Key Takeaways
- Walmart is testing a new way for customers to access locked-up products using their phones.
- This new technology will make it easier to purchase items like video games, laundry soap, and toothbrushes.
- Concerns exist about potential downsides if the unlocked doors are left unattended.
Walmart is trying out a new way to give potential customers access to locked-up products while still effectively hindering theft. In recent years, many consumers have noticed a growing, and sometimes frustrating, trend: the products they want to purchase in stores like Walmart or Target are trapped behind glass doors, locked up tight. To get their hands on the coveted deodorant, baby formula, or mascara, would-be buyers must hit a buzzer and wait for an ambling employee to help. Or, worse yet, getting into these product prisons often requires wandering aimlessly for several minutes in the hopes of bumping into a staff member with a key.
Though the sale of physical copies of video games has decreased drastically in recent years, this shoplifting safeguard applies to them as well. In fact, video games were some of the first products to get this “look but don’t touch” treatment, so much so that it’s more surprising to find a game sitting, easily accessible, on a shelf. And while this practice is somewhat understandable, it can also be exasperating to customers and may even negatively impact sales.
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According to Bloomberg, Walmart is testing a new method to ease the frustration of finding physical copies of video games, laundry soap, and even toothbrushes locked up. Though the details are slim, this new technology will apparently allow people to bypass the locks using their cellphones. This system has already been rolled out in a few hundred Walmart stores, but it is currently limited to and being tested by employees.
Walmart’s New Anti-Theft Method Could Ease Customer Frustrations
Most people have seen videos on social media of thieves entering stores, grabbing handfuls and bags full of items, and then nonchalantly walking back out, unhindered by employees or security guards. While this new Walmart tech might ease some of the annoyance of regular customers, it might have downsides as well. People in grocery stores regularly leave freezer doors hanging open, to the point that many outlets have installed self-closing doors. Once unlocked, these anti-theft doors may just be left open and unattended, negating their usefulness. There’s also not much stopping a thief from accessing the desired items via their phone and then helping themselves to more than they paid for.
In terms of video game sales, Walmart’s new method, if adopted by other stores, may be arriving too little, too late. Many brick-and-mortar stores are phasing out physical game sales altogether, leaving Walmart, Target, and sites like Amazon among the few remaining places to buy physical copies of new releases.
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