CVS Is Turning Locked Shelves Into an Excuse to Make You Download Its App
The store is trialing a feature to let customers unlock cabinets with their phone.
If any store starts requiring a fucking app to make a purchase, that store has permanently lost my business.
You have not earned the privilege of being installed on my phone. Get the fuck out of here.
Just putting the products in a locked case is enough to get me to shop elsewhere.
Its 2024and you go to Mcdonalds drivethrough. First thing you hear:
Whats your order code
No good morning. Its straight to whats the order code for the app on your phone.
Thankfully you can be equally rude back and place your order.
Next year though? Dont expect the human to stay around for long.
Line mus go up!
We all just learned from Walgreens’ latest report that placing barriers between consumers and the goods they’re trying to purchase reduces sales, and CVS’ response to this problem is to add a login requirement.
Easing the ordering process, and a solid return policy, is how Amazon exploded overnight. Study after study showed that people would walk back if the website offered the slightest hassle. Also funny, something like a 1.3s load time difference would send people to competitors.
Do they not teach this shit in business school?!
It took Valve years to build Steam into the juggernaut it is based on maximizing customer value and minimizing friction. Years! Like multiple of them! Who has time for that! I need my profits this quarter!
As someone who has a BS in Business, yes they taught this in business.
Similarly we had case studies on Wal-mart’s absolute domination of the logistics game which made them a powerhouse in the “before Amazon” times.
I’ve always argued that putting condoms in locked shelves is pro-STD and pro-teen-pregnancy. The fact that you have to walk up to an employee, ask them to open the shelf for you, and have them stand there and watch as you grab a box of condoms has no doubt scared away numerous 16 yr olds when all they were trying to do was be safe.
Walgreens CEO, "We lost business due to our locked shelves."
CVS: "Hold my beer."
For this to work, you need to download and install the app and sign up for CVS’ loyalty program. In the store, you need to be logged into the app and connected to the store’s Wi-Fi, and have Bluetooth turned on.
Haha. I'll never go there again. Too bad there's so many dumbasses who will just be fine with this.
I can't wait for someone with a flipper zero to just drive around unlocking cases in every CVS in town.
Wow, three strikes, one after the other. If I have to use my phone in a store, I'll be looking up directions to a competitor. I'm not jumping through hoops to buy stuff.
Definitely not installing that shit.
Yeah, another reason not to go there. Unfortunately no impact since I already don’t.
Nearby one is 24h so I occasionally go there when everything else is closed, but that’s the only advantage they have. But no way am I downloading their app just to get a bottle of aspirin at 1am
Yeah...this is absurd beyond belief. The problem is the average consumer out there will not see how this is an issue.
This might be too complicated for the average consumer at CVS, which tends to skew towards an older demographic.
Please use local drug stores. The chain stores are absolutely ripping you the fuck off.
I go there in person BECAUSE I don’t want to log in to your stupid website.
I guess I am starting to be okay with "leaning in" and taking advantage off my "old guy" (false) technical ineptitude and will just pretend to shuffle up to a store employee and ask them to open those cabinets for me
I went into Walmart yesterday for my annual soap/shampoo/mouthwash bulk purchase as they have the products I like at the best price (in bulk). I got to the section and it was all locked up behind glass...
I turned around and walked right out. No idea where I'm gonna get it from now, but I'm not gonna support that bullshit.
The claims of mass losses due to shoplifting have been proven false multiple times over. These are just racist store policies intended to make you spend more time in their store or to buy online or from mobile apps.
Enshitification keeps on keeping on.
I buy those items from my large grocery store. They have sales too so the goods are fairly priced.
In my old rite aid I saw a bunch of shop lifters stealing goods, but nothing was done about it. Saw it several times. Security lets them leave.
Fuck nope.
lol, no.
CVS and their deliberate, hostile business practices chased me away years ago when I was unable to stop them from auto-refilling prescriptions I did not need. California finally took action against CVS in 2020 after many years of their carefully engineered abuses.
Good to see the company's crappy behavior continues unabated and there's no reason to give them another try.
Not just refilling prescriptions automatically, but automatically contacting your doctor to request more refills on your behalf once your normal refills refills ran out. I got a phone call from my doctor's office once, asking me why I was trying to go around them to get more of something that I was only supposed to be on for a short time. Freaking CVS made me look like I was drug seeking.
Thank you, subbed!
They also tried to make refrigerators into billboards, blocking visibility of anything inside. They were all broken within a matter of months, then replaced again with glass doors sometime later. These people are morons.
Oh good, this is going to be an excuse for every other business to start doing this shit ....
lol good luck with that. when they (and rite aid) started locking up their shelves I stopped buying from them.
What I'm always stunned by, who is fucking stupid enough to shop there?! I go to the pharmacy, get my shit, leave. Even when I had a fat income, I still wouldn't pay those prices.
Locally, the Winn Dixie is shutting down because the new Publix out competed them. For those not in the know, both are very nice groceries, with Publix a little nicer and way costlier. FFS, we have an Aldi (along with 5 other cheaper groceries) and it's never as busy as the expensive stores.
Hit a couple of big box stores waiting on my wife. Never go in those places anymore, especially since inflation went nuts the last couple of years. People pay for that crap?! At Pets Mart a chunk of driftwood is between $20 and $50! Y'all, we're in Florida, paying for driftwood and sand. The mind boggles.
tl:dr; American consumers are idiots and I'm not going to hear the whining about high retail prices.
we have an Aldi (along with 5 other cheaper groceries) and it’s never as busy as the expensive stores.
That might also be related to the fact that Aldi tries to be very efficient with its operation so they might handle more customers but those customers aren't stuck in the store as long.
The Germans know how to run an efficient grocery, I hope Aldi, trader joes and lidl destroy "thin margin" US parasites.
JFC fuck Kroger, fuck Safeway fuck expensive shit
Food is the common man necessity and it should be priced as such. We surely as fuck subsidize it, but the parasitic class still charges "market"
I'm waiting for the ultimate reductive customer experience. These drug stores will eventually block off access to the shelves and aisles entirely. Instead, the front point-of-sale area and places where people used to wait in line with their purchases will be turned into a new blocked off large vestibule with floor to ceiling transparent glass. In there (where customers can access) will be kiosks which can control tele-presence robots that will let customers "walk the aisle" to look at product on shelves:
If you want to make a purchase, you press a button on the kiosk and pay for it, then a human worker inside will fetch the item off the shelf for you and drop it in a transaction drawer where you pick up your item:
There used to be a store called Service Merchandise with a similar model. Their floor was just a showroom with one of each item, sort of like a physical catalog. You just grab a ticket to buy stuff and wait for it to come up a conveyor, sort of like airline baggage claim. I always wondered why that model never succeeded: it was so convenient and would be even better now with automation and online shopping, qr codes
I remember Service Merchandise! That conveyor belt delivered magic.
These still exist in Ireland. Argos is a big one.
Let’s go one step further and make them a gig worker so CVS doesn’t have to pay them for downtime and instead we get to tip
then a human worker inside will fetch the item off the shelf for you
Soon enough that robot will complete that whole transaction and the humans will not be needed
How about I just shop somewhere else?
There's not a good reason to do this.
Any money saved by preventing thefts in our dying world will be lost from the customers who don't want to be treated like thieves.
Like the shoplifters won't make bogus accounts? Wtf are we even doing here?
The locked shelves are to block thieves.
Turns out they also block customers.
They've turned blocking thieves into an income stream. Consumers will have to let CVS collect their personal data to be allowed to purchase baby formula.
Uh, yeah?
is that what teevvee told you, boy?
