Dispatches from the Real Economy: They're Locking Up the Deodorant

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Dispatches from the Real Economy: They're Locking Up the Deodorant

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise at 5:48 PM on November 27, 2009.

You can tell a lot by what gets displayed in a case behind lock and key.



The drugstore has locked down the deodorant.

Addendum: You can tell a lot about a neighborhood by what gets locked up to prevent shoplifting. Here in New York, supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods tend to put baby formula behind glass. Swankier places will keep it behind the counter at the pharmacy, or sometimes even out on the shelf.

Yuppie liquor stores keep all but their most expensive bottles out on the shelves to encourage customers to facilitate impulse buys. By contrast, liquor stores in rougher neighborhoods may keep the bulk of their inventory behind plexiglass. Liquor stores are an extreme example because they've got to worry about robberies as well as shoplifting, but it's the same merchandising principle at work. It's a tradeoff between accessibility and security.

Small, expensive items like razor blades and batteries are likely to be secured no matter where you go. But it's a bad sign that deodorant shoplifting has become enough of a problem to justify the expense of the giant plastic case and extra hassle for the employees.


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/144227/dispatches_from_the_real_economy%3A_they%27re_locking_up_the_deodorant/

[hobbit709]

1. If I'm going to steal something

It will something of more value and usefulness than a can of deodorant.

[annabanana]

2. Then you must not think the cost worth the risk...

Clearly there are poorer places to live, and worse circumstances to live in than yours.

[hobbit709]

3. I'f I'm going to risk jail, it wont be for a can of Secret Ultra Dry.

Food maybe, things that can be traded for other things but deodorant?

[Sal Minella]

4. If I were going to a job interview after months of unemployment,

I'd probably rather go hungry than smelly.

[FarCenter]

5. If you put on Deodorant you'll go to the interview smelly

Take a bath or shower instead.

Deodorant is a non-essential.

[Sal Minella]

6. What a ridiculous response. Why did you bother?

[FarCenter]

8. Because deodorant is another semi-useless product foisted on Americans by advertizing

[pipi_k]

10. Hah!!! Go to a couple of European countries, if you haven't already

A couple of years ago my son and his wife visited the country her parents emigrated from.

They went to a large city and took public transportation...my son said it was unbearable. The smells, I mean. I'm glad I wasn't there...I probably would have vomited.

Apparently that "semi-useless" product isn't used much in that country and the natives might not notice it, but the Americans sure did.

Not to cast that country, or its natives, in a bad light or anything, but that's the way it is...

I certainly don't believe in obsessional cleanliness, but there's a point where people might want to think about not being stinky and offensive to others. If something is even "semi-useless", that's at least better than nothing...

[Hannah Bell]

12. i never noticed any such unbearable smells. maybe your son has been

sheltered, or taught to find other people disgusting.

[pipi_k]

20. Nice little bit of snark there...

It just never ceases to amaze me how people who don't notice the same thing as someone else manage to make it almost a moral failure on the part of someone who does notice something different.


No, dear...he wasn't "sheltered", and he wasn't "raised to find other people disgusting".


He smelled offensive odors emanating from people crowded on public transit.

Maybe his nose is just more sensitive than yours is.


And that doesn't make him any less than you because you "didn't notice any such unbearable smells".

[Hannah Bell]

25. i've been on public transit all over europe. no different from public transit here.

better, even.

[pipi_k]

27. So you've been to every single city in every single country in the whole of Europe...

That still doesn't mean your nose is the Gold Standard for what other people "should" smell.

And it also doesn't mean that just because someone happens to smell offensive odors, there's something fundamentally wrong with that person, or that his upbringing has anything to do with the fact that he smells things that offend him.


ETA:

Actually it took me a few minutes to realize that I probably could have said my son and his wife smelled offensive body odor in any city on any continent on earth and the reply would have been the same...

"I've been all over _____________ (pick your city and continent) and the smell is the same"

Funny, really...thanks for the laugh...

:rofl:

[Hannah Bell]

28. and yes,

i've been on public transport in most of the capitals of western europe & england.

and in japan.

the japanese say americans smell bad. despite their deodorant. it's the meat, according to the japanese.

[pipi_k]

7. For some of us, a bath or shower isn't sufficient

I can scrub my armpits till they're raw (with deodorant soap, even) and 30 minutes later they stink again, even after using deodorant.


OTOH, I know some people who can get away with not using deodorant.

[csziggy]

11. You haven't smelled my armpits a few hours after not using deoderant

Or antiperspirant following a shower. My own nose tells me it is essential!

[azmouse]

14. Non-essential??? Not if you live in Phoenix!

Oy vey.

[QC]

15. Take a ride on the Paris Metro

and then tell me that deodorant is not a necessity of life!

[TwilightGardener]

22. Yeah...I sometimes have to encounter people with that attitude.

Ye shall know them by their smell.

[formercia]

16. Not if you work on Wall Street

It will take more than deodorant to cover that stench.

[TwixVoy]

23. Actually it would be the BEST to steal

if you didn't want jail time. At Target we would not press charges unless it was over $20.

[Deja Q]

9. They make sure condoms get put in the most visible places too...

[RadiationTherapy]

13. A small amount of baking soda under each arm takes care of it all.

[pipi_k]

21. Well, maybe for yours....

Mine are just rotten to the core...


:cry:

[Codeine]

26. No. No it doesn't.

I think some of you simply have less sensitive noses.

[Heddi]

17. The reason people steal deoderant is because in smaller stores, deoderant is a high priced item

Go to Target and Deoderant is, what, $1.50 or something a stick?

However, in a smaller convenience-store type store, it can be upwards of $5 a stick.

When I was in high school (1992ish) I worked at a little neighborhood grocery store. Bigger than a convenience store, but just as shitty and overpriced. It was a poor neighborhood, about 80% of our intake was in the form of food stamps.

When people shoplifted, they shoplifted deoderant, formula, fancy razors, cold medicine. They would then come back in a day or 2 later, say "I bought this a few days ago but I don't have my receipt" and would attempt to get the cash back for it.

Even then, 1992, 1993 the deoderant was $5 a stick. Formula was mega expensive and we had to lock that away. Fancy razors, like Bic or Gilette upwards of $10 a pack. Cold medicine was stolen again, not to get high, but to get $$ back in the form of a 'return'.

Back then, the cash register was just a little old cash register. We manually entered the price that was stamped on the item. There were no security doors or anything like that.

We started putting them in, though, because we were being stolen from left and right. There was one day when I came in to open at 8am and the entire health and beauty aisle was full, had just been stocked the night before. When I left at 4pm, half of the items were gone and doing a tally on the register, only about 40 health and beauty items had been sold that day...the rest were shoplifted.

Sometimes people would take our items to other stores and try to get a refund there. Because our cash registers were old they didn't always give receipts, so people used that to their advantage. Oh I didn't get a receipt, but I need to retrun 40 cans of forumla, 18 razor packs, and 15 tubes of deoderant please,....

[donco]

18. Kinda like the fed

Keeps everything behind the counter where you can’t see it eh?

[Blue_In_AK]

19. In some of the dry villages in Alaska

they lock the deodorant up, as well as mouthwash, shaving lotion and other alcohol-containing products because people use them to get drunk. Sad but true.

[mitchum]

24. Let me out of here!