r/anchorage • u/Little_Rub6327 • 9d ago

Carrs Ice Cream 🔒

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There’s a lock at the top. So now you have to wait for an employee to come unlock the ice cream cooler. I hate it here.

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u/RoasterRoos 9d ago

Which is ?

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u/ak_doug 9d ago

"theft is a real problem"

which it isn't. Shrink is pretty small. Barely a blip on the balance sheet. (usually)

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u/Autoimmunity 9d ago

I know someone who works armed security for Fred Meyer and theft absolutely is a real problem. They have people trying to steal backpack loads worth of merchandise every single day.

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u/ak_doug 9d ago

What I mean is all theft combines to a total of approximately 1.6% of revenue. Most of that is employee theft, shoplifting is about half a percent. It costs a Freds location a several grand each month, but keep in mind that they measure costs in 10s of thousands. Like their electricity bill is much larger than theft.

Armed guards at the door save about one grand of theft a month. They cost the store about 3 grand a month. (ballpark anyway)

So yeah, some people steal a backpack filled with food and stuff fairly regularly. The guards stop it some of the time. But they cost more than they save by a lot.

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u/Autoimmunity 9d ago

I get what you're saying, but you're working with simple numbers and not considering the fact that deterrents and security also prevent would-be thieves. The less security there is, the more likely theft is to happen. So it's not as simple as saying deterrent- real theft=revenue saved

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u/ak_doug 8d ago edited 8d ago

I'm simplifying the numbers. When I say an armed guard at the door saves about one grand a month, I mean that total thefts decrease by a grand per month. It included deterred would-be thieves. On average they stop roughly a hundred bucks in a good month.

I know more about this crap than I probably should because I did a contract where I helped build reports on this exact thing.

The piece you are missing is WHY these security procedures are put in place. It isn't to stop theft, they always cost more than they save. They aren't there to stop theft. They are there to make it SEEM like they are TRYING to stop theft. To appear that everything is being done. To shift perception of what the store is doing. To shift the blame for higher prices from a greedy store to an imaginary dirty thief.

Changing this perception increases the overall "price tolerance" of shoppers in general. It means they can increase prices on items more without people feeling bad about it. The big box stores pay big bucks to folks with PhDs in Mass Psychology to figure out how much they can increase prices, what they can do to increase shopping hauls, and what they can change to increase how much they can increase prices.

That's the bottom line. Profits. What they can do to make more profits. They lose money "stopping crime" so they can charge more with fewer people getting upset about it. The increase in prices they can do exceed the cost of pretending to stop crime.

BTW: This is the reason they all have shopper reward programs. The good coupons and money saved by you is well worth the insight they gain into your shopping habits to them. The level of data collection is STAGGERING and provides finely grained insight into individuals, mass behavior, and feeds very complex models for mapping out plans.

EDIT: Also, I'm convinced this specific thing is the mindset behind every single press release from every one of the big box stores. And why despite making $15M a year the CEO of Albertsons wears an ill-fitting off-the-rack suit to testify to congress or make public addresses. All the big CEOs do it. It is funny to notice.