The official parent company of Walgreens drugstores is called Walgreens Boots Alliance, and they have just announced that their numbers categorically prove that the anti-theft practice of locking up products has hurt their sales. If you’re like me, your first thought was, “What are ‘Boots’ doing in the company name? Is Walgreens branching into shoe sales?” But the answer is boring, just that 10 years ago Walgreens bought a majority stake in Alliance Boots, a UK pharmacy company. And then if you’re still like me, our second response was, “No, duh.” People don’t want to wait for a store clerk to unlock a cabinet! They’d honestly rather order next or two day delivery instead, and view that as less of a time waste. While Walgreens reported only a $39 million operating loss in the first fiscal quarter of 2024, one year later that number has ballooned to $245 million. If my math is correct (which is a big if), that’s roughly six-times more millions worth of losses. Here’s more from Walgreens’ CEO Timothy Wentworth:
Walgreens has admitted that locking up products within its stores has affected its sales.
During a recent earnings call, Timothy Wentworth, the CEO of Walgreens’ parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, detailed how anti-theft measures such as securing products in plastic cases or utilizing security tags impacted the chain’s annual earnings.
“When you lock things up … you don’t sell as many of them,” Wentworth said, adding: “We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.”
During the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, Walgreens Boots Alliance said they saw an operating loss of $245 million.
Previously, the company saw a $39 million loss in the same quarter a year ago.
During the earnings call, Wentworth also said that Walgreens is looking for “creative” solutions to address “shrink” — the loss of inventory caused by reasons other than sales.
He remained vague on what Walgreens plans to do exactly, though, stating, “I don’t have anything magnificent to share with you today.”
Walgreens plans to close hundreds of stores by the end of 2025, according to Wentworth. The company has already closed around 2,000 locations over the past decade.
“We have a lot of experience with store closures,” the CEO explained during the earnings call. “Naturally, we expect our future footprint to support stronger performance.”
You guys, everything CEO Wentworth is quoted as saying is pure gold. I didn’t think so many gems could come out of a single financial review call! First there’s the obvious, “When you lock things up … you don’t sell as many of them … We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.” No notes on delivery. Another seemingly deadpan comment that killed me was, “We have a lot of experience with store closures.” At this point I’m wondering, is this a script from The Office reboot?! But the absolute best line, which I will definitely be using in my work meetings this week, is the dryly brilliant: “I don’t have anything magnificent to share with you today.” I’m tempted to add that to my email signature, it’s that good.
But getting back to the topic at hand… When I got hit with a bad bout of Covid over the summer, I relied on NyQuil to get me through. At first it was to help clear out my airwaves so I could breathe and sleep (and do both at the same time). Then it was helpful to knock myself out and thus avoid the bitingly metallic and wholly distracting taste that Paxlovid left in my mouth. But sure enough, when I trudged into my Walgreens the magical elixir was locked behind a cabinet. I had to ring the buzzer for assistance two or three times before someone came over. Because the thing about locking up most of your products, is that you can’t also understaff your store. In fact, beefing up staff would help overall in cracking down on theft — there’d be more people to unlock cabinets for customers, and just more eyes on the floor to deter sticky fingers. But judging from Wentworth’s closing comment, “We expect our future footprint to support stronger performance,” it seems they don’t plan on hiring more employees. Instead they’re going with the unassailable logic of, “Our losses will decrease… if we have fewer stores!”
They locked up the M&Ms in Walgreens in the safe part of the East Bay in California lol pic.twitter.com/Mh3Zg0ZCg7
— Francis Chen // 陈东成 (@fncischen) January 18, 2025
Walgreens’ CEO shares they are trying to come up with ‘creative’ ways to combat shoplifting due to locking items up decreasing sales:
“When you lock things up, for example, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.” pic.twitter.com/J9qF0rtNkW
— Pop Base (@PopBase) January 15, 2025
Photo note by CB: This is the actual photo of the CEO, Tim Wentworth, from the Walgreens Boots Alliance website. I did not edit it. I would have used a photo from Getty but they don’t have any.
Photos credit: Scott Webb on Pexels and Jen Shish on Unsplash and via Walgreens Boots and Twitter
I don’t know which is funnier, the photo or the commentary from the CEO! Absolute gold, thanks for the cackle
PS I’m still unhappy about all the store closures, I much prefer Walgreens to CVS…
The comment under the photo from CB is some A+ trolling. Top notch, 10/10!
Thanks! It’s true! I had the aspect ratio wrong in the code for the image but that’s fixed now.
I was gonna say that picture is pure gold!!! What is wrong with him? He is like some kind of robot you pull his string and one liners come out lol.
My local Walmart has started locking up everything. Make up, facial care, shampoo, body wash, even deodorant. So I don’t pick those things up at Walmart now because waiting for staff, or flagging down staff (there’s not always a buzzer) is a waste of my time when I can go to CVS and get it. Yes, it’s an extra trip. But it’s also a little more…private? (especially with some products…I don’t need my neighbor’s kid knowing I’m picking up very personal care options) And make up…having the associate stand there as I compare two colors of foundation or lip stick, or just want to read the back of the packaging for comparison….yikes. It’s awkward.
And waiting for 2 day delivery is also a time saver, though on paper it doesn’t seem to be. If you don’t need the item urgently, you order it on line and go about your day. You don’t even need to leave your house! The anti theft model that many places are leaning hard on is driving consumers away.
I have a theory that these stores (Target, Walgreens, etc) have known for some time that they are doomed to go out of business and chose this slow death method where they try to salvage something and limp along trying different impractical approaches (locking up merchandise, experiments with location and availability) before finally admitting that they are closing.
Any idiot would know that locking up goods would make sales drop. That same idiot would know that spending money on employees would generate a larger overall profit. What is the benefit?
It funnels more people to Amazon, it advances the narrative that theft (the poor) cause inconvenience and loss of quality of life to the middle class perpetuating a distracting class war looking down instead of up. This also eliminates millions of jobs that would have employed lower wage workers and creates food and medicine deserts where people in many communities have to travel further (and spend more) to meet basic needs. This is an intentional move to bleed the poor dry before leaving them worse off than they were before.
This is why I stopped doing much shopping at WalMart, right there. Nobody’s around to unlock something, and why bother?
I wonder if services like Instacart and Doordash have made customers just order that way. I was a caregiver for my mom, and Instacart was a life-saver, especially when it came to pads and linen. No way could I have stood around waiting for cabinets to get unlocked. And store pickup is probably responsible as well…
Walgreen’s – take a page out of Japan’s customer experience book and pop everything into a vending machine. Juice up the FUN by adding claw machines!
Well, now that the problem’s solved, I think i’ll call it a day. You’re Welcome, Walgreen’s.
I mean he’s right lol. I get the concerns that they had, I worked in retail part-time for many years and shrink is a real issue especially with certain products like body washes and detergent. I’ve been offered full bottles of Dove and Tide from people that clearly have just stolen it more times than I can count. If the store is writing off more than they’re earning eventually they’re going to cut staff which leads to more people stealing because you can’t be at the register and watching everything, and then they’re going to eventually shut down. That said as a consumer the second that I see that I have to press a button and wait 10 minutes to get some jergens I’m leaving the store. So they do have to find a reasonable balance.
Walgreens locking up items to prevent theft is funny as hell considering they got dinged for wage theft. Absolutely ridiculous.
Walgreens is closing damn near EVERY FACILITY ON THE SOUTHSIDE OF CHICAGO…and those stores/pharmacies are LIFELINES in those areas…including the one in my childhood neighborhood where my Mama STILL lives 😍 and goes to Walgreens every other day!
Yep and it’s going to be detrimental to a lot of the elderly people, just like when they closed the one on 95th and Jeffrey. Everyone doesn’t drive so telling pretty much all of Jeffrey Manor to go to 95th and Stony Island was a bit much. But to be honest my first comment was referencing the one on 71st and Jeffrey, I’m really shocked that that one stayed open as long as it did.
Dee….HEY NEIGHBOR! Gurl…when they closed the one on 95th & Jeffrey…I NEARLY FAINTED! But I knew the way the wind was blowing…I’m surprised Walgreens has made it THIS FAR…with the lost of government contracts…the ones out in the Bolingbrook area hardly has ANY stock…
Our CVS now has someone whose soul job is to unlock shelves. They roam around asking people if they need help. Seems to work. I tend to order online to pick-up in store to avoid all the locked shelves. Works really well,
I saw this the other day at a very busy Manhattan CVS. Everything was locked up, but they had two employees dedicated to retrieving items for customers quickly from the locked cases.
They haven’t started locking things up at my CVS yet…now I guess it’s coming eventually.
Walgreens/Duane Reade, CVS, and Target in Manhattan have most of their products locked up. It’s incredibly annoying to push the button three or four times to get the one clerk on the floor to open the cabinet. They also don’t have enough people to handle the cash registers. Walgreens has also closed many stores in New York recently, mainly because CVS has moved in big-time.
Wow, good for them for actually having this!
The CEO looks like he has been partaking of something that Walgreen keeps locked up…. I don’t feel sorry for these mega corporation pharmacies. They move into towns and absorb or put all of the independent pharmacies out of business. None of them ever have any employees on the floor to help out or answer questions, and when they do, it’s usually one person who is supposed to be doing six different things at once and looks like they’re on the verge of tears. The only reason I ever went to Walgreens is to get a vaccine or to buy a lime flavored popcorn that of course once I started buying it there they stopped carrying.
Seeing things locked away like this was one of my big culture shock moments when I started travelling regularly to the US for work in my 20’s. While I LOVED the range of stuff you could get in your drugstores the locked cabinets were weird and looking at the photos above it seems to have got worse. I certainly never had to ask someone to unlock the chocolate and snacks that I would bring home by the suitcase full.
I’ve always loved Boots and there’s a running joke that whatever you go in for you will always end up spending £££ more than planned. Even if that’s not on chocolate as it would be on my US trips.
Boots skin care – also known as no 7 in the USA – is INSANE. it’s so so so good.
I wanted to love that skincare, heard great things about it. But I could not stand the heavy scent … I think it was a night cream I tried first, and the scent was SO heavy I could not sleep. Can a smell be loud? Because this one sure seemed to be. Don’t know if all their products are like that.
“I’ve always loved Boots and there’s a running joke that whatever you go in for you will always end up spending £££ more than planned.”
That is how I used to feel about Target. I’dgoin “needing” 3 things, but as they carry so many different things, I’d come out with 12. “Oh look at these cozy/cute pjs” “oh, I’m goig to browse the books” etc.
That said, if they had everything locked up, I would for sure leave with JUST the 3 things I came in for.
The buzzers that are supposed to summon a store clerk to unlock the cabinets at my local Walgreens don’t work more often than not. This, of course, usually results in me leaving to find what I want/need somewhere else. The CEO photo is top notch. He looks slightly deranged.
“The CEO photo is top notch. He looks slightly deranged.”
He looks *completely* deranged.
Okay. That’s fair. LOL
Good grief, does he have pink eye?!?
Our target/walmart put everything in cabinets but never lock them…
I wonder if the stores did this, had cabinets that were open but installed something that BEEPED when you opened t if that might help with theft. Bolder thieves wouldn’t care. But for some, knowing that someone knew you were picking up x item might be discouraging?
I’ve gotten to the point I just drive an hour to my nearest Costco for OTC meds and toiletries. It’s a pain but I stock up and feel good knowing I’m shopping at a store that values their employees with pay and benefits.
Coming by to honk for the Walgreens on Canal Street in New Orleans in the header photo.
Yes! Three cheers for the Walgreens on Canal and St. Charles, a vortex of chaos and old-school manners; Motrin and beer; cheap souvenirs and nail polish. The full array of New Orleans humanity is observable here at all times of day and night.
But please, don’t be going to Walgreens today! Stay home with your favorite warm beverage.
I haven’t really experienced this–the locking stuff up–and I am shocked because it seems like it would totally be a thing in my area. It also seems like if you want to safeguard stuff, make the store so that stuff fits behind the counter and then you could just ask for it when you check out rather than having to find a person
Also, wanted to add that Boots drugstores are SOOOOOOOOO good. Much better than any old drugstore we have in the USA (qualifier–I haven’t been to all of them, and I think duane reades are supposed to be good?), they have department store make up brands with fancy make up ladies, and all sorts of neat stuff. Or they did 15 years ago, the last time I was in London and the UK (sob, can’t wait to go back). Walgreens looks like it wants to copy this, ours has a little make up counter but there’s never anyone back there, but the flagship in DC’s chinatown at one time had an area where you could get a mani/pedi and a great selection of beauty products including k-beauty stuff. Not sure if it still does. It may have topped a Boots back in the day, but it was a flagship. (you can tell I get excited discussing drugstores, ha)
@Manda – the Chinatown Walgreens doesn’t offer mani/pedis anymore, which is a shame. It was needed in that area. Now it’s just cosmetics on that floor.
It’s definitely the understaffing. This happened to me a week ago, and all the Walgreen’s clerks and pharmacists were busy. No evident way to get someone’s attention to open the locks!
I left, drove to my local pharmacy, and probably won’t go back to Walgreens if I can help it!
Stuff is still locked up though. I just wanted to get some replacement brush heads for my Sonicare and I couldn’t get them anywhere, they are all locked up, even at the grocery store. I did ask someone to open the case, then they had to run around to get the key to the case, which took extra time. It was very annoying. I’m pretty sure toothbrush heads for sonic cares aren’t sold much on the black market, I guess I could be wrong!
Amazon — they are 1/10th of the price for generic replacement heads and they are identical, each with it’s own new plastic cover and individually wrapped.
Yeah, that is true, I’m just trying not to use Amazon. I haven’t dropped prime yet, but I’ve been thinking about it. I dislike Mr. Bezos intensely. So I shop local if I can.
Not sure stolen goods are being sold on the black market. It’s things like this a seller on Amazon might be selling. Just stealing goods and open a store on Amazon to sell your free stolen goods.
ugh “creative ways to address shrink”…it’s proven that when you have more employees/more staff presence, then you have less shrink! They just don’t want to pay workers because quarterly profits even though said profits are down and they’re going to be closing stores! This is literal insanity
My daughter and I were talking about this over the weekend. Just hire more employees for each department and those extra eyes alone will cut down on theft. Plus customers will actually be able to find someone to help them or answer questions, whizzing usually means more sales. If I go into a store and can’t find what I’m looking for, and can’t find an employee, then I’ll just leave and get it somewhere else.
Yes and no — the big crisis stores are in California and people walk in, grab bags full of items and walk out the door — the laws do not allow employees to intervene, law enforcement does not have the time nor resources to look at cameras and track someone down just to write them a misdemeanor ticket. Even the security officers sitting at the front of the store is just for show. So you can have ten people watching — the thieves know they can’t be stopped.
If I were the CEO of any of these stores I would take a hard look at opening specialized police stations in each of the stores that were a problem. It would be cheaper since you can negotiate rent, salaries benefits and give employees and shoppers some piece of mind.
@ Tito’s —that’s really the problem though, the police are handcuffed too (pun intended) by local policies and lack of prosecution.
Last month I was at my local Target, and almost everything in personal care was locked up. They would unlock a cabinet then just leave the doors open (eventually they were almost all unlocked) so we had to navigate through this maze of open doors down the aisle, lol. But at least we didn’t have to wait for an employee to come by and unlock it.
Lol that’s a hilarious solution, seems like the employees just decided to be practical about it
A really creative way to stop theft is to pay a living wage to everyone.
Nahhh… let’s just lock EVERYTHING up, hire less employees, then close a bunch of locations altogether. Nevermind your crazy ideas. 😉
I kind of get this. I live in an urban part of a large city where police can’t arrest or even warn people who are caught stealing less than $750 worth of merchandise. I have friends who work in retail grocery/clothing stores, and they don’t even bother to call management or police if someone walks out with a sweater or a steak. It’s rough on the employees — they work hard to pay bills and even get a discount on said sweater/steak. Not sure there’s a great solution.
If I see something that I want is locked up, I just immediately make a note to order it online or go somewhere else. I’m not waiting for an associate to come and unlock it for me. Nope.
Our Walmart used to lock up the things you’d expect – deodorant, some makeup, etc. – but they stopped and instead they sort of created a maze with those items off the main aisle – so you have to go up and down these smaller aisles that are maybe 10 feet long with the aisle of bodywash and face cream on end and the aisle of nail supplies on the other end sort of bookending the makeup and personal care aisles. I think this is probably a reasonable solution bc you can’t maneuver quickly through that area, and if there are other people there you can’t grab items and run or whatever. and honestly it gives a little more privacy so I can take my time looking through the items.
Agree
That thing about understaffing is so true. No one pushes that button because no one ever comes. The people at those stores are worked to the bone doing the jobs of like 4 people. I bet they give them more tasks without giving them more hours on a regular basis.
I wonder if Walgreens has also experienced fewer customers because of their draconian stance on reproductive care. A few years ago Walgreens employees were called out for not providing plan b and abortion pills to people with a prescription. They also came under fire for refusing to sell contraceptives. The employees in question claimed it was against their religion and the company supported them. That’s why I never go to Walgreens anymore. I actually hope they’ve lost customers over that.
I only see these types of measures in low income, minority areas. They are based in racism, so I usually avoid stores that do this.
Kroger did something similarly by erecting a huge walled off room with their products. It was a disaster. You couldn’t walk out and continue your shopping. You had to check out first. It was an huge hassle and their profits cratered at the test stores.
Until they see their profits dip, they won’t do the right thing. Shoplifting should be factored into their operating budget.
@TheOriginalMia I can tell you confidently, 100%, that loss from damaged goods and theft ARE built into the budget of any large business. It is not theft that is making them lock away merchandise.
I noticed over Christmas that my local Walmart has locked up the entire Lego aisle. And guess what, I never see anybody shopping that aisle anymore. I guess they’re like me and said to hell with it and just ordered online.
I am in the NY area and everything is locked up. And trying to flag someone down to get deodorant and intimate things. It is a PIA.
It is not a pleasant shopping experience. With the person standing over you watching what you take. It’s intrusive. You don’t need to know what my pits and cootchie need.
Which is why it’s such a joy when I visit my mom’s Walgreen’s in Florida. Everything is open and available to take. But even her area is starting to go downhill. I can see it all locked up soon.
So I just shop on amazon now or boutique places online for my fancy deodorant.
CVS lost me as a loyal customer years ago.
Interestingly enough, shrinkage in retail is way down after a COVID boom and peak in 2021. I refuse to shop anywhere that has their store set up with the presumption that most customers are thief’s.
The CEO is a whole idiot. He’s the same one that went all in with Elizabeth Holmes’ scam Theranos. LOL. American companies simply refuse to let white Len fail. SMH.