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The official parent company of Walgreens drugstores is called Walgreens Boots Alliance, and they have just announced that their numbers categorically prove that the anti-theft practice of locking up products has hurt their sales. If you’re like me, your first thought was, “What are ‘Boots’ doing in the company name? Is Walgreens branching into shoe sales?” But the answer is boring, just that 10 years ago Walgreens bought a majority stake in Alliance Boots, a UK pharmacy company. And then if you’re still like me, our second response was, “No, duh.” People don’t want to wait for a store clerk to unlock a cabinet! They’d honestly rather order next or two day delivery instead, and view that as less of a time waste. While Walgreens reported only a $39 million operating loss in the first fiscal quarter of 2024, one year later that number has ballooned to $245 million. If my math is correct (which is a big if), that’s roughly six-times more millions worth of losses. Here’s more from Walgreens’ CEO Timothy Wentworth:
Walgreens has admitted that locking up products within its stores has affected its sales.
During a recent earnings call, Timothy Wentworth, the CEO of Walgreens’ parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, detailed how anti-theft measures such as securing products in plastic cases or utilizing security tags impacted the chain’s annual earnings.
“When you lock things up … you don’t sell as many of them,” Wentworth said, adding: “We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.”
During the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, Walgreens Boots Alliance said they saw an operating loss of $245 million.
Previously, the company saw a $39 million loss in the same quarter a year ago.
During the earnings call, Wentworth also said that Walgreens is looking for “creative” solutions to address “shrink” — the loss of inventory caused by reasons other than sales.
He remained vague on what Walgreens plans to do exactly, though, stating, “I don’t have anything magnificent to share with you today.”
Walgreens plans to close hundreds of stores by the end of 2025, according to Wentworth. The company has already closed around 2,000 locations over the past decade.
“We have a lot of experience with store closures,” the CEO explained during the earnings call. “Naturally, we expect our future footprint to support stronger performance.”
You guys, everything CEO Wentworth is quoted as saying is pure gold. I didn’t think so many gems could come out of a single financial review call! First there’s the obvious, “When you lock things up … you don’t sell as many of them … We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.” No notes on delivery. Another seemingly deadpan comment that killed me was, “We have a lot of experience with store closures.” At this point I’m wondering, is this a script from The Office reboot?! But the absolute best line, which I will definitely be using in my work meetings this week, is the dryly brilliant: “I don’t have anything magnificent to share with you today.” I’m tempted to add that to my email signature, it’s that good.
But getting back to the topic at hand… When I got hit with a bad bout of Covid over the summer, I relied on NyQuil to get me through. At first it was to help clear out my airwaves so I could breathe and sleep (and do both at the same time). Then it was helpful to knock myself out and thus avoid the bitingly metallic and wholly distracting taste that Paxlovid left in my mouth. But sure enough, when I trudged into my Walgreens the magical elixir was locked behind a cabinet. I had to ring the buzzer for assistance two or three times before someone came over. Because the thing about locking up most of your products, is that you can’t also understaff your store. In fact, beefing up staff would help overall in cracking down on theft — there’d be more people to unlock cabinets for customers, and just more eyes on the floor to deter sticky fingers. But judging from Wentworth’s closing comment, “We expect our future footprint to support stronger performance,” it seems they don’t plan on hiring more employees. Instead they’re going with the unassailable logic of, “Our losses will decrease… if we have fewer stores!”
They locked up the M&Ms in Walgreens in the safe part of the East Bay in California lol pic.twitter.com/Mh3Zg0ZCg7
— Francis Chen // 陈东成 (@fncischen) January 18, 2025
They locked up the M&Ms in Walgreens in the safe part of the East Bay in California lol pic.twitter.com/Mh3Zg0ZCg7
— Francis Chen // 陈东成 (@fncischen) January 18, 2025
Walgreens’ CEO shares they are trying to come up with ‘creative’ ways to combat shoplifting due to locking items up decreasing sales:
“When you lock things up, for example, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.” pic.twitter.com/J9qF0rtNkW
— Pop Base (@PopBase) January 15, 2025
Photo note by CB: This is the actual photo of the CEO, Tim Wentworth, from the Walgreens Boots Alliance website. I did not edit it. I would have used a photo from Getty but they don’t have any.
Photos credit: Scott Webb on Pexels and Jen Shish on Unsplash and via Walgreens Boots and Twitter
