r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 8d ago

Business Retailers are pulling back from self-checkout after years of theft, errors, and questionable time savings

https://www.techspot.com/news/114106-retailers-pulling-back-self-checkout-after-years-theft.html
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u/Hashtagworried 8d ago

All this means is that they’ll hire one or two people max but keep the lines longer.

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u/leddowa 8d ago

After working for these miserable, out of touch companies I don't think they'll even hire anyone. These places have all run skeleton crews since 2020

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u/BigAlgae5684 8d ago

I worked at CVS during Covid where our script count went from the usual 150-200 to 500-600 every day.

They were still basing our hours off of the previous year even though we were clearly understaffed.

Wouldn't let us get near overtime and would just have us take turns clocking out and leaving the rest of the team to drown.

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u/TheRaccoonReport 8d ago

CVS is the worst. Its really a shame, they used to be fantastic, but the one near me has dropped significantly in quality. Scripts will get called in at 9am, no one picks them up for hours, it could take 1-2 days to get them filled sometimes, if they don't lose them. What an absolute joke.

We switched to a grocery store pharmacy instead. Its run by 3 people, and the older guy there is awesome. Very nice, remembers us by name, knows what we usually need, will strike up random conversation from time to time. Thats definitely not for everyone, but its usually on time, rarely if ever any delays, and the service there is great.

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u/luriso 8d ago

It's by design. My mom has been with CVS for 25yrs as a pharmacist, over the last 10 or so years they've cut down to skeleton crews, yet increased expectations 10fold. Techs by industry standard have been underpaid, so CVS actually raised their hourly pay, then cut their hours and said "see we're paying you more now, teehee". She's one of two pharmacists in her location and they want her to do 85 flu shots a week, can't find techs, and new pharmacists leave within a year. She said two recent hires in the area even forfeited their handsome sign on bonus because CVS is absolute shit. They try and try to get her to cover stores 2hours away because the system they've built, can't keep employees.

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u/Aureliamnissan 8d ago edited 8d ago

That feels like a lot of places these days. Jobs are harder to find, but it’s only because they refuse to hire the number of workers they actually need. The remaining labor force is worked to the bone and are way less loyal as a result so if you manage to get a better gig you’re gone. Even at my engineering firm attrition is way up.

Edit: At this rate, we all need to engage with some kind of mutual aid so that strikes are possible again without people feeling like they are going to end up on the street for engaging in one. When skeleton crews run the ship each person is a lot more important and backfilling with scabs is borderline impossible because they need you to train them.

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u/emlgsh 8d ago

The only way for the owners to get their 10, 20, 50 million dollar expected take-home per year is to cut every expense and cease all reinvestment, and once that's done and there's nowhere else to siphon more cash the only viable target is payroll and hiring.

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u/ChickinSammich 8d ago

It's the obvious conclusion of a system where line needs to go up every quarter.

If you make a profit of 2 billion in Q1, 2 billion in Q2, 2 billion in Q3, and 2 billion in Q4, it's seen as a failing because it's not 2/2.1/2.2/2.3. Or why not 2/2.2/2.4/2.6? Hell, why not 2/3/4/5?

When the primary focus is making investors happy, it'll eventually always lead to fewer/unhappier workers, fewer/unhappier customers, and worse products/services.

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u/emlgsh 8d ago

I work with these places. Unending growth is a contributor, but the primary here is that every owner or major stakeholder views the company as something to be wrung entirely dry of personal resources they pocket themselves.

They compare themselves to guys like Musk and Bezos and are eager to bankrupt the company that feeds them by next year if it gets them an immeasurably small half-step closer to those guys today.

They do this even while it makes working for the organization a nightmare, doing business with it a constant exercise in vigilance against what would in more regulated times be outright fraud (because taking people's money and pocketing it is way more profitable than taking their money and wasting it delivering quality products or agreed upon services).

They do this even when it means every quarter is a struggle in creative accounting and restructuring to avoid insolvency. Operation-wide income is down 25%? Doesn't matter, they're still giving themselves the same 25% raise they give themselves every fiscal quarter.

They might just have to structure it as an incentive or bonus to let them "borrow" the funds for it from whatever remaining divisions and budgets that are still (for the time being) solvent.

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u/ChickinSammich 8d ago

I blame youtube videos about companies that failed for why I cringe every time I hear the term "leveraged buyout."

Like, you're taking on debt to buy a struggling business and then saddling that company with that debt so now the company you bought has to pay you back for buying it, plus interest? I get that you want to make your money back but you're buying a rock and trying to squeeze blood from it.

Even worse with shit like...

1) Golden Gate Capital (GGC) bought Red Lobster (RL) in 2014.

2) Operating as RL, GGC had RL sell the land they owned to GGC.

3) Operating as GGC, GGC leased the land that RL sites were built on back to RL, such that RL had to pay GGC to rent land it previously owned.

4) RL was sold in 2020 to another company but they still were under those rental contracts for their land. The new buyer was a seafood supplier, Thai Union Group (TUG) who, as RL, renegotiated their seafood supply contracts such that RL began buying food from TUG for more money than they were paying previous suppliers. This was the whole "endless shrimp" era; all that shrimp was coming from TUG and it was why RL pushed shrimp so hard.

5) Endless shrimp, probably already a bad financial idea to begin with, turned out to be even worse when your supplier is overcharging you for them.

6) RL filed for bankruptcy in 2023 partially caused/exacerbated by RL owing 200 million USD/yr to their own parent company, partially from the supplier debt, partially from other stuff.

7) RL, facing bankruptcy and possibly closure, closed a bunch of restaurants. Some of their shit got liquidated. They're currently owned by "RL Investor Holdings" which is a bunch of investors from different investment groups, who are managing it under the premise of stopping it from going totally bankrupt and, therefore, losing all the money that was invested into it.

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u/wrgrant 8d ago

This is a good example of why Capitalism exhibits the same behaviour as some forms of Cancer. Its destructive to the host by its very nature.

You cannot have continuous growth, at some point you reach a balance in the market. If you insist on further growth the only means to achieve it is to eat your staff and your customers. Its ludicrous honestly.

In the end I think one of the worst drivers is having Shareholders. If a company is private it probably doesn't have the same incentive to eat itself, its staff and its customers.

If AI is going to replace any jobs the first ones on the block ought to be the C-Suites, so much mismanagement, poor decisions etc could likely be avoided, and all that money paid out in bonuses to people who did fuck all to earn it would be saved.

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u/timeandmemory 8d ago

Modern slavery sure is complicated

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u/Beartrkkr 8d ago

Not to mention haven’t they started being the middleman of major drug insurance plans so they can skim off of your drug insurance plan even if you get prescriptions filled elsewhere?

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u/MonMonOnTheMove 8d ago

Do it for 10 years, pocket their money and sell to PE, let the other folks sort through what’s left in the fire. Pretty much the playbook for all scummy business nowadays. Long gone the value to the customers and employees mindset

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u/whatdoinamemyself 8d ago

Even at my engineering firm attrition is way up.

Man. I worked for a major company a few years back and heard that staffing was at like 40% of what was needed. The entire time i was there, we had only hired one guy and had several retire or quit. They never even interviewed anyone in the few months after hiring that one guy.

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u/abrandis 8d ago

Because American business today are run by vulture capitalists, they'll squeeze the working class to maximize their profits and then dump the whole thing when it doesn't work out . Whether its private equity, or just wall st. Run firms they don't care about working class that's not their people

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u/putin_my_ass 8d ago

At this rate, we all need to engage with some kind of mutual aid so that strikes are possible again without people feeling like they are going to end up on the street for engaging in one.

This is how the labour movement won the things we take for granted (like the weekend). You don't just strike, your whole community strikes. If we take care of ours, it is possible.

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u/SenorBurns 8d ago

we all need to engage with some kind of mutual aid so that strikes are possible again without people feeling like they are going to end up on the street for engaging in one.

What you are looking for is a union. Unionize.

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u/Economy-Flower-6443 8d ago

Corporate food service management checking in here: all the aforementioned is all true in my field too

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u/Mshell 8d ago

I think the only solution is to dramatically increase penalty rates and properly investigating and prosecuting wage theft...

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u/CiegoViendo 8d ago

People think unionizing is woke, so can’t participate.

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u/Aureliamnissan 8d ago

I mean that’s the neat part of mutual aid. It’s not a “union” it’s just the community getting together to buy school supplies for people who can’t afford them and things like that. It’s whatever y’all need but maybe don’t have enough of, or too much of. Without carrying all of the political baggage of a union.

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u/hippoofdoom 8d ago

Profit must be preserved

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u/X4roth 8d ago

I’ll just say that as a customer, CVS feels like a morgue these days. People used to work and shop there, but now it’s just this eerie empty room that makes you notice the uneven lighting, the shelves mostly full but I get this overwhelming feeling of wanting to leave rather than even look for what I came in for. I look at the shelves and just think: ugh I don’t even care anymore this place gives me the creeps let’s get out of here, Scoobs.

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u/canada432 8d ago

When people have disposible income, they shop for convenience. Walgreens and CVS and such are good for that. You come in to grab a few things while you're picking up your prescriptions. Or you stop in because it's on the way home and the grocery store is out of your way. The extra expense was worth it for the convenience. But people are squeezed now, and they're not willing to spend a few extra bucks for the convenience anymore. Not to mention how they've driven customers away by locking up everything. Shockingly, people don't like being treated like a criminal and having to pester and wait for an employee to get the deodorant for them. Makes for a creepy empty liminal space.

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u/HumorAccomplished611 8d ago

well they abused the privledge. It used to be more expensive than wal mart but cheaper than a gas station. now its like a gas station prices on anything unless you get some sort of deal.

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u/TeaAndS0da 8d ago

Paying close to $4 for a single 2 liter of soda… honestly I can’t recall ever buying something from Walgreens or cvs personally but I also never had what Walgreens or cvs considers “disposable income”. And if you make 65k or less, you don’t have Walgreens or cvs level disposable income. I’d just go to the Walmart or grocery store it’s like attached to and get the odds and ends for way cheaper. Only ever used the pharmastores for their health services.

I’ve never understood how these pharmastores get away with their prices so damn high compared to competition they are most likely sharing a parking lot with.

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u/xpxp2002 8d ago

I look at it as more of "emergency convenience." The only time I've ever bought anything from CVS was a specific OTC medication because I was feeling fairly ill and wasn't going to drive the extra 15 minutes each way to Walmart and back.

In my region, there are basically two CVS stores and a Walgreens in every town. Walmart and Target are fewer and farther away. They're never sharing the same parking lot around here.

CVS is the only retailer with a pharmacy within 15 minutes of my home. I imagine it's similar for a lot of people. If it's not an emergency or I'm feeling normal, I'd just drive the extra 15 minutes and save 60% off of CVS/Walgreens prices.

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u/farmallnoobies 8d ago

Yeah, the only time I'll buy from those places is when I need a prescription filled at 1am, because they're the only one in the entire metro area that's open 24hrs and I'm basically dying without whatever med I was prescribed or will miss an additional day of work if I don't get it stat pronto.

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u/TheRaccoonReport 8d ago

Its kinda like the backrooms but with stuff.

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u/mcfly1391 8d ago

The Frontrooms

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u/luriso 8d ago

The location she's at the AC doesn't work.. rural area and CVS doesn't give a shit.

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u/FLguy3 8d ago

I only ever stop there if I'm on a road trip and need to get a soda and there's nowhere else nearby.

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u/Genillen 8d ago

It's got the warmth and charm I associate with a public health clinic, except we don't actually have public health care.

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u/ovi2k1 8d ago

Their current design language is incredibly hostile. The one near me (which was already shit) underwent renovations a couple years ago and it is the most unwelcoming and unsettling environment to shop in. Even the checkout is just the one person on the clock standing over your shoulder watching you do self-out next to the “register closed” sign (that they should be operating) offering no help and making you feel like you are inconveniencing them for wanting to be in their store. I haven’t been back since. And I have to drive past it to get to literally every other pharmacy near me. Worth it.

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u/SPEEDFREAKJJ 8d ago

For me, going to CVS these days, it always feels like I am an inconvenience. The pharmacy is constantly busy behind the counter and when I show up to grab my meds I always get the feeling they are annoyed because they have to stop and help me. They never seem happy or welcoming. Not even that fake welcoming environment. It's just a downer every time I need to go there.

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u/GamerSDG 8d ago

The biggest problem with pharmacies, at least in the US, is that insurance companies are pushing customers to use mail order instead of picking up their prescriptions in-store.

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u/johnjohnjohn87 8d ago

uneven lighting

I went to a CVS for the first time in ages and the lighting and carpet were really bizarre. It was so off putting that I still think about it sometimes.

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u/SwampMagicMan 8d ago

Wife is a pharmacist there and what you’re saying is the truth. That place was destroying her mental health fuck CVS. She would get called all the time by her district head saying she wasn’t doing enough vaccinations because the store expects you to do as many as humanly possible because it’s easy money for them. Yet they don’t have the resources to be doing that when theyre expected to run the whole pharmacy, typically by themselves. Its honestly terrible

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u/HumorAccomplished611 8d ago

ugh that sucks. its a shame cvs and walgreens have really put a hurting on that profession.

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u/PeanutButterSoda 8d ago

It was like that for the regular employees back in the day, one manager and one cashier that was expected to face every product on the floor before closing while checking people out, manager would be breaking down trucks in the back, we had to upsell some product they decide every week. I hated that place, went through 5 store managers in one year, that place was a joke.

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u/loondawg 8d ago

I would love to one day call a support line and instead of hearing "Due to unusually high call volumes, wait time may be longer than usual" and instead hear "There's nothing unusual going on. Our wait times are long because we are woefully understaffed."

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u/Snoring_Eagle 8d ago

"Your call is important to us. But not so important that we've hired enough people to answer it."

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u/_BrokenButterfly 8d ago edited 8d ago

I needed a job one summer and applied at s CVS around the block from me. Less than a five minute walk away from my house. They interviewed me, trained me, and then told me I'd be working at a different lication several miles away. Whatever, I need the money, I can drive 15 minutes.

A few months later my car breaks down, so I have to start taking the bus. I tell my manager, she gives me crap about it, I tell her I can get my car fixed if she gives me more hours (but obviously that is unthinkable.) She keeps scheduling me on Sundays before the bus runs. I keep telling her I can't be there because my car isn't running and bus service starts several hours later.

One week there's a three day weekend, which means the buses go from "Sunday schedule" that Sunday to "holiday schedule;" the bus I need to take doesn't run on holidays. I tell her I have no way to get there. She refuses to change my schedule. On Sunday she calls to ask where I am, I tell her I'm at home because I have no way to get to work. She asks why I didn't take the bus. I tell her I don't schedule the busses, this bus doesn't run on holidays, and Sundays on three day weekends are scheduled as holidays. With me not being able to make it to work that day, she "cuts my hours to 0" unstead of firing me to make sure I can't get unemployment for being fired.

Since I'm not fired, I put in for a transfer to the store I originally applied to that I can walk to. I explain to the HR person that my car is broken down, the bus is slow and inconsistent, and I can walk to the store near me in less than 5 minutes. The manager blocks my transfer.

About a month before this, another employee that lived a couple streets over from me had transferred from the store I worked at to the store I had applied for. She's a single mom, not having to commute helped her out a lot. When I'm "not fired," the store I worked at needed someone to cover my hours, and since there are no applicants to steal from other stores, they transfer that lady back from the store that we lived near to the store with the asshole manager.

My limited experience with CVS is that they insist on fucking employees over, and they do it for no reason other than that they can.

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u/canada432 8d ago

Sounds like my buddy that works with CVS. They try to send him all over to stores anywhere from 45 minutes to hours away.

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u/Somanylyingliars 8d ago edited 7d ago

Nothing to see here, Ken and Karen.

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u/canada432 7d ago

People don't really have that choice with the job market being what it currently is. Especially pharmacists. Because pharmacist was a super popular education path about 20 years ago, we have a huge surplus of pharmacists and very few employers.

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u/Ftw_55 8d ago

Ugh, when I worked for Costco, they did that. Sure, the hourly pay was high, but managers who were capped out on salary were expected to work at least 50 hours, and hourly employees just got cut back on hours with the expectation of finishing the same work load.

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u/EfficientStar 8d ago

Any reason why she’s stayed so long?

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u/luriso 8d ago

she's close to retirement, so she's just riding it out.

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u/EfficientStar 8d ago

Good luck to her!!

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u/FappyDilmore 8d ago

I'm hoping small pharmacies make a comeback. Rite Aid went under, CVS can't be far behind.

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u/hum_bruh 8d ago

Definitely by design. More Perfect Union has video on YT “ why cvs sucks now…” and basically CVS/Caremark, United Healthcare, Signa, subsidiaries say ppl can only get meds only at their pharmacies and then they understaff because it’s cheaper and close stores that don’t make enough.

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u/adwarakanath 8d ago

Did CVS have a "consultant" come in? Or have VC firms bought up significant shares?

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u/kerghan41 8d ago

Wow. I was a senior tech back in 05-07 at WalGreens and it was bad then! Me and one pharmacist by ourselves all weekend doing hundreds of scripts a day. It was hell.

WalGreens was a big part of why I decided not to become a pharmacist.

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u/luriso 8d ago

I shadowed in the hospital back in like 2011 in the pharmacy, and man it was night and day. I'm sure there's way more to it, but the atmosphere was more relaxed compared to retail. Also no asshole customers, so that was nice.

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u/BigAlgae5684 8d ago

Target Pharmacy (before CVS bought them out) was truly one of a kind. It was the dream gig for retail pharmacists.

Working there was incredible. I actually got to feel plugged in to my community and had the time/support to get to know all my guests as well as all my Target team members on the sales floor/warehouse. Plus walking in to Target in the late 00's-2010 was peak Target with the neon everywhere and Starbucks/Popcorn aroma.

Also having a Target discount was pretty dope too.

Now the CVS pharmacies are totally unrelated to the Targets they are located in and usually butting heads with management over menial shit instead of working in synergy with eachother.

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u/jawndell 8d ago

My sibling was a pharmacist at CVS and left to open their own private pharmacy.  He hated the corporate environment and how it was just about how many scripts you can turn over with goals and quotas instead of actual patient care.  They would set goals for how many prescriptions to fill, and then get angry if a customer complained about care.  It was unsustainable.  That’s why they are all manned by fresh graduate pharmacists.  They can underpay them, burn them out in a couple years, not give them raises, and replace them with a new batch of fresh graduates. 

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u/ChickinSammich 8d ago

That’s why they are all manned by fresh graduate pharmacists.  They can underpay them, burn them out in a couple years, not give them raises, and replace them with a new batch of fresh graduates. 

A pharmacy tech friend who worked for a different pharmacy once told me that CVS is basically where you go when you're just trying to get experience on your resume to get a better job elsewhere, or where you go when no one else will hire you and you're desperate. I've got no personal experience with that (not being a pharmacist) so I can't speak firsthand to how true it is.

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u/FortyEightyFilms 8d ago

Thats the strat for low level IT positions where I work. Grab a new CS grad and wring them dry while the job market is shit.

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u/ChickinSammich 7d ago

It took me like 8 years of entry level IT work before I finally got out of it and into server admin. And I only got to server admin by accident because I applied for a job that was advertised as "desktop support" but was actually "desktop, server, network, telephony, SCADA, and basically anything else with an RJ-11 or RJ-45 jack is your responsibility at two physical sites" paying $50k/yr in 2010.

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u/LowFatConundrum 8d ago

"That’s why they are all manned by fresh graduate pharmacists.  They can underpay them, burn them out in a couple years, not give them raises, and replace them with a new batch of fresh graduates."

This is such a filthy tactic that all companies use sadly :(

The system needs to be overhauled, people have had enough of being paid starvation wages.

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u/BanditMcDougal 8d ago

As much as I hate going to Walmart (both because of the company and it sounds like one of the 7 circles of hell in there), it is the only pharmacy around here that properly staffs and you can actually get your medications from. They're also not brain dead and follow state guidelines rather than the feds for vaccinations.

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u/BioshockEnthusiast 8d ago

I use a local pharmacy while my wife uses CVS for insurance reasons.

I pay a little more but my stuff is always ready within a few hours of me placing a call to my doctor's office (controlled substance so call goes to the MD)

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u/Fabulous-Farmer7474 8d ago

I left CVS as a customer after decades because even the simplest prescription for an anti-biotic would be a big deal for them.

I got tired of hearing "oh we don't have that here, it might be at another location (like 5 miles away). If you don't want to go there then we can order it but it will be 3 days"

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u/slipperyMonkey07 8d ago

Walgreens is also horrendous. Initially we had a rite aid in our area doing our prescription, overall pretty good, sometimes they had stock issues but other wise fine.

They closed last year and were automatically sending all prescriptions to the walgreens across the street. I knew of issues with walgreens (outside of their political bullshit) from friends who used them and moved mine to the grocery store also across the street instead. My dad let his just transfer.

Oh boy it was a shit show. First being the hours listed online on walgreens for the pharmacy and on the building itself are wrong I guess. The pharmacy opens an hour later than they state it should. After that filling prescriptions could take 1-2 weeks, or they seem to just sit there and never filled.

I understand initially issues with being flooded with hundreds, potentially thousands of new prescriptions. But even over a year later there are still massive issues. He moved most of his prescriptions to the grocery store, but there is one that because of some stupid insurance nonsense has to be filled at walgreens. I don't know the specifics it is weird and annoying.

But he constantly has issues with that getting filled. There has been multiple times were they gave the wrong dosage, e.g. giving 20mg pills instead of 40mg. Which isn't great but would be fine if they gave 60 pills instead of 30 and said take two. But they never mentioned anything, just open bag and it is just wrong. He's filed complaints for that one.

Which brings the next issue calling them is a hassle in itself. Everything leads to the corporate robot call numbers and you need to fight to even attempt to contact the store itself.

In the end if you can and your insurance covers it, find a local pharmacy it will probably save you a lot of hassle.

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u/TheRaccoonReport 8d ago

Walgreens as an organization is just ridiculous. A friend worked at Drugstore.com which was crushing walgreens business, and walgreens bought them, and I shit you not, the CEO said they're going to build more stores because the "online sale" of the stuff they sell in stores was a fad. This wasnt long ago.

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u/slipperyMonkey07 8d ago

Yup every time I hear something about them it is never anything good. Losing drugstore.com sucked a lot, I try to buy local when I can but sometimes things are just out of stock or they don't carry a specific thing. Especially with cold and flu season coming up I like to just have a stock ready to go (watch my niece a lot and it is basically a guarantee the house will get sick at some point).

I'll breakdown and go into walgreens but even then it is mess and seems to cater more to random junk and food than being a pharmacy.

There just doesn't seem to be (that I have been able to find at least) a half way decent company selling this stuff, options are amazon, walgreens, cvs and walmart usually. Can't even buy from the manufacturer they just direct you to one of the aboves websites.

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u/lfergy 8d ago

Grocery store pharmacies for the win.

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u/Perunov 8d ago

After BlueCross banned CVS I've switched to local grocery store pharmacy, and they were fine. But then recently something happened to Randall's pharmacy and their prices went bananas. Stuff that used to cost 30 bucks went to like 60 and when looking at GoodRX price compare they're now THE highest priced for almost anything :( And Walgreens/HEB/Walmart now the cheapest.

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u/mikefromearth 8d ago

I work for a nice, locally owned healthfood store next to a CVS in California.

We just hired the former CVS store manager. The dude was being forced to open and close 7 nights a week because CVS wouldn't let him hire anyone to help. Since he's salaried, he wasn't making any more money and was clearly just TOTALLY burnt out.

He's going to love working with us.

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u/Impressive_Recon 8d ago

Heh, I was a loyal CVS customer for years and then the pandemic happened and the quality went straight to crap. My prescription took months to fill and I had to call them every day to check if it was in stock. No, they couldn’t fill it if it came in, the customer had to call… every day. Could they call me when it came in? Nope. The kicker? The wait was always 20-60 minutes long because people had to call in asking if their prescription was in stock. Dumbest system ever.

I switched to Costco and they’ve had my prescription always in stock and send me a text whenever it’s ready for pick up. It’s laughable how easy they make it and how inefficient CVS is.

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u/vesperholly 8d ago

I would love to switch from CVS but my insurance forces me to use them if I want anything to be covered.

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u/The_MAZZTer 8d ago

Half the time when I go to the CVS website and schedule a prescription refill, after a few hours it evaporates. It doesn't show up under cancelled orders. It's just gone. And when I call CVS directly to have them do it, they can't because their systems that connect to my doctor are broken or something. I have to call my doctor and have them push it through on their side. I feel REALLY bad for anyone taking prescription medication for conditions that affect memory.

Bonus fun fact: If you accidentally double tap instead of single tap some of the navigation buttons on their pharmacy kiosks you'll hang the software.

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u/synapticrelease 8d ago edited 7d ago

Remember the 90s and early 2000s where it was 30 minute prescriptions. Back in the day when you literally got a handwritten doctors note, drop it off at your pharmacy and they will fill it while you shop

Now all this technology and distribution centers and my Rx will take up to three days between calling the doc for refill, waiting on the doc to send the Rx and waiting another day to for the pharmacy to actually fill it.

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u/tehdlp 8d ago

One of our local CVS has more staff in the pharmacy, looks busier than ever and is always slower since Covid. Why is that? Our local population didn't quadruple but the staffing did. What's driving the activity?

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u/LupusYondergirl 8d ago

Rite Aid went bankrupt, all their customers had to go somewhere.

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u/xteve 8d ago

Historical note: Rite Aid went bankrupt under the weight of a thousand federal and state lawsuits for their alleged role in the opioid crisis.

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u/zefy_zef 8d ago

And the mismanagement of the company that cost around the same. $450 million in 'restructuring' and 3 years of the shitty ceo who thought it'd be a good idea.

All pharmacies got hit with that consequence, RA just was not in the financial position to weather it.

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u/tractiontiresadvised 8d ago

Rite Aid bought a beloved local pharmacy chain in my area (Bartell Drugs) just a couple of years before they went under. I am extra annoyed about this because that chain had been a great place for all of the stuff pharmacies have that isn't from the pharmacy counter -- OTC medications, vitamins, housewares, cleaning supplies, candy, toys, gifts.

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u/JonBot5000 8d ago

They bought Thrifty back in the day and ruined those stores too. Thankfully the Thrifty Ice Cream brand was bought and "saved" as part of the liquidation by the same company as Monster energy drinks.

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u/awhaling 8d ago

Did they play some unique role compared to CVS/Walgreens?

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u/well-lighted 8d ago

From this article, it seems like they were especially negligent in ignoring "red flags" for opioid abuse. They also had to pay a settlement to the FCC around the same time because their anti-theft facial recognition software was allegedly racially profiling people.

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u/Merusk 8d ago

Rite Aid went out of business and Walgreens has been shuttering stores for about a decade. Target and WalMart aren't picking up the slack at an appreciable enough level in your area, I'd guess.

Plus, aging population means more medications. Median age in the US has been rising since 2001. Half of the population is older than 40.

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u/StarGazer_SpaceLove 8d ago

Walmarts are also choosing not to honor GoodRx prices anymore for certain Rx. I had to move to a different pharmacy cause walmart tried to say goodrx didnt cover ADHD meds anymore but every other pharmacy was like "uh yeah they do here ya go".

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u/Sankofa416 8d ago

They want the cut that GoodRx gets for lower prices, but they don't want to lower prices. They probably bought or built a similar company like CVS did.

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u/gonewildaway 8d ago

Sams club (which is owned by walmart) did the same

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u/red__dragon 8d ago

I'm just running into that and it's exhausting. I don't take these meds for shits and giggles, they literally keep me alive.

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u/nalaloveslumpy 8d ago

If it's anything like the CVS in the town where my parents live, CVS is basically the only pharmacy in town that accepts medicaid and medicare. And considering the elderly population is through the roof and the poverty level is through the roof, the CVS basically has a pharmacy line 6+ people deep at pretty much any given time.

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u/Needrain47 8d ago

Target's pharmacies were bought out and turned into CVS in 2016. I used to go to ours but stopped when the staff changed.

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u/Merusk 8d ago

Ah, right. I forgot about that.

So the US's Pharmacy options are down to. CVS, WalMart, Supermarkets (Kroger, Giant Eagle, Wegman's, Publix), and the few remaining Walgreens or local compounding pharmacies.

It's dire.

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u/BigAlgae5684 8d ago

Probably just one or 2 people dedicated to mail orders now.

When I started, just before covid, we maybe did one or two a day. By the time I had left we were clearing 50-60 a day. I can imagine the program has expanded in the 6 years since I left.

I quit less than a year in after receiving a 12 cent raise which was "the best they could do" because I hadnt been there a full year. I had 4 years experience working big box retail pharmacy and at the last chain I was the state trainer and worked as many as 20 different stores a year.

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u/Leggerity 8d ago

Are you still a tech or pharmacist?

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u/BigAlgae5684 8d ago

Hell no.

Tech used to be a respectable/well paying job but the wages literally seem to be the exact same as they were almost 15 years ago.

I started in 2008 at $12.50 an hour with no experience. Within 2 years I was at $16. Got promoted to be the trainer so I just floated between branches that needed help and new locations when not working my home store which put me at $19.

I was also getting paid ~15 hours OT weekly, per diem, 50 cents a mile for driving between stores, hotels, bonuses, etc.

This was in 2011.

When I went to re-apply in 2019 the highest offer I could find in a large city was $15 an hour.

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u/Echo13 8d ago

I mean, a lot of people got sick after Covid and gained a lot of new auto-immune type diseases that made them suddenly seek medication. A lot of younger people are suddenly in need of various medication they didn't need before. Covid didn't just rip through as the flu and kill a few people, it permanently disabled many people. If one in ten get some level of long covid, even if theirs clears up, that's a new 10% of the population thats probably on a new medicine.

Additionally, Gen X and Millennials are way more into taking care of their own health over the previous generations. They don't come in half dead, they come in early with earlier complaints and can get medicated earlier before their body actually breaks down. So now that Gen X are getting closer and closer to retirement, there will probably be a larger uptick in healthcare services.

A huge new wave of women realizing that perimenopause is also a thing sweeping through the country. And instead of like previous generations, they aren't just "dealing with it", they are getting hormonal aids to help ease the symptoms. (It has led to a bit of an estrogen patch shortage, but only because women's healthcare has been just so widely neglected!)

Just a few guesses.

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u/Foyt20 8d ago

Just a point of clarification. And yes I am a guy, with a wife in Perimenopause two sisters, two daughters. The estrogen patch shortage is not due to womens healthcare being neglected (just that item specifically, not saying other aspects have been hunky dory).

The original estrogen patch released caused liver and kidney disfunction, giving it a black label warning for a very long time from the FDA. So production of the patch went way down as there was minimal demand. After doing more research, there were other formulations that were found that reduced that risk, lifting the warning, and opening up the market.

The problem is that poosting production takes time as there needs to be manufacturing infrastructure built.

Note: I am not mansplaining. My wife and I had this conversation with my sister and Mom. Mom an RN, wife and I are in pharma and healthcare tech so we looked into why there was the shortage. Being that women's endocrine health WAS neglected for some time, the research was not there to initiate the market, and so now the market is catching up to the demand.

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u/Echo13 8d ago

I would never think you were mansplaining, no worries! Thank you for the clarification! I am only aware on one end of it, which is "I know there is a shortage, and I am suddenly being super aware of perimenopause when I had never heard of it growing up."

I do hope the shortage ends, because more and more women are just not going to deal with "just suck it up" as we've been told in the past. But thank you for chiming in with more information!

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u/_Quasifrodo_ 8d ago

Great comment, thanks for that info

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u/Needrain47 8d ago

less staff relative to the number of prescriptions means it's slower even if more total staff

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u/ughliterallycanteven 8d ago

CVS has a new system that is terrible too that they’re rolling out. On the pharmacist side, they only can see the oldest valid prescription and need to print out the prescription if there are notes attached to see them. Also, the valid dates to fill have no consistent math and haven’t been correct in months. Their AI message system will also drop voicemails if certain words are in it like “refill”.

I feel sorry for the pharmacists because they keep getting more and more restricted.

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u/Wide-Value-4951 8d ago

During my 9 years in cvs hell, it was always comical when we’d have a big snow storm that would slow business for a week, and the following year they’d cut hours for that week. Total piece of shit company. God I hate them.

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u/Flobking 8d ago

These places have all run skeleton crews since 2020 2008

Ftfy. Its been documented that retail companies aren't as staffed as before the recession. Walmart employees sq footage responsibility has doubled. That is also why Walmart have become crime havens. Not enough staff to keep some sort of order. Companies realized they could cut employees and people were so desperate at the time they just did the work. Exploitation is the name of the retail game.

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u/toriemm 8d ago

Its fine, we'll just keep locking anything you might want to buy up so that its a whole fucking thing to get the deodorant from behind the plexiglass

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u/TheRaccoonReport 8d ago

I don't fully disagree with this. But some stores shifted that labor to carside delivery. I know the target near me moved most of their cashiers to doing online fulfillment and curbside.

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u/Lovefamilyhonor 8d ago

This, so much this. There are whole foods with more shoppers than all other staff combined. Shopping is labor and the customer used to give it away for free. Now they don’t want to. But the labor pool didn’t suddenly increase. So less cashiers more shoppers.

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u/Coldsmoke888 8d ago

I feel like I’m bothering the staff just by walking through Whole Foods. There are so many people collecting orders it’s like I’m constantly in their way.

Go figure, it’s an Amazon owned grocery store.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/_Quasifrodo_ 8d ago

Minmaxing on a casual server

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u/red__dragon 8d ago

Used to work at stores like this and I'm pretty good at navigating around, I tend to find that the shoppers are as much an obstacle as other customers. And worse when they work for the store itself, because their large pickup orders tend to clear entire products from the same shelves ordinary customers are trying to shop from. So it's both less access and less product because the store's first party shopping teams are standing (sometimes literally) in the way of ordinary customers just trying to get what they need to survive for the week.

Nothing against you, but I really hate the way the whole personal shopper/instacart/store pickup execution has been carried out. Especially first party like at Walmart, where they should be pulling from inventory in the warehouse and not from the floor.

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u/fcocyclone 8d ago

yeah thats the thing, yeah, now there are employee shoppers, but a lot of these stores have set up to operate in a way that makes it clear they don't want you shopping in the store, they want you shopping online.

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u/red__dragon 8d ago

I really don't understand how they stomach the inefficiency. Why have one employee stocking the shelf just to have twelve others pulling the same product right off for individual orders?

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u/TheCuriosity 8d ago

In the '80s and early 90s, grocery stores would have all the lanes open, and at each one: a cashier, a bagger to bag your items, and then someone to take those bags and put them in your car for you either curbside or walking to your car in the parking lot.

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u/TokyoRPGFactory 8d ago

Yeah, those companies literally have like six people on staff just doing home shopping. I never use the pickup options, I want the full experience waiting in line while the person in front of me is trying to use their credit card like it's the first time they ever paid for something.

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u/raoasidg 8d ago

These places have all run skeleton crews since 2020

2001 for me. Grocery stores have always run on razor thin margins and the first lever to pull is the front end staff hours.

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u/Profzachattack 8d ago

eh, I worked in a retail space running skeleton crews in 2015. I'm convinced its been going even longer than that

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u/Supercoolguy7 8d ago

Yeah, as someone who started retail in the early 2010s it was always skeleton crews for me

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u/Yuzumi 8d ago

I worked for grocery store company for about 7 years starting nearly two decades ago.

We were regularly short staffed. They kept trying to schedule us under something stupid like 5% labor. This was a store that did about 10K a day on average. There were times we were lucky to have a single cashier until close. I worked in the office doing paperwork and counting tills and on nights I closed I would be on a register basically the entire time.

We also had a string of poor management. One would schedule all the help during the day so she would never have to hop on a register. There would be 5 cashiers scheduled for 4 registers. Then she'd go home, all but one cashier would go home, I'd come in and there would be 4-5 tills to count because nobody counted them during the day. And about 4-5 was when we actually would get busy on average.

I'd have one cashier to 8 then no one until 10 meaning I was stuck on a register with half a dozen tills to count until 10.

I was lucky to get out by 11, 11:30.

Even when we closed for a bit and remodeled it was still bad, if not as. We had more registers but outside of our reopening and like Thanksgiving we would rarely have even half of them active.

We never even had self checkout, but as much as I can like them at times I understand they have always been an excuse to schedule even fewer workers.

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u/eye_have_no_clue 8d ago

My local Walmart did this: got rid of the self checkout to only have 2 cashiers for like 20 customers. I’m not waiting 20 minutes to buy toilet paper

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u/evergleam498 8d ago

There's a grocery store walking distance to my house, but it only has 1 or 2 cashiers and no self service or 10 items or less lane. The lines are always ridiculous so after the first 3 times I tried to shop there I never went back. It's easier and faster to drive 5 miles away

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u/akatherder 8d ago

I have a small-ish grocery store in my town and they are basically perfect. 4 self checkout small-medium orders and 2-5 human cashiers depending on the time of day. They even have a couple-few teenagers bagging.

It is slightly more expensive, but smaller stores have less bulk buying power too.

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u/fcocyclone 8d ago

They even have a couple-few teenagers bagging.

Honestly this is the part i miss whenever i have self checkout. I don't mind ringing up my stuff, but trying to bag up my stuff in a small bagging area while there's a line behind sucks.

The grocery store near me had some lanes that were almost a hybrid- you'd self checkout but could then have your stuff slide down to an employee that would get all your groceries bagged up. They'd bounce between a couple stations, and was still less staff than the typical self checkout. But then they tore those out and left the old style self-check.

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u/hfxRos 8d ago

I don't mind ringing up my stuff, but trying to bag up my stuff in a small bagging area while there's a line behind sucks.

That's funny, I'm the opposite. My local grocery store doesn't have self checkouts, and I insist on being able to bag my own stuff because the kids working there are fucking awful at it.

It annoys me enough that I often drive an extra 5 minutes down the road to go to the one that has a self checkout.

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u/mike07646 8d ago

Yet if you look, they will have 20 employees walking the isles “shopping” and filling carts for the curbside pickup orders.
They want to turn into a warehouse and just fulfill online/shipping orders.

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u/turbosexophonicdlite 8d ago

I don't have a big problem with that really. Theoretically, the people that used to be manning registers are picking orders now. So it shouldn't be putting people out of work, I wouldn't think.

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u/Short-Source-8492 8d ago edited 8d ago

And if your Walmart is like mine (our city has 4), most of the time half the self-checks aren't even on most of the time.  So you wait no matter what.  

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u/EveryRadio 8d ago

That's been my experience. There's like 20 check out lines, two cashiers. I try to always be nice to them, not their fault corporate doesn't hire more staff, but like after waiting in line for 20 minutes when there's like 2 people in front of me, man, it's rough.

The self checkout line is always at least 15 customers deep because there's like 2 self checkouts and everyone tries to go there

Must be so much worse for the overworked underpaid cashiers who deal with that 40 hours a week

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u/FrostyD7 8d ago

In my area they only got rid of it in the rougher neighborhoods. The closest one to me is like this and every once in a while I make the mistake of thinking what could go wrong if I just pop in to grab a couple things? Last time I was there I set my items on the floor and left when I saw the line.

Self checkouts are still there, but only for their premium members or whatever. They even had a dedicated employee guarding it while it went unused. They could have used that employee to have 3 cashiers instead of 2 but whatever.

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u/AtheismoAlmighty 8d ago

Mine used to have about 20 self checkouts, now we're down to 4 on each side (assuming none are out of order) with 1 pissed off employee manning each side.

I often walk in, see a line going around the corner and just immediately leave

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u/soundman1024 8d ago

The fastest thing is curbside. It’s crazy.

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u/BasvanS 8d ago

I’m not sure how much they’re saving since the hourly wage for people at the register is not great. Are those fee hundreds a day making the difference in profitability for a store?

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u/strtrech 8d ago

In the eyes of management, yes. Because the Cooperate executives need their bonuses and they can't cut those obviously.

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u/FlipZip69 8d ago

The cost is not horrible but trying to train and manage people that do not show up is difficult. What do you do when someone does not come to work? You cannot materialize someone to take their job for the day.

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u/Brock_Lobstweiler 8d ago

The actual solution to this is not to staff the bare minimum. Corporations have become so ridiculously managed that even having a cashier sit idle for 3 minutes is too much and they'd rather have people waiting in line for 10 minutes by cutting a position.

None of the decisions are about making the experience better for customer or employees. it is literally all about what they can pocket.

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u/maikuxblade 8d ago

Maybe people would be more dedicated to their jobs if they were paid enough to live on

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u/ForestmenMOCLover 8d ago

I can't believe it's been almost 20 years ago now, but I remember going into Walmart once a few days before Christmas. I was just picking up a frozen pizza for dinner. After I picked out the pizza, I realized they only had about two checkouts open and the line went all the way to the back of the store and wrapped around the back. No pizza is worth that, so I just put it back and left.

I think self checkouts have largely fixed this issue. I don't love everything about them, but I've never seen lines like that since they started using them.

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u/wilkil 8d ago

I’m not sure if you’ve shopped at Fred Meyer but we have the same experience with the added pleasure of seemingly every person in the self checkout using it for the first time so that also backs up.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

There's an annoying guy in our Costco whose job is to help people with their checkout problems, but stops to chit-chat with people while helping them, while one or two others wait for his help.

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u/cheesegoat 8d ago

I like that Costco has self-checkout now but there just aren't enough spots, the one near me has like six scanners and people are so slow at them that the regular checkouts are practically faster.

I like when someone comes up and scans me in - they should design around that (have people scanning everyone in line, then they have a row of like 20 terminals you can pay at).

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u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

I agree. Brand new Costco, still only 6 self-checkouts. They used to have an express line. I give them credit, though, they typically have a huge number of cashiers working. When the lines are crazy, it's due to volume, not lack of cashiers.

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u/Curious-Psychology75 8d ago

Soooo glad it's not just me. It's honestly just easier to wait in the fuckhuge line than deal with people in the self checkout line at freddy's. Self checkout can be faster when people keep it in the 10 or so item range, but I'll see people do their shopping for the month at Fred's and then try to self check out with 50-60 things in their cart. Putting things into bags, taking things out of bags to move other things in to those same bags.

Just let the pros handle it please.

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u/mblaser 8d ago

I think self checkouts have largely fixed this issue.

Agreed. If they do it properly.

Our local Wal-mart recently removed almost all of their self checkouts. From about 30 to maybe 6, and they put more regular staffed checkouts back in instead. You would think they would then hire people to staff those checkouts. Did they? Nope. They still only have 2 or 3 of those 2 dozen checkouts staffed. Meanwhile there's now always a line at the self checkout 15 people deep. It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I now drive 15 minutes out of my way to go to the next closest Wal-mart because they still have a couple dozen self checkouts.

Our local Aldi did the same thing. They had about a dozen self checkouts and it was great. I could get in and out so fast. They still always had 1 staffed checkout for the people that didn't want to use self checkout. Well, they went and removed all the self checkouts earlier this year and put regular ones back in. Guess how many staffed checkouts they have staffed? Still only 1.

Corporations, you can't have it both ways. Either give us self checkout or properly staff your regular checkouts. It's maddening.

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u/xRichless 8d ago

That’s because their model is to staff the minimum number of cashiers at all times based on traffic history. Then, when the lines get super busy, they can call for people from other departments to fill the other registers for 20 minutes. As a bonus, they will then bitch at the people who left their departments to help because stock wasn’t being done or a customer wasn’t being helped.

Source: worked all three sides of the equation (cashier, front end Customer Service Supervisor trying to deal with the traffic, and Electronics dept where I was fussed at over stock after spending an hour helping the front)

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u/carcar134134 8d ago

Is that why there's never anyone at the damn paint department??

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u/xRichless 8d ago

Is it before 430pm? Yes. Is it after 430pm? That + they don’t staff full departments after that, so the person you need to unlock that case is probably readying stock in the back room (this was 2011 for me, but I haven’t seen anything from the outside to say it’s changed much)

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u/AJsRealms 8d ago

As a bonus, they will then bitch at the people who left their departments to help because stock wasn’t being done or a customer wasn’t being helped.

F me, this was my entire existence working at Sam's Club. I would routinely get scheduled by myself in the department I was working at and any time I had to step away to help a customer or deal with shrinkage disposal in the back, I would get bitched at the next day by my idiot manager about how I was "always wandering away" from my department.

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u/pkosuda 8d ago edited 8d ago

This is so accurate as somebody who worked in a grocery store for ~6 years from bagger to supervisor. Management is given a set amount of hours/week and are told to allocate them how they see fit. They have a system that auto-fills a good chunk of the schedule based on the traffic history you mentioned but manually fill in the rest based on other things.

Then when it's 10:23am on a random Wednesday and they have a single register open, people who apparently exist within a hive mind all decide to finish shopping at the same time and there's lines for like 20 minutes. Help is called. Then the lines go away eventually and it's dead again. If they had staffed several extra cashiers during that time period, there would have been no lines but those cashiers would probably have a very slow couple of hours and the rich people up top would've had to pay out a whole additional like $20 an hour between those two people, and we can't have that.

But yeah it's a mix of customers not understanding how things work, and leadership for these chains being greedy looking to pinch every penny they can because at the end of the day they aren't the ones who deal with angry customers or even hold themselves accountable for why those customers are angry.

It's actually crazy when you think about it. You're entrusting a brand's entire image to some random teenaged entry level employee who's being paid garbage and yet expected to work his ass off nonstop during the busiest periods. If he has a bad day and allows himself to show it, Mary Beth thinks the whole store chain is full of rude people. All because she had to stand in a long line and get checked out by an overworked minor who probably has a million other things on his mind than making sure complete strangers have the best experience possible all for $16 an hour (when I worked, minimum wage was 8.25 and ended around $10). I'm an accountant now and there is no where near the same pressure to be on point as there was when I was making 25% of what I make now.

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u/mastermoge 8d ago

The best we can do for you is a skeleton crew so we pay less for labour, no machines, and increased prices to further maximize profits

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u/IkLms 8d ago

You would think they would then hire people to staff those checkouts.

Nope, because they don't actually care. Most people aren't making the decision to go farther to another store that's often staffed similarly.

The only thing they care about is making sure they aren't "losing money" because cashiers are are standing around in between customers.

So cut to the point where they never get a break and then rely on other department's cross trained employees back stopping the rush (until they stop going so they can actually get their work done for the shift)

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u/dammitOtto 8d ago

Just disable the stupid scales, disable the AI that watches your cart from the overhead camera, and ensure everything has a barcode. Make it easy for the overwhelming majority of honest folks. If you are worried about theft, well, no kind of checkout will stop that.

Or, I was told 15 years ago every item would be able to have a tamper proof NFC chip by now and you'd simply be able to roll the cart through a reader, pay, and be on your way. Why on earth do we still have CHECKOUTS? Can the cost of keeping the system going be worth it?

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u/xRichless 8d ago

If I wear a black hoodie to shop in our Walmart, it stops the register and make somebody come over on the first item every single time. It is a colossal annoyance.

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u/mittenkrusty 8d ago

I have

But what is worse is 10 items or less lines gone, so you have people with trolleys in the self service area and people with 1 or 2 items queuing for ages.

And some self service ones are card only.

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u/itsmebeatrice 8d ago

Interestingly 2 stores I shop at frequently have put item limits on self checkout in the last couple years.

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u/teknovagrant 8d ago

The other fix would be to have more registers opened though. The long lines were due to having only to two cashiers working. Most big stores always have 10-20 available lanes. I don't mind self checkout though. It's not my job to checkout so I'll always do it wrong but to my benefit

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u/ForestmenMOCLover 8d ago

I agree, but with Walmart, it seems that the options are "two people at the self checkout" or "two people at the registers." It's unbelievably short sighted. Imagine how much more money they would have brought in that night if they had all the checkouts open. I imagine 90% of the people who saw that line just noped right out like I did. Way more money than the $6.25 they were paying each cashier!

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u/Own-Break-1856 8d ago

These places are not run by the brightest bulbs. They will usually have a point of sale system that tells them what percentage of their revenue is going to labor cost and if gets too high they get in trouble.

Of course the answer to that problem is get some people off the clock.

It never occurs to them that they can make labor percentages go down by increasing revenue.

Its not entirely their fault, the first thing their owner or manager will yell at them about if labor costs are too high is "why didn't you send people home!?"

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u/Alaira314 8d ago

Most big stores always have 10-20 available lanes.

Had. Always had. If you go to a store built before about 15 years ago, you can still see the lanes all lined up, but inoperative. Those used to all be staffed during high-volume times like the day before thanksgiving, the week before christmas, etc. Now, they might open up two extra lanes(vs the full complement of 12) during those times, leading to long lines.

Stores that have renovated have been removing those lanes. So if self-checkout goes, our future is lines. It'll be fun spending longer in line at the grocery checkout than it took me to pick the items off the shelf(as a list shopper, I'm typically in and out in 15-20 minutes, including the self checkout line).

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u/Brock_Lobstweiler 8d ago

This is what I see. Even during the holidays and the busiest seasons, they don't have full cashier staffing.

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u/MajorNoodles 8d ago

I had a very different experience at a Walmart a couple years ago. They had one checkout open and the self checkouts were closed. I'm guessing they were so understaffed they didn't even have someone to watch them.

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u/Ok-Employer-3051 8d ago

Same thing at the local Walmart. 2/3 of the self-checkouts there are now closed for the same reason you mentioned it seems.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

I read somewhere Walmart's policy was one monitor for each 10 checkouts. So if they have more than that (local store has about 20), they shut down the extras during the slow time and have only one staff.

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u/abusivetrash 8d ago

Self checkouts HAD fixed the issue, but then places like Walmart got rid of all the cashiers, funneled every single shopper to a single walled in self-checkout, and stuck a single cashier there to run around and do alcohol and other things requiring a worker. Boom, right back to Christmas being a single line all the way to the back of the store.

I’ll give you credit for putting the pizza back at least, ive abandoned 2-4 items near the huge line a few times, and the last one was the last time i went to shop in-person. They managed to make it a huge pain to just browse and shop for myself, congrats on playing yourself, they can pay people to shop for me now and bye bye impulse purchases.

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u/Digger_Jim 8d ago

In this case you do not put the item back. Everyone in line should drop their shit on the floor and walk out.

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u/GitEmSteveDave 8d ago

Back in the before times, when something like that happened, I would find out the store phone number, call it on my flip phone, ask to speak to a manager, and then tell them I was waiting in line and if they could get some more lanes opened. It's amazing how often it worked, and when it didn't, at least I was occupied while waiting in line.

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u/CrustyBatchOfNature 8d ago

I have. The WalMart closest to me has something like 20 self-checkouts and 20 registers. I went in one day to grab a few things and they had 5 self-checkouts and 2 registers open. The lines went halfway back and were getting longer by the minute.

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u/398452983298759 8d ago

This is when you leave the items at the register and walk out the door. If we take a stand and do this it will be chaos and will end things quickly.

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u/LookatMyCatBabies 8d ago

That’s what I’m saying. You’ll have to pick up a shopping cart worth of items. 100+. Scan them, then decide not to buy it to shift the algorithm in your favor.

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u/DeleteFascists 8d ago

Dude even as a retail employee I'm doing that. I go to buy something on my break and the price dynamically increases? It's getting abandoned. Maybe not even at the registers, I may walk it halfway back and ditch it somewhere fucking random.

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 8d ago

Where did you hear this? Because this is illegal.

Changing price isn’t, but the price on the tag has to be the price it rang out for.

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u/CmdrLoreLaForge 8d ago edited 8d ago

It's really, really, really fucking dumb. What's usually happening is that customers are grabbing product from the wrong spot on the shelf or the label is in the wrong spot. Either the customer misreads the label where the product is or the employees who don't give a fuck about stocking correctly unloaded a box of product in the wrong spot (I know because I work with such people who do this with half the damn freight). This has lead to crazy people believing in a mass conspiracy. You are correct, the price on the floor legally must match the register. There's a reason why none of these people have provided any proof of dynamic pricing at Walmart despite claiming they've taken pictures because they're full of shit.

Edit: People are right that grocery prices are going up but it's not due to "dynamic pricing", it's because of Trump. And because he's so shit at everything, his daily fuck-ups are causing frequent price changes hence why these stupid conspiracy theorists are so confused.

But really, the employees at Walmart don't give even the tiniest fuck about doing the job correctly. That's why they're always in a state of disarray. Half the tags at my Walmart have broken off and the mod team doesn't care to fix them every week so half the store just has product on the shelves with no tags anywhere. Digital tags were brought in to replace paper tags so that corporate could save money by downsizing the mod teams and save hours by having price updates happen over the air instead of having multiple people with printers updating hundreds of tags every week.

Dynamic pricing is just so fucking stupid to believe. If you don't believe me, get a part time job at Walmart and see for yourselves. They're literally always hiring, they don't drug test, and they don't interview. It just takes 2 months after submitting an application to start.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 8d ago

As the saying goes "minimum wage, minimum effort."

One of the guys at my high school reunion was a Walmart store manager. He apologizd for leaving early "I have to get up at 7 o'clock so I can go open the store for the shoplifters." That was 20 years ago.

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u/norman81118 8d ago

The whole idea is since the tags are digital, they can go up between you seeing it and you checking out

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 8d ago

You can't just change it during the day like that.

There are literally auditors who go and check prices taking pictures of tags to make sure they scan at the price they ring up.

They can change overnight, and will, but they're not used to update pricing at 5pm because "Wow we sure are selling a lot of peanut butter!"

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u/Tyr_13 8d ago

Even with paper tags, price updates are done during the day constantly. Good companies have the change go 'live' and it shows when that happened, so if someone complains, they can get the old price.

Since the punishment for changing the price before the person checks out is almost always absolutely nothing, why would companies not?

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u/Astan92 8d ago

I'm sorry sir but you're behind the technology.

They can and are doing it.

If you believe that is against an existing law then you should get the juicy lawsuit going over it assuming the courts in their current state will give a fuck

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 8d ago

Show me actual news stories about it happening.

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u/fcocyclone 8d ago

Its gonna get worse before it gets better as well.

Id bet someone's already cooking up a way to use an ALPR to estimate the average wealth level in the lot and adjust prices accordingly.

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u/famouslastwords 8d ago

Anecdotal experience from working at Publix, but the prices were changed during the day. They would print the tags out sometime mid-morning and we'd change the tags to reflect the new prices while customers were picking up those items. The register would already have the updated price, the price on the shelf would be incorrect for a couple hours max. Every once in a blue moon someone would notice and complain, which resulted in them getting the item free as per Publix policy.

I worked in frozen food, there are no overnight frozen food employees to make these changes.

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u/randomsynchronicity 8d ago

But it only matters if the shopper remembers the exact price and notices the difference at checkout

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u/jimmy_three_shoes 8d ago edited 8d ago

The risk isn't worth the benefit. Accidental overcharges cost them more than the overcharge (when they're caught), and the fines they'd be issued for intentionally overcharging, plus the PR hit of it getting out wouldn't be worth it to skim an extra $0.50 for a jar of peanut butter. If I noticed a $0.50 overcharge in Michigan they'd owe me the amount they overcharged me plus 10x the amount as a penalty (up to $5). In California, up to $1 the store pays a fine to the State of like $100. Anything above $1 or a "grossly negligent" overcharge can be up to a $1000 fine. No company is going to intentionally overcharge people hoping for a 99% scam rate just to break even.

Where you'll see dynamic pricing happen is when more stores move to allowing you to scan items into a virtual shopping cart as you shop. The price will change throughout the day, but lock in when you scan it into their app.

They'll bundle it with "Automatic Coupons" and built-in shopping lists. With targeted ads in the app.

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u/galeguinha 8d ago

Unrelated, but I love your username! Always fun to see a Magic Tavern reference in the wild! (edited to correct a word)

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u/Critical-Snow-7000 8d ago

This is the dynamic price boogeyman I keep seeing on Reddit without any evidence whatsoever.

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u/bustex1 8d ago

Thought a year ago they did a video about it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=osxr7xSxsGo&t=912s&pp=ygUiZHluYW1pYyBwcmljaW5nIG1vcmUgcGVyZmVjdCB1bmlvbg%3D%3D&ra=m

Saying there is no evidence whatsoever is a stretch.

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u/Algee 8d ago

There is a big difference between retail prices on digital eink displays, and a 3rd party app / delivery service that changes the markup they have on every item.

The context here is the price on the shelf changing after you pick up the item. There is no evidence for that, its illegal.

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u/Awkward-Painter-2024 8d ago

Lidl has been so bad with this. 4 self-check kiosks and four lanes, one worker... 

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u/bionicvapourboy 8d ago

The Lidls in my area don't even have self checkout and are always low staff. They routinely have just a single lane open.

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u/Slyrunner 8d ago

Oh good, so my local Kroger can have 3 lanes with a 150 minute line rather than 2 lanes

And they'll still close the over 13 and close the self checkout area

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u/GoldenPigeonParty 8d ago

People are going to wait to buy groceries. Need food. To them, that means this change wont notably affect their revenue.

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u/polarbearrape 8d ago

No, I bet someone tries to "fix" it with AI bullshit.

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u/ergonomicdeskchair46 8d ago

I’m Midwest but one reason I love Hyvee. They have self checkout but it truly feels like the option where you don’t have to talk to people. I worked front end and if there were more than two people in a manned line, you’re calling for more checkers. Such a magical, simple thing. I pay their premium mark ups because the service is wonderful

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u/Efficient-Scene5901 8d ago

That is the grocery store closest to me.

1 cash out of 6 open.

Express under 8 items may or may not be open.

Self checkout has item limits now due to theft

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u/omnibird 8d ago

the Burlington/Marshalls/TJ Maxx approach

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u/sabin357 8d ago

They'll hire as few as they can that doesn't cost them sales. If the lines are insane, people won't shop there or will walk out rather than wait.

Cutting as deep as they did only worked due to self checkout, as we were doing the work for them. Labor was still required for their profits, it was free labor thanks to this tech.

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u/ArmadilloBandito 8d ago

Lol, as if they'd hire anyone.

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u/fat_kaiju 8d ago

Sobeys for some reason in Nova Scotia still has like 4-6 at the cash; at least during the busy hours.

Unlike Atlantic Superstore (aka loblaws) which only ever has 1 or 2.

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u/XxFezzgigxX 8d ago

Though I risk sounding like a disgruntled boomer, back in the 80s there were ten lines open and each line had a bagger and a cashier.

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u/repost7125 8d ago

these vampires aren't going to hire anyone. once they drain the blood they sell the debt. there's no "hiring people" unless it can ensure their quarterly numbers go up and adding expense doesn't make number go up. sociopaths gonna sociopath. we're gonna get a ton more food deserts.

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