By now you’ve seen it: baby formula, shampoo, toothpaste, and even basic toiletries locked behind cabinets by retailers to prevent theft. When you want to buy an item, you press a button and wait for an employee to unlock it. Depending on the store, you might be waiting for a while.
While this crime prevention strategy may deter theft, it is also preventing something else: sales. Recent studies show that customers are fed up with locked-up merchandise, and many are considering shopping elsewhere as a result.
So, how big of a problem is retail theft?
The National Retail Federation (NRF) declined to provide specifics to KTLA on how many stores now lock up their merchandise. However, the NRF’s 2024 study on The Impact of Retail Theft and Violence reported a staggering 93% increase in the average number of shoplifting incidents in 2023 compared to four years earlier, leading to a 90% increase in the dollar amount lost by retailers over the same period.
This has resulted in growing customer dissatisfaction. A study by Retail Dive found that more than half of all surveyed customers have encountered locked-up products, and 27% of those shoppers have either abandoned a purchase or considered switching retailers entirely because of this inconvenience.
If you live in a more urban area of the Western U.S., such as Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, or Las Vegas, Retail Dive reports that you are even more likely to have encountered locked-up products.
So, what’s the solution if locking up merchandise saves on theft but also deters shoppers?
We asked David Lazarus of KTLA’s Consumer Confidential.
“Retailers are in a very difficult position,” Lazarus says. “On the one hand, increasingly aggressive incidents of theft, particularly involving mobs of hooligans, have forced merchants to take steps to safeguard stores and inventory. On the other, heightened security inconveniences customers, and anything that serves as an impediment to making a sale is counterproductive.”
This counterproductive situation is pushing retailers to explore other ways to deter theft while still keeping shoppers.
“Locked-up merchandise was an early response to the surge in shoplifting,” Lazarus adds. “Now retailers are exploring costly steps such as shatter-proof glass, security guards, and limited access to stores. Each measure is a response to a clear threat to profits. But merchants also know they have to make shoppers feel welcome—and safe—and to provide ready access to goods.”
Some retailers, including CVS, are experimenting with new apps that allow vetted shoppers to unlock these cabinets for easier access to merchandise. As CVS told KTLA, “Retail theft is a challenge for all retailers. We know keeping products locked up can be inconvenient, but it’s important that we keep products in stock and available for our customers.”
While retailers work on new strategies, one of the biggest winners in all of this may be online shopping, which Lazarus says offers the best chance for a hassle-free experience.
In the meantime, the National Retail Federation continues to push for HR 2853, the “Support the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025.” Supporters say the act will “enhance coordination and provide key resources to law enforcement agencies to better combat widespread organized retail and supply chain crime, which costs retailers billions in stolen merchandise and threatens the safety of retail workers and customers.”
Until then, get used to basic essentials being locked up.
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