I have been shaving for fifty years. Most of that time I have shaved with blades. I started shaving with an electric razor as my dad did (he shaved twice a day) but my beard was tougher than his and by the time I had gotten a clean shave my skin was rubbed raw. So I began shaving with a safety razor and have, starting with Gillette Blue Blades and proceeding through Wilkinson Sword Blades and others on to the present day. And I’ve bought nearly every one of those razor blades at a Walgreens store. No more.
While I was on my regular Saturday shopping errands this morning, one of those errands was picking up a prescription for my wife at Walgreens. While I was there, knowing that I needed razor blades, I went by the shaving aisle.
Shrinkage (the retailer’s term of art for lossage, mostly theft) is a problem for most retailers running from about 8% of total sales to as much as 30%. I’m sympathetic. Different retailers have adopted different strategies for reducing it (mostly ineffective, I suspect—the dirty little secret of retailing is that most shrinkage is a consequence of employee theft which can’t easily be prevented by the strategies that have been deployed). Walgreens’s strategy for reducing the theft of razor blades is to put them in locked cases in the aisles with buttons you can press for service. That strategy makes several assumptions among them that the employees are willing to go to the aisle to open the case and that the prospective customers are willing to wait for as long as it takes.
I went to the aisle, pressed the button, heard the PA system request customer assistance in the shaving aisle, and put a timer on. At the end of five minutes I gave up. I then went to the pharmacist’s counter, waited another five minutes for attention, got my wife’s prescription, paid, wasted another 30 seconds giving the pharmacist a piece of my mind, ended with “Please tell the manager that he’s lost my business”, and left.
Waiting a couple of minutes for service is understandable; it means they’re understaffed. Waiting five minutes and giving up in an essentially empty store is bad management: the employees clearly don’t give a damn and that’s a management problem. The unfortunate thing about employees not giving a damn is that they won’t give a damn that they’ve lost the business, either.
My annualized business with Walgreens probably runs into four figures somewhere and now they’ve lost most of that business. It’s not much but it’s the most I can do within the confines of the law. From my point of view I’m giving the store the death penalty. I hope the store closes and that all of its employees lose their jobs so they have plenty of time to do whatever they’re doing instead of attending to customers with all of the extra time they’ve got on their hands.
I may write a letter to Walgreens customer service but I probably won’t. I suspect that they don’t give a damn, either. Walgreens is not the only store in the world. I’ll keep going there for my wife’s prescription but I’ll never buy as much as a pack of gum more at a Walgreens ever again. I’d rather go where my business is wanted and I strongly urge others to do the same. Depending on how strong my pique is, I may run this post every couple of months just as a reminder. With any luck search engines will find it.
Gads! Razor blades are locked up?
What do they do with stuff that is actually expensive?
Also, wondering how expensive those blades? I buy the largest pack I can get as Sam’s Club; I’d like to think I’m saving money, but really I just don’t want the hastle, so I know where you’re coming from.
Around here, it would be hard to find a Walgreens that’s not within walking distance of an another drug store chain. Walgreens is the closest to me, but had bad experiences there the last two times I picked up a prescription.
I use an old school safety razor, too, but I buy my blades online. Way cheaper that way.
What Jack said. The fact that they lock up something as modest as razor blades speaks volumes to me.
I worked in retail for a long time, and there’s a constant push between two types of managers when it comes to dealing with shrinkage. Some try to address it by improving the customer experience, and some try to address it by infringing on the customer experience. When the latter group wins, game over.
You’re tapping into one of my great irritations in life. I’m an impatient man. I admit that. I’ve gotten a bit better with age, but I still cannot stand bad service. I have walked away from thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars in purchases because I was kept standing around.
My question is whether any of this shows up in the accounting of various retail and service businesses. My suspicion is that some bright boy in accounting says, “We have to cut staff, and cut training, too.” And all they notice is that their labor costs have dropped. Then when their overall sales drop they blame some other cause.
I am normally the meekest and most patient of men. However, I, too, have a character flaw that I’ll openly acknowledge. Frustration is cumulative for me. Like the Bourbons I forget nothing; unlike them I learn plenty.
Frustration and insult reach a tipping point for me. Once it’s reached there’s no going back and it takes all of my will to prevent the inner city kid from coming out in me and beating the snot out of the idiot right then and there.
Dave:
When it comes to that, Dave, I know some good lawyers. . .
My annualized business with Walgreens probably runs into four figures somewhere and now they’ve lost most of that business. It’s not much but it’s the most I can do within the confines of the law.
If the law allowed what else would you do? Throw a brick through a window? Burn down the store? Kill the staff, burn their bodies and piss on the smoking corpses?
Good Lord, exactly what else do you think is warranted for poor service other than ceasing to do business with the perps?
My question is whether any of this shows up in the accounting of various retail and service businesses. My suspicion is that some bright boy in accounting says, “We have to cut staff, and cut training, too.†And all they notice is that their labor costs have dropped. Then when their overall sales drop they blame some other cause.
That is exactly how it works, Michael, except that you forgot one thing. When business drops, THEN they will recommend price hikes. And the bosses will do it. That’s why Disney charges $14 for parking, for example.
And you might want to rethink how bad it is to lock up the merchandise. Consider this, also from a Walgreen’s:
Some glass covers for the cough drops would have saved the store a few hundred in lost merchandise.
Just a couple thoughts:
1. I share this unwillingness to wait with Messrs. Reynolds and Schuler. In fact, I’ve been known – if at a checkout counter – to simply walk up and dump the goods on the counter – including persifables – and walk out. A bit dramatic but it makes the point.
2. It makes for good snark to blame some dweeb in accounting, but no business I’ve ever been associated with makes decisions that way. Accountants account. In a retail store setting, merchandisers make merchandising decisions. And, yes, iventory shrinkage is a huge problem in retail…….and other businesses. (I’ve known businesses where trucks of raw materials have gone out the back door on the midnight shift.) Inventry control is an important function.
3. Yes, employee theft is a problem, as I just noted, but in retail customer theft is a much bigger problem. I’m surprised, Dave, you ran into this in Sauganash. For example, Walgreens, Jewel etc tend not to hve these devices in Naperville. But just over in Aurora they almost all do. I’m sure you will understand the distinction.
Back in the days when I had contacts at Walgreens the company was notorious, NOTORIOUS, for arrogant management. I have no idea if that’s the case now.
While the locked cases may be an issue for corporate management or district management I’m quite certain the sloppy in-store personnel is a store management and district management problem. I can’t explain it. I think they just don’t give a damn.
I guess my gripe in this is that I bill my time. I’ve been billing my time for thirty years. I don’t have pharmaceuticals or Band-Aids or vitamins or rubbing alcohol to sell. Just my time.
I didn’t consent to having my time wasted. From my vantage point it was theft just as surely as it would have been if I’d walked out with merchandise. The store wasn’t busy and there were various clerks, pharmacists, etc. milling around, restocking shelves, and doing whatever they thought was a higher priority than take care of the customer—me. I think that’s a pretty crappy decision on their part but it’s something I’m seeing all too commonly these days. I don’t think it’s simply a matter of lack of training. I think they’re convinced that customers are a dime a dozen and there are plenty more where I came from so screw it.
I’ve worked in retail occasionally over the years and I’ve had plenty of clients who were in retail. It’s a tough business both at the front end and the back end. At the front end to be successful you’ve either got to be the only game in town or you’ve got to genuinely be concerned about your customers. This store was acting as though they were the only game in town but they weren’t even the only game on the block.
From my experience in retail, these sorts of compact Health & Beauty essentials are super high-risk for both internal and external theft. Unfortunately, I have friends and even family who have at some point “lifted” a innocuous item such as a $12 Quad-blade disposable razor set. One problem I see is that locking these normal products away from customers *won’t* prevent employee theft, but it *will* create the frustrating experience you have experienced.
May I recommend Target, where the average team member has some reasonable degree of knowledge and genuine care for your guest experience. Also, due in part to high-tech Asset Protection measures they can afford to leave these types of items at easy access. Not to mention, a $10 gift card for your transferred prescription and 5% off your day’s purchases for every 5 prescriptions filled. This stacks with their 5% off every day, assuming you use their REDcard.
A mid-sized, understaffed, low-key drug store such as Walgreens seems like the perfect target for a small snag such as a razorblade. You can’t entirely blame them in this economy, but you obviously can (and verily, should) take your business elsewhere. $4 generic Target prescriptions with a smile may be calling your name. 😉
The locked up razor blades annoy me as well . It is a company wide policy at Walgreens, and I can honestly say that the most mismanaged Walgreens in America is about three blocks from my house. Check outs are frequently lines of customers 6-9 deep despite the traffic not being especially heavy. The employees are friendly but painfully slow and at times befuddled.
The best Walgreens I have ever been in is on the strip in Las Vegas. It is large, heavily staffed and service is good despite a huge volume of customers. If every Walgreens was like it their bottom line would be akin to Walmart’s.