{"id":38848,"date":"2025-01-17T12:31:22","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T20:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=38848"},"modified":"2025-01-17T12:31:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T20:31:22","slug":"walgreens-ceo-admits-locking-up-items-was-a-mistake-when-you-lock-things-up-you-dont-sell-as-many-of-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/walgreens-ceo-admits-locking-up-items-was-a-mistake-when-you-lock-things-up-you-dont-sell-as-many-of-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Walgreens CEO Admits Locking Up Items Was a Mistake: \u2018When You Lock Things Up\u2026 You Don\u2019t Sell as Many of Them\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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15 JANUARY 2025\/BUSINESS & TECH<\/a>\/JOE KUKURA<\/a> (SFist.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a quarterly earnings call, the CEO of Walgreens conceded that putting items behind lock and key has hurt the company\u2019s sales, because no one wants to shop in a store where even the toothpaste is behind glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retail pharmacy chain Walgreens (or rather, its parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance) had its quarterly earnings call on Friday, the day after announcing they were closing 1,200 stores nationwide, including 12 Walgreens stores in San Francisco<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that earnings call explained why they\u2019re closing so many stores, as Walgreens lost $245 million this quarter<\/a>, compared to a loss of just $39 million in the same quarter of the previous year.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Tim Wentworth admitted on the call one big reason why their sales have slumped so much over the last year. Wentworth conceded that the stores\u2019 wildly unpopular policy of locking up so many retail items<\/a> to prevent shoplifting has also significantly hurt Walgreens sales<\/a>, as CBS News reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/Phil_Lewis_\/status\/1879535258624008210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1879535258624008210%7Ctwgr%5E4b9639a5bb24140d970a8139b3fce7ee58a80d36%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsfist.com%2F2025%2F01%2F15%2Fwalgreens-ceo-admits-locking-up-items-was-a-mistake-when-you-lock-things-up-you-dont-sell-as-many-of-them%2F<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cWhen you lock things up, for example, you don\u2019t sell as many of them,\u201d Wentworth said, according to a transcript of the call<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/TheTyroneP\/status\/1879554718839742825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1879554718839742825%7Ctwgr%5E4b9639a5bb24140d970a8139b3fce7ee58a80d36%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsfist.com%2F2025%2F01%2F15%2Fwalgreens-ceo-admits-locking-up-items-was-a-mistake-when-you-lock-things-up-you-dont-sell-as-many-of-them%2F<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


That said, Wentworth did not make any grand announcements about removing the locks in the chain\u2019s ongoing struggle with shoplifting<\/a>. “I don’t have anything magnificent to share with you today,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a hand-to-hand combat battle still, unfortunately.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Admitting that locking up store items was a poor choice brings to mind a previous Walgreens CEO admission in January 2023 that “Maybe we cried too much\u201d about shoplifting<\/a>. Though in fairness, that was a different Walgreens CEO. The CEO who said “Maybe we cried too much\u201d was then-CEO James Kehoe. Tim Wentworth replaced Kehoe as Walgreens CEO<\/a> in October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: <\/strong>Walgreens Closing 12 SF Stores In Late February, Here\u2019s a Map Showing Which Ones are Closing [SFist]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 JANUARY 2025\/BUSINESS & TECH\/JOE KUKURA (SFist.com) On a quarterly earnings call, the CEO of Walgreens conceded that putting items behind lock and key has hurt the company\u2019s sales, because no one wants to shop in a store where even the toothpaste is behind glass. The retail pharmacy chain Walgreens… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38850,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848\/revisions\/38850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}