a thing? (Score:5, Funny)
that's subversive ...
Re: CVS is still a thing? (Score:4)
Bravo! Perforce a slashdotter of culture :)
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This is a ClearCase of a fine thread.
What is this CVS you speak of? (Score:3, Informative)
The concurrent version system? It has been in disuse for so long that I don't even know why you'd care.
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I actually still use it on my Amiga because the SVN port is a little buggy. I should try my brother's git port one of these days.
Believe it or not, but OpenBSD notoriously still uses CVS.
Re: What is this CVS you speak of? (Score:3)
I still didn't know about CVS, I'll stick with RCS
So the criminals will make a throwaway account (Score:2)
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And use it to unlock the goods.
Go through all that? Why? I’m still not sure why the ol’ smash and grab has gone out of style here to be honest.
After all, locked cabinets, WiFi networks, apps and Bluetooth authorization to purchase goods tends to confirm no one is going to actively stop the criminal causing all of that inconvenience.
Might as well flip on the ol’ Blue Light when the smashing starts. You voted for it.
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If you do that, you risk an irate employee, or fellow customer, shooting and killing you. If you simply request an employee open the cabinet for you, the store is taking a hit on the sale. A better option is to find the next closest store that doesn't have the locked cabinets, and shop there. Eventually, they will close the underperforming store. All theft prevention problems solved.
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Eventually, they will close the underperforming store. All theft prevention problems solved.
That may not be in your best interest: https://www.goodhousekeeping.c... [goodhousekeeping.com]
Then again, it may not make a difference. The US has endured years of big companies buying pharmacies, putting the screws to pharmacists and other employees, strip-mining the business, and selling off the bits for scrap. Pharmacy closings are an epidemic: https://www.youtube.com/result... [youtube.com]. I recently watched a YouTube video about how the entire pharmacy industry is corrupt, but I am now unable to find the link.
Best bet is to find and s
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risk an irate employee, or fellow customer, shooting and killing you.
If only that were true we wouldn't be in the locked prison state that we now call retail stores. Society's current stance on theft is that it is someone else's problem.
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The doors are plexiglass, hard to smash and the pieces mostly stay in place to impede grabbing. The locks appear to be trivial to pick, though.
I've noticed at Target that the locks seem to have a pretty high failure rate, the one down the hill has about a quarter to a third of the doors open all the time because they're not working right.
Do people really shoplift enough gallon jugs of laundry detergent to make the investment worthwhile? How???
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4 people taking two jugs each. Rotate through different stores. Or take more jugs each time. There is a story of a guy who rolled out of a WalMart (?) with an entire cart of beer. He looked just like a delivery guy and no one questioned him.
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How? Quite literally by just walking out the door. I work for Albertsons and before we doored half the store, use to see it all the time. Now it's down to a trickle as most people moved on to easier targets. It has upset the customers but it's hard to say if we're losing more sales versus experience less shrink. I'm sure corporate has a better view of this then I do as a store employee.
We are not allowed to stop shoplifters and authorities aren't showing up for petty theft, assuming they are even called.
Als
use an flipper zero and loop it through Jones (Score:2)
use an flipper zero and loop it through Jones
These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:2)
Wal-mart puts the $1.93 can of Barbasol I use behind locked cabinet. I'll never understand why.
The CVS thing would actually be useful if it could be used to purchase Sudafed on the day and time it's actually needed, which often don't coincide with those they have a pharmacist on staff. Several states have programs to store IDs already. If it's good enough for the cops, it should also be suitable to buy Sudafed.
My nearest CVS and Rite aid both closed recently. There is still another CVS within 3 miles, and W
Re:These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:5, Informative)
Poland doesnt have a bunch of urban thugs that film themselves and 40 of their friends descending on a store and stealing everything in site. I assure you that if your stores were suffering widespread theft with a legal system that turns the criminals back onto the street in mere hours; you too would be dealing with this shit show.
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Not really common in the US either, but Poland does have football rowdies who occasionally destroy things. Incarceration rate in Poland is actually lower than in the US, BTW ... the lack of shoplifting is due to a generally more cohesive society with lower income inequality. Plus people aren't afraid to take vigilante action. The country has dealt with Nazi and Russian thugs, so a shoplifter is no problem:
https://abc11.com/poland-thief... [abc11.com]
Re: These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:4, Insightful)
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It does seem that the more homogeneous a society is...the better it gets along....
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... the lack of shoplifting is due to a generally more cohesive society with lower income inequality.
Inequality of income isn't near the driver of crime as the lack of a shared culture. Crime is something people do to an "other", as in the "other" being considered some kind of outsider, foreigner, alien, and by being an "other" this makes them a potential threat to they see as more like themselves. My point is you could have stopped at "cohesive society" and leave out mention of income inequality.
I hear a lot about "multicultural societies" all getting along so well, but that's not proven true. If a so
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> Inequality of income isn't near the driver of crime as the lack of a shared culture.
That must be why 19th Century London had no crime then.
I think it might be time for you to log out of Stormfront, it's literally rotting your brain.
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I don't think most people that are shoplifting care who the owners or the staff are. They are stealing because they either a) don't have the money to buy what they need or b) are stealing it to flip it for money, so it's a job for them. Especially if it's a big box store and not some mom and pop, though I'm sure they get hit up a lot as well.
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I don't think most people that are shoplifting care who the owners or the staff are. They are stealing because they either a) don't have the money to buy what they need or b) are stealing it to flip it for money, so it's a job for them. Especially if it's a big box store and not some mom and pop, though I'm sure they get hit up a lot as well.
Statistically speaking, more than half of retail theft isn't even shoplifting [capitaloneshopping.com] by the classical definition.
Want to know the biggest reason for increased retail theft? Self-check registers [csnews.com]. The companies cut costs by hiring fewer employees, and got an increase in people ringing things up incorrectly, either a
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spoken like someone who doesn't have the first clue as to where the funding comes from. The courts that prosecute these crimes are circuit court judges not federal judges. The money that pays them are derived from STATE department of revenue. This comes from things like state income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, filing fees, court costs, vehicle emissions test fees, profits from all the lottery and gambling, cannabis sales, taxes on cigarettes and liquor outside of regular sales taxes.
The Judicial Branch is funded by appropriations from the General Assembly and its budget represents approximately 3.4% of the total state general funds each biennium. The budget pays for all expenses of the Court of Justice, including salaries, court facilities, court technology, office supplies and equipment.
The Judicial Branch employs approximately 10% of the state’s workforce and 87% of its budget funds personnel costs for 406 elected justices, judges and circuit court clerks and nearly 3,300 employees.
Thats the breakdo
Re: These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:2)
The majority of the Libertardians want to eliminate ALL taxes, not just Federal.
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citation needed.
Very few states have an actual libertarian party and I have never heard mention of eradicating complete tax codes and the state and local levels.
have you ever sat down and totalled up how much taxes and fees you actually pay? Adding up every utility bill, phone bill, sewer bill, property tax, sales tax, the underlying taxes on your gasoline, your liquor, cigarettes, bingo tickets, city tax, car registration, hotel tax, luxury tax. I think you will be surprised as to how much of a percentage
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Re: These locked cabinets never made much sense (Score:2)
So you're saying that the US is just uniquely incompetent at providing services for its citizens? Unfortunately that seems quite possible.
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I don't think they are incompetent. I think they are doing precisely what they intend to do and have been doing. By them, I mean elected government officials and what they are doing, is funneling taxpayer money in directions that are favorable to them. Sometimes it's companies owned by themselves or family or friends or even big companies they want in their district.
I like to look at all the actions the different layers of government do and think of how those actions would benefit businesses. It all makes a
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Sudafed was a knee-jerk reaction to a meth epidemic. They also limit quantities too. You con only buy so many mg per month. So it works differently than just alcohol or cigarettes. To work around thid I would suggest keeping a box or two in your medicine cabinet for the times you need it and the pharmacy closed at 9pm.
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The local Walmart puts men's underwear in a locked glass case. I refuse to ask a Walmart employee to grant me access to the underwear cabinet. No sale.
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One more count against the US (Score:3)
This is why I'm leaving the US this summer, if not earlier.
Go to a something like Rossman's (not run by the famous Lou Rossman) in Central Europe (Germany/Czechia/Poland), and it's basically the equivalent of a CVS, minus the prescriptions since pharmacy licensing works differently in Europe. Nothing is locked up, not even shaving stuff and sharp objects. Know why? Because society actually punishes thieving scum and forces addicts who pose a menace to society into treatment.
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The UK bloody code (Score:2)
Cruelty never solves anything.
Are you suggesting we implement the Bloody Code which was in force in the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Code
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Fear is a powerful influence, and in fact the driving force for animals in general. Newsflash: we are still animals.
Whatever you are linking there probably goes too far, but right now the consequence of petty theft is nothing. nothing
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Re:One more count against the US (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I'm leaving the US this summer, if not earlier.
Go to a something like Rossman's (not run by the famous Lou Rossman) in Central Europe (Germany/Czechia/Poland), and it's basically the equivalent of a CVS, minus the prescriptions since pharmacy licensing works differently in Europe. Nothing is locked up, not even shaving stuff and sharp objects. Know why? Because society actually punishes thieving scum and forces addicts who pose a menace to society into treatment.
You really should try venturing beyond your American postal code.
Most of America doesn’t put up with this insanity. Only in recent times has it become oddly fashionable for liberal Democrat leaders (zero point in arguing who is to blame, call it like it factually is) to bow down and cater to crime at this level. Conservatives and those who still value the Rule of Law do not punish innocent citizens and force you to shop like this. Yes, my grown-ass can walk into a Walmart at 11PM and buy a machete with my own hands. Don’t even know what a locked cabinet problem looks like at my local CVS either.
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I'm an urbanite ... I can't get the combination of a real, walkable city with good public transport, low crime, and cold climate (I love winter and snow) in the US, outside of basically Boston and NYC. That's it. The rest of the US isn't for me, since I'm set in my ways.
You’re willing to go to another country on another continent, but cannot venture beyond Boston or NYC to find the freedoms you seek?
America is a LOT bigger than your preconceived notions.
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He sounds European at heart. We're all better off with this type of political migration.
I live on a mountainside in New Hampshire in the forest and have to go plow now.
The nearest CVS doesn't lock anything up here either.
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Only in recent times has it become oddly fashionable for liberal Democrat leaders (zero point in arguing who is to blame, call it like it factually is) to bow down and cater to crime at this level. Conservatives and those who still value the Rule of Law
You elected a man who was convicted of crimes by a jury. You can't say a goddamn word about the Rule Of Law.
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Yes America is well known for its liberal law enforcement with its low prison sentences, its over sympathetic prosecutors and judges, its lack of minimum sentences, and its comfortable luxurious open prisons, unlike Europe.
Have I walked into bizarro world here? Because I feel like I have.
You know why Europe has less crime? Because (1) less income inequality and (2) more progressive (not perfect, but more progressive) crime management policies aimed at keeping people out of prison unless strictly necessary,
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This shows you don't understand how america works. In America we have guns and we have insurance companies. The insurance companies wont let you have policies that will result in employees getting into gunfights or killing people. Republicans wont let you restrict guns. Ergo, businesses in the US
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Re:One more count against the US (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that simple ... GOP in the US would think that Central European conservative parties and their policies are raving loony Communism:
Poland has "Medicare-for-all" (NFZ) that provides funding for addiction/alcoholism treatment. They also have lower income inequality than the US. Public transport ... even remote cities with 50k or 100k population tend to have good train service by US standards. Higher and vocational education tend to be either cheap or free.
Yes, Poland locks up criminals, but also doesn't make as many of them due to a more cohesive society with less inequality. Incarceration rate (198 per 100k) is lower than Massachusetts (241), which has the lowest combined rate in the US.
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For Criminals, By Criminals. (Score:3)
”app users need to be logged in, on the local store Wi-Fi, and with their device's Bluetooth enabled to activate the feature." You've also got to be a member of the CVS loyalty program if you want the convenience of grabbing secured merchandise without calling for help.
Yeah, we “users” of said store could do all that. Or, we citizen taxpayers could just vote for competent leadership that doesn’t allow an entire community to bow down and cater to the fucking criminals causing all of that inconvenience. When does this shit end? Does CVS honestly expect THAT insanity to become some kind of norm in commerce?
In 10 years, can you honestly imagine trying to describe what “shopping” was like back in the 20th Century when we still punished crime? Forget buying anything. This sounds like a dystopian hell before I even enter the parking lot. You expect me to do all that, to buy fucking toothpaste?
Good luck there, CVS. It won’t matter with your incompetent leadershit, but good luck.
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Yeah, we “users” of said store could do all that. Or, we citizen taxpayers could just vote for competent leadership that doesn’t allow an entire community to bow down and cater to the fucking criminals causing all of that inconvenience.
Could you clarify your comment? Businesses want to cater to customers with money and would prefer not to have to deal with people who don't have money and would prefer to completely avoid people who steal. That's easy for online businesses like Amazon where basically everything is locked behind a warehouse door and they ship it to you once you pay. But it's a much harder problem for a physical retailer. Costco somewhat solves this problem by requiring a membership card to get inside.
Retail theft has
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Of course the biggest problem is that actually doing anything about a theft has been made legally punitive to the point it's not worth even trying.
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the shoplifting wave is created by increasing wealth inequality and you cannot solve it through punishment
Isn't that a little reductive? Or a lot? It's a multifactorial problem, but it obviously would not be very prevalent if we still used barbaric punishments like cutting off hands or shooting thieves on the spot. Of course we can't and shouldn't to that. My point is that it seems you have your head in the sand if you think punishment is not part of the solution.
You seem not to believe in the importance of culture: some cultures do not tolerate criminality, while others are fine with it. If we descend (or have
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we citizen taxpayers could just vote for competent leadership that doesnâ(TM)t allow an entire community to bow down and cater to the fucking criminals causing all of that inconvenience.
OH NOES INCONVENIENCE12111!!1!!1!1!
You privileged, ridiculous tiny prick, the shoplifting wave is created by increasing wealth inequality and you cannot solve it through punishment. That will not change the fact of it becoming ever more difficult to survive, or that prosecuting petty thieves actually leads to more "inconvenience" for you as others become permanently unemployable in a landscape in which they were already unable to find employment.
You want to do everything but the one thing that actually works to fix this problem, making people's lives better, because it might come at some expense to you. You're willing to pay nothing to maintain the civilization upon which you depend and any amount of abuse of the underclasses is acceptable to you.
This is not CVS' problem or responsibility alone, nor that of their executives. This is our whole nation's fault and responsibility to fix, and you are neatly simultaneously proving why, and that we won't.
This, if you see a lot of shops in developing countries, limited entrances and exits, expensive stuff kept under lock and key (seriously, in some countries you need a member of staff to get shampoo out of the lockup because it gets stolen so much) and that's in the nicer areas and even they will often have armed guards at the door. A lot of stores are just a hole in the wall with a cage where you ask for what you want and the store person goes and gets it for you (Filipino Sari Sari stores for example). Thi
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Theft just drives up prices for everyone, in fact the price increase will have a much larger life altering effect on the poor than the wealthy. Think about that, or is that why those with power to do something are doing nothing?
Huh (Score:2)
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"U.S. violent and property crime rates have plunged since 1990s, regardless of data source"
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-data-says-about-crime-in-the-us/ [pewresearch.org]
Fascists understand that frightened people are obedient people, so they've developed a massive "news" ecosystem dedicated to selling weak-minded fools on the idea that there's a criminal around every corner. Ask most Americans, and they'll tell you crime is up everywhere, and that it's rude to contradict them with facts.
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Well, crime metrics DO go down...when you start making more and more things "not a crime"...and you don't arrest people for crimes like shoplifting like you used to, etc.
No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
>"app users need to be logged in, on the local store Wi-Fi, and with their device's Bluetooth [...] a member of the CVS loyalty program[...]t gives CVS plenty of insight into your shopping habits"
Sorry, I don't install store "apps", give businesses my phone number, or allow myself to be tracked.
I will shop elsewhere.
Easier solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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You really should stop watching fake news. https://apnews.com/article/fac... [apnews.com]
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You are already living in a country with the highest rate of incarceration for minor and non violent crimes IN THE WORLD. It absolutely boggles the mind that you think arresting more people is the answer.
No forget social security. Forget managing the wealth gap. Just find the people desperate enough to commit petty theft and arrest them.
History does not treat people like you kindly when the fed up oppressed rise up against their oppressors. It's worth remembering.
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The problem isn't people disliking locked cabinets (Score:5, Insightful)
Their entire business model is you show up to pick up a prescription or some medicine because you associate medicine with drugstores and then you walk out with a $6 tube of toothpaste and $20 worth of razors because you don't want to do another stop on the way home.
Never mind the fact that shoplifting only briefly spiked during COVID because of the mass layoffs and it's gone back to pre-COVID levels, a little bit lower actually. The entire shoplifting panic with just a trick to try and get you the taxpayer to pay for their security. They were hoping you would do crazy shit locking up criminals for years on end
Think about it. It costs about 130k a year to lock up a criminal. So you're going to spend $130k a year for three or four years to lock up somebody who stole $100 worth of crap from CVS. That's great for CVS I suppose but what about you?
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Never mind the fact that shoplifting only briefly spiked during COVID
Let me introduce you to Seattle, SF, and Portland. Their shoplifting has not subsided.
There's no conspiracy, shops understand the importance of impulse buying, and the store managers absolutely loathe locking up items. But they literally lose money if they don't, they can't raise prices high enough to pay for the "shrinkage" and still sell enough goods.
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Yeah, that'll help the economy! Only about 35% of Americans with disabilities are employed. So cut off their hands and put them on welfare for the rest of their lives. Great idea!
So he's hurting emotionally (Score:3)
This is one of the reasons the Holocaust happened. And we are well on track for an American version of it. The trouble is it sounds so insane that when you point out every single step the Nazis did that we
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Tell me again how the status quo is working out for CVS. Or any company struggling to keep their doors open in a city that sits and debates on whether or not they should actually punish crime because incarcerated criminals cost too much.
The greatest thing about debating liberal “logic” is you quite often don’t have to do a damn thing to prove it wrong. All you have to do is sit back, and eat itself.
And when we bust massive organized theft rings raking in millions stealing in no-punishme
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Yeah, that'll help the economy! Only about 35% of Americans with disabilities are employed. So cut off their hands and put them on welfare for the rest of their lives. Great idea!
Those who are causing companies to add the cost of physical and human security to an already inflated price tag, are forcing families into poverty. 35% of disabled Americans being employed along with every opportunity we legally provide the disabled, proves that employment is not the problem or challenge here. The one-handed man or woman will likely struggle in life. But they WILL serve as a deterrent. One that walks the streets every day to remind anyone else what the price is. Perhaps we start off sm
Convenient (Score:2)
That doesn't sound very convenient.
Appropriate Simpson's reference [youtube.com].
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No thanks (Score:3)
how easy to hack the Bluetooth / clone the unlock (Score:3)
how easy to hack the Bluetooth / clone the unlock command?
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LOL no (Score:2)
As above, "LOL, no."
Boycott Locked Shelves (Score:2)
That's my decision. If stores want to put mundane cheap items behind locked shelves (where it'll take forever to find someone to unlock it) instead of putting proper effort into how they run the stores/deal with security, then I'm not buying that item there.
This is the same stores (I'm looking at you Walmart) that you will have self checked out, walk out, have the sensor go off and the supposed loss prevention person there completely ignores you - not even giving an acknowledgement it's OK to go or not.
Absolutely not. (Score:2)
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Lol, 'might' (Score:2)
Lol, 'might'
Please Oh Great CVS Cashier sir, may I please open the shampoo lock box sir, please please please please?
Put everything behind the counter. (Score:2)
Have staff pick it and not give it to the customer until it's been paid for. (i.e. Will Call) This is the way things used to be a long time ago. With pre-ordering online we can go back to that model.
You can already have Wal Mart optionally do this for you for everything except pharmaceuticals. Why not extend it to those? You already need to show ID to receive the goods.
Of course, some businesses won't like this because it reduces impulse buys. Also some people can't plan very well in advance what they need
Horn (Score:2)
Horn & Hardart wins.
As brick and mortar retailers... (Score:2)
...make it increasingly painful to shop in person, online sales will increase.
Parking, waiting in line, locked shelves and the annoying receipt checker at the door make the in-person shopping experience suck mightily
Vending machines are the answer. (Score:2)
Just be like the Japanese and use their fancy vending machines for everything. Just need minimum security to keep people from trying to break them.
So back to no doors, but with extra steps... (Score:2)
So let me get this straight. We put up doors to add to security. Locked doors makes it harder to steal. Of course customers hate this because there isn't a staff member who's sole job is to open cabinets. This produces long wait times just to pick up the item, let alone go through the register to pay for it.
So now we're moving to an app to unlock the door. Since anyone and everyone is a theoretical customer, everyone will just get the app, unlock the door and grab what they need. At this step, your thief is
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What you're describing is like a Paczkomat (Package Automat) in Poland, where you can enter a code sent by e-mail to open a drawer containing mail or packages (which you already bought) for pickup.
https://geowidget.easypack24.n... [easypack24.net]
No - this is a physical store where everything is locked up before you buy it. To unlock the Plexiglas, you have to use your phone, then still take the object to the checkout to pay for it.
https://compote.slate.com/imag... [slate.com]
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Almost like crime is a symptom of a larger complex problem...
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