Oh god it’s happening everyone! Finally! Relief from the locked cases at CVS! As you know from a previous article Walgreens had said that locking up products was hurting sales! Hell, in one case Walmart was even sued for locking up certain products and was playing with the idea of allowing customers to unlock cases on their own using their app but CVS may have beat them to the finish line on that idea!
Unfortunately, shoplifting is a real issue which has led to many stores locking up a variety of products like laundry detergent, toothpaste, deodorant, etc…! What’s interesting about the entire situation is makeup and skincare aren’t much of an issue in my stores. Everything is good to go and unlocked however, everyday essentials apparently hot tickets and those are locked down.
But FINALLY we may have a solution! CVS has rolled out the ability to unlock cases and select your own products in three of their stores. Sure, that isn’t a lot but hopefully, if these “test” stores work out we’ll see more of this from other locations and hopefully, other stores like Walmart and Target.
According to a report on Engadget CVS has a new app which allows you to unlock products with your phone. No employee around? No problem! Unlock it yourself. To use the app you have to login, join the store’s wi-fi connection, and have Bluetooth enabled to unlock the cases! Apparently, the feature is only available for CVS Loyalty Program Members within the three stores that are testing this out.
I wonder what happens if you change you mind? I’m normally anal and if I don’t want an item I’ll return it to the shelf I got it from. But a lot of people don’t do that and they’ll just drop it anywhere. Here’s the problem though if you remove an item from the case, decide you don’t want it, and leave it on a shelf somewhere are you somehow responsible for it? As you are logged into your account which has your first and last name, address, etc…! Is CVS going to hunt you down for the deo you removed, didn’t buy, and just left on an end cap somewhere?
Either way, this is an excellent feature and very important to me as I hate wasting time waiting for someone to open a case. There have been times I just left without what I needed as it was taking ten or more minutes for someone to come! We’ll see how this pans out in the future but I have hopes it’ll be a good solution to the issue of these annoying locked up product cases!
