Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've worked for Home Depot and there IS security in every single store. You don't see them because they're not dressed in a rent a cop uniform. They are wearing regular every day clothes like everyone else in there.
Some said Lowe's is 4 blocks away. Lowe's and Home Depot have the EXACT same design/layout. Both do have quite a bit of staff. I've worked for both stores and can tell you that there could be an employee in every aisle and people would still steal! This isn't a problem with the store. This is a problem for the losers are purposely going to these stores to steal. Stealing costs everyone! Prices increase when there's theft. The business needs to make up that money. Retail businesses don't make a fortune on every item they sell.
So what exactly is Lowe's doing differently? Is a bus stop really going to be the downfall of HD?
So what exactly is Lowe's doing differently? Is a bus stop really going to be the downfall of HD?
Funnily enough, maybe. The only bus we have, other than commuter ones into DC, are intra-County. A number of years ago it was proposed that a stop be placed at the, at that time, mall type location. The businesses went nuts. One was put there but taken out a couple years later due to the increase of drunkenness and theft the stores experienced.
To this day none of the centralized commercial areas have bus service, the stops are all at empty lots or at government buildings, like the Sheriff's Office.
Yup. When I worked retail back in college (Staples...that was easy!), you'd be amazed at shrink in office supplies. I can only imagine how bad it is in other places. A few employees were caught stealing and escorted out during my time there. You'd also be amazed at what gets stolen. I worked electronics and overall it wasn't bad - hard drives and the like rarely walked out. But man, ink was as valuable as gold apparently. We did counts on ink once every week or two and we still wrote off 10 grand during the actual "inventory". Had one year where I think it was something like $20K worth. People would walk in, fill a basket up with it and try to run out the door. Sometimes we caught them, sometimes we didn't. One guy tried to walk out with a computer/monitor combo and his car wouldn't start. County PD came and picked him up, looked at him like he was dumb as a brick.
Citizens Patrol where we are have license plate readers: virtually ALL the uninsured/unlilcensed vehicles are found in the WalMart parking lot. Lowes is hardware: no value for drug trades: Home Depot has lots of small items you can trade for drugs or sell fast.
But yah, we're providing these big corps. with free security and they're riding on our nickel.
Citizens Patrol where we are have license plate readers: virtually ALL the uninsured/unlilcensed vehicles are found in the WalMart parking lot. Lowes is hardware: no value for drug trades: Home Depot has lots of small items you can trade for drugs or sell fast.
But yah, we're providing these big corps. with free security and they're riding on our nickel.
Lowes and Home Depot around here have nearly the exact same products with maybe some difference in branding. Where do you live that lowes is hardware and Home Depot is something completely different ?
So...this is an interesting topic, with a number of mysterious forces underlying the central premise. Let me speculate:
Why are there so-called "food deserts" in primarily lower-income parts of some cities? I will guess that if a business can survive and thrive, it will. If margins are too low, for (whatever) reason, it will fail. Retail is on thin ice these days anyway, margins at groceries notoriously low...so, where is the community involvement? Why, exactly, do say major grocery chains fail in these "food desert" areas absent a very large security presence?
I've seen pictures of liquor and convenience stores that look like armored cages at horse tracks. I guess what, you come in and submit a list of what you want, pay the clerk through the revolving window in the armored glass, and off you go? What exactly is behind that business model, selling 40 ouncers of beer or "growlers" or fortified wine or whatever other ghetto contrivance to...whoever?
So, what is Home Depot supposed to do, other than shutter the place and move off, which I have no doubt is tremendously expensive? Why did they move in to begin with? Is "the business" the nuisance, or the clientele themselves?
The HD closes, business shifts to Lowes a couple miles away in this case. If not there, it goes online, where presumably everything that can't be nailed down isn't ripped off. Must suck for people who lead a cash-only subsistence, though.
I dunno: personally I go to Home Depot for light bulbs, my early summer mower purchase, and odds and ends. Hard to shoplift a Honda mower. The Makita ecosystem I then invested in (blower, drill, weed whacker) were all online shipped via Prime to my door. HD got none of that, not their fault as I don't "think" they handle Makita anyway.
Friend mine's GF was a store department manager at (large dept store chain) in Redmond, WA, area with mean housing value about $800K, mean income probably about $100K. They had a LOT of shrinkage from theft, some of it brazen. Nothing to be done about it, can't hire security as that is probably more expensive than what gets ripped off, and/or they don't want detailed records of who exactly is doing the stealing.
Some of the thieves are real pros, we're not taking dirtbags ripping off cosmetics or colognes in $50-100 lots here.
I don't have answers to the above, but do wonder if the it's the flip side of the coin when some Maxine Waters type comes on and complains about "lack of resources in low income areas." We need the full picture, Maxine, not just some headline. And so it goes.
So what exactly is Lowe's doing differently? Is a bus stop really going to be the downfall of HD?
How would I know? Lowe's also has security. Maybe Lowe's isn't calling the police and just letting it go. Maybe there's a bus stop in front of Home Depot and there isn't at Lowe's. Just because you're not seeing reports about it happening at Lowe's, doesn't mean that it's not happening.
That’s crazy! The city council having the power to label a business as a ‘nuisance’ because of shoplifter, I’ve never heard of such a thing. How about the city council getting their police department to actually help the situation by working with the store? I know the Home Depot stores in my area are always monitoring the shoplifter problem and they do everything they can to prevent it. There may be too many lowlife individuals that feel they can take advantage of these big box stores and thus the problem is how to get rid of the lowlifes in the area.
Aksarben I am not sure if it was an Omaha or a Lincoln Home Depot where an employee chased a shoplifter out of the store and held him for the Police. Said Employee lost his job and caught all kinds of grief over the incident. This happened within the last two years iirc.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
