Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by veteran+ »

pseudo3d wrote: October 16th, 2021, 7:23 am
Alpha8472 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 5:03 pm The problem is not just theft. The problem is that Walgreens has the highest prices and worst selection of items. The prices are so high that it is like price gouging. Ever since the corporate office has been doing the merchandising, there has been less and less appeal to the stores. They used to have souvenirs and really good things to buy. Now it is an awful place to shop at.

There are other drugstores in the city that have a better selection of items and lower prices.

The mayor and some of the city supervisors say that the reasons for closing the stores is not theft. The data shows that theft rates are down from even before the pandemic in 2019. Walgreens had managed to drive away their customers by high prices and awful stores. The mayor and supervisors say that the Walgreens' explanation of theft is painting the city of San Francisco as lawless. The news story is making headlines across the country and is discouraging tourism to the city. The mayor believes that Walgreens had planned to close and consolidate stores anyway.

San Francisco is still a very nice place to visit and aside from the worst neighborhoods the city has a vibrant retail shopping scene.

Of course the city is going to say that it wasn't theft, especially if crime rates don't cover unreported theft (what's the point of reporting theft if you know nothing will be done about it, or worse, get sued for it?) or are tweaked to take into account the decriminalized theft laws.

That's not to say that Walgreens' business model doesn't have problems, but I get the feeling that the city is really trying to cover for a more serious problem.
It is all over the place as to whom is saying that theft is the issue. The City? The retailer? Law enforcement? The Media?

Then some of the very same folks say that these closures were planned independent of Covid or theft.

I believe the latter. Why? Because just like everyone was reporting that there was a massive exodus of renters from Los Angeles to other places resulting in huge vacancies..........................it did not happen. I just moved and everywhere I went the occupancy rate was above 90% up to 96% (except in brand new properties).

Also, crime reporting is most often voluntary as well as What to report. It is not codified nor enforced much less legally required with accountability and penalty.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: October 17th, 2021, 9:20 am
It is all over the place as to whom is saying that theft is the issue. The City? The retailer? Law enforcement? The Media?

Then some of the very same folks say that these closures were planned independent of Covid or theft.

I believe the latter. Why? Because just like everyone was reporting that there was a massive exodus of renters from Los Angeles to other places resulting in huge vacancies..........................it did not happen. I just moved and everywhere I went the occupancy rate was above 90% up to 96% (except in brand new properties).

Also, crime reporting is most often voluntary as well as What to report. It is not codified nor enforced much less legally required with accountability and penalty.
That 90-96% occupancy there is a decline from before this whole COVID thing and meanwhile in areas people are trying to move to there is literally 100% occupancy and skyrocketing rents ($1,800 a month for a 2 bedroom mid grade apartment in Sparks, NV...?).

I am sure the exit of people from the city, fewer people going into offices 5 days a week, impacts the stores to some extent. Even if it is only 5% of their volume lost it could very well be the loss of that 5% of traffic when combined with all of the other issues was enough to push the stores into closure status.

While out today I went into one of the drugstores. In a part of town where I've never seen any homeless people. An individual came in with a cartfull of various belongings and started shopping. Their shopping process was interesting as they were wrapping the items they took off the shelf, into their belongings while on the sales floor. A couple employees watched from a distance and did nothing. I stood right next to this person for a while as I watched him remove multiple items from the shelf and wrap into his belongings, he had his back to me and was pretending as if I wasn't there. This individual hit the liquor area, seasonal area (took a lot of winter type items like blankets, gloves), and candy area and left the store. I estimate this was easily a $600+ retail value loss, probably more. The security alarm went off as the individual exited the store- of course that stopped nothing. May as well just disable those alarms.

When you have dozens of people doing the above every day a store can't make it unless it is extremely high volume to absorb the theft.

Look at Google Reviews for some of the Walgreens closing in San Francisco- people are commenting on all the theft they are seeing go on in the stores.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

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This would never happen at an independent pharmacy. The big chains have employees that cannot confront shoplifters. Independent pharmacies have complete freedom to tell these people to get out. Years ago San Francisco had mom and pop drugstores where you received great service. Then Walgreens and other big chains pushed them out. Maybe it is time for mom and pop pharmacies to return. There are still some independent pharmacies in the area.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: October 17th, 2021, 7:31 pm This would never happen at an independent pharmacy. The big chains have employees that cannot confront shoplifters. Independent pharmacies have complete freedom to tell these people to get out. Years ago San Francisco had mom and pop drugstores where you received great service. Then Walgreens and other big chains pushed them out. Maybe it is time for mom and pop pharmacies to return. There are still some independent pharmacies in the area.
Part of it is the independents are pretty small in size, but also better staffed and limit their product sales to basic OTC and a few other random items. Aisles usually just a few and visible from the pharmacy area. Add a slightly elevated/raised pharmacy work space and it makes it even better of a view. That's not to say the pharmacist should be standing up there looking down at the store all day instead of focusing on filling scripts but it is still a deterrent. Not a comfortable environment for shoplifters. The large chains moving so heavy into liquor, seasonal soft goods, etc. with large stores run with 1-2 employees are just a target for theft.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by veteran+ »

Alpha8472 wrote: October 17th, 2021, 7:31 pm This would never happen at an independent pharmacy. The big chains have employees that cannot confront shoplifters. Independent pharmacies have complete freedom to tell these people to get out. Years ago San Francisco had mom and pop drugstores where you received great service. Then Walgreens and other big chains pushed them out. Maybe it is time for mom and pop pharmacies to return. There are still some independent pharmacies in the area.
Large corps are paranoid regarding litigation $$$ coming from those few cases where they made a big mistake (by employee, pro security firm or off duty law enforcement). Throw in the occasional incident where someone gets seriously injured or worse.

I have witnessed company policy change little by little, to the point that the company seems to prefer to take the shrink (and charge more?) by avoiding those infrequent mishaps in the process of loss prevention.

On another issue: they take this approach on the shopping cart issue.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

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veteran+ wrote: October 18th, 2021, 10:32 am
Large corps are paranoid regarding litigation $$$ coming from those few cases where they made a big mistake (by employee, pro security firm or off duty law enforcement). Throw in the occasional incident where someone gets seriously injured or worse.

I have witnessed company policy change little by little, to the point that the company seems to prefer to take the shrink (and charge more?) by avoiding those infrequent mishaps in the process of loss prevention.

On another issue: they take this approach on the shopping cart issue.
Another strategy may be to remove the products that people want to take, or only sell the smallest size packages, etc. There are so many ways to try for cutting theft. None are great. Closing the store and admitting defeat is the worst.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by veteran+ »

Ahhh yes.......

The 4 or 5 Ds of loss prevention:

Deter
Detect
Delay
Deny

And sometimes Destroy? and Defend?

The problem is, if sufficient payroll is not provided, shrink will be reduced and sales will be decreased OR too much payroll will reduce profit margins.

I have seen the 4 Ds employed with little manpower used that caused severe reduction in sales. I have seen huge payroll increases (including outside services) that was not sustainable. I have also seen product discontinued after a plethora of attempts by these Ds of loss prevention.

It is a persistent conundrum!
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: October 19th, 2021, 9:01 am Ahhh yes.......

The 4 or 5 Ds of loss prevention:

Deter
Detect
Delay
Deny

And sometimes Destroy? and Defend?

The problem is, if sufficient payroll is not provided, shrink will be reduced and sales will be decreased OR too much payroll will reduce profit margins.

I have seen the 4 Ds employed with little manpower used that caused severe reduction in sales. I have seen huge payroll increases (including outside services) that was not sustainable. I have also seen product discontinued after a plethora of attempts by these Ds of loss prevention.

It is a persistent conundrum!
The other challenge now is labor. With as tight as labor is, you just can't have an employee standing everywhere. I don't mean tight labor budget from corporate (that was a cause of the problem in the first place, yes, but at this time- I mean lack of applicants to fill the jobs).

They may need to somehow employ the model seen in some big cities in other countries, across the ocean from California. You go into stores and there are employees literally everywhere. It is not only for customer service but also to deter theft. Self checkouts largely don't exist; labor cost is low enough and the stores have way fewer promotions, fewer SKUs; it works out for the stores to staff way more people.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by Alpha8472 »

A Walgreens in the Financial District at 141 Kearny Street is closing on February 22. San Francisco is suffering from a lack of people returning to their offices to work. The city has many tech companies and they all seem to be working from home. Only 20 percent of workers have returned vs up to 45 % in other cities.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

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Alpha8472 wrote: February 10th, 2022, 10:25 pm A Walgreens in the Financial District at 141 Kearny Street is closing on February 22. San Francisco is suffering from a lack of people returning to their offices to work. The city has many tech companies and they all seem to be working from home. Only 20 percent of workers have returned vs up to 45 % in other cities.
To be fair it is only a few blocks to the Walgreens at 825 Market Street (larger store with long hours) or the Walgreens at 300 Montgomery.

I think the problem with 141 Kerney is the area is not very heavy foot traffic (even when more people were working down there) and also the store sits in the middle of a block so it really needs people to make a point of going down that block to stop in, vs. locations at an intersection that have much better visibility.

This closure is one they definitely won't be able to blame on shoplifting as the Financial District is very clean and does not have the issues much of the city has.
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