CVS Is Turning Locked Shelves Into an Excuse to Make You Download Its App
CVS Is Turning Locked Shelves Into an Excuse to Make You Download Its App
The store is trialing a feature to let customers unlock cabinets with their phone.
If any store starts requiring a fucking app to make a purchase, that store has permanently lost my business.
You have not earned the privilege of being installed on my phone. Get the fuck out of here.
Just putting the products in a locked case is enough to get me to shop elsewhere.
Its 2024and you go to Mcdonalds drivethrough. First thing you hear:
Whats your order code
No good morning. Its straight to whats the order code for the app on your phone.
Thankfully you can be equally rude back and place your order.
Next year though? Dont expect the human to stay around for long.
Line mus go up!
We all just learned from Walgreens’ latest report that placing barriers between consumers and the goods they’re trying to purchase reduces sales, and CVS’ response to this problem is to add a login requirement.
I’ve always argued that putting condoms in locked shelves is pro-STD and pro-teen-pregnancy. The fact that you have to walk up to an employee, ask them to open the shelf for you, and have them stand there and watch as you grab a box of condoms has no doubt scared away numerous 16 yr olds when all they were trying to do was be safe.
Walgreens CEO, "We lost business due to our locked shelves."
CVS: "Hold my beer."
Please use local drug stores. The chain stores are absolutely ripping you the fuck off.
(me wishing CVS/Rite aid/Walgreens didn't destroy all the mom and pop drug stores)
Are they?
I think using goodrx.com has given me the best results to save money on drugs.
Local drug stores should totally be displaying "we're cheaper than CVS!" if they want people to show up.
That is, if they're actually cheaper...
I don't think local drug stores can afford to be cheaper than a big corporate chain. But the pricing isn't the point, it's fostering competition against corporate monopolies.
Remember that the single purpose of corporations is to make more and more money. By their mandate to their shareholders, all measure of humanity is pushed into the background in favour of growth. The ultimate goal in that pursuit is monopoly: Being the sole supplier for their customers would allow them to dictate sales prices while being the biggest or even sole customer for their suppliers would give them leverage to shift prices in their favour. Their capital backing allows them to cushion out fluctuations in revenue and take losses, so they can afford to underprice and drive out competition, then crank up the enshittification to extort more money from their customers.
A (comparatively smaller) local store has less leverage to enshittify and exploit. Investing in their higher prices is an investment against that enshittification.
I used to use a chain one and then I switched to a local one and I pay half as much as I used to.
It’s so hard to find a local one close by
For this to work, you need to download and install the app and sign up for CVS’ loyalty program. In the store, you need to be logged into the app and connected to the store’s Wi-Fi, and have Bluetooth turned on.
I can't wait for someone with a flipper zero to just drive around unlocking cases in every CVS in town.
Wow, three strikes, one after the other. If I have to use my phone in a store, I'll be looking up directions to a competitor. I'm not jumping through hoops to buy stuff.
Definitely not installing that shit.
Yeah, another reason not to go there. Unfortunately no impact since I already don’t.
Nearby one is 24h so I occasionally go there when everything else is closed, but that’s the only advantage they have. But no way am I downloading their app just to get a bottle of aspirin at 1am
Yeah...this is absurd beyond belief. The problem is the average consumer out there will not see how this is an issue.
This might be too complicated for the average consumer at CVS, which tends to skew towards an older demographic.
I go there in person BECAUSE I don’t want to log in to your stupid website.
Why do people buy anything besides drugs at a CVS?
The strategy for these drug stores was to make themselves the closest option in a lot of neighborhoods. It didn't work, but they thought it would.
When I worked at night it was the only place open 24 hours. Now the one by me doesn't even have that going for it.
I guess I am starting to be okay with "leaning in" and taking advantage off my "old guy" (false) technical ineptitude and will just pretend to shuffle up to a store employee and ask them to open those cabinets for me
Fuck nope.
lol, no.
CVS and their deliberate, hostile business practices chased me away years ago when I was unable to stop them from auto-refilling prescriptions I did not need. California finally took action against CVS in 2020 after many years of their carefully engineered abuses.
Good to see the company's crappy behavior continues unabated and there's no reason to give them another try.
Not just refilling prescriptions automatically, but automatically contacting your doctor to request more refills on your behalf once your normal refills refills ran out. I got a phone call from my doctor's office once, asking me why I was trying to go around them to get more of something that I was only supposed to be on for a short time. Freaking CVS made me look like I was drug seeking.
They also tried to make refrigerators into billboards, blocking visibility of anything inside. They were all broken within a matter of months, then replaced again with glass doors sometime later. These people are morons.
Oh good, this is going to be an excuse for every other business to start doing this shit ....
I'm waiting for the ultimate reductive customer experience. These drug stores will eventually block off access to the shelves and aisles entirely. Instead, the front point-of-sale area and places where people used to wait in line with their purchases will be turned into a new blocked off large vestibule with floor to ceiling transparent glass. In there (where customers can access) will be kiosks which can control tele-presence robots that will let customers "walk the aisle" to look at product on shelves:
If you want to make a purchase, you press a button on the kiosk and pay for it, then a human worker inside will fetch the item off the shelf for you and drop it in a transaction drawer where you pick up your item:
There used to be a store called Service Merchandise with a similar model. Their floor was just a showroom with one of each item, sort of like a physical catalog. You just grab a ticket to buy stuff and wait for it to come up a conveyor, sort of like airline baggage claim. I always wondered why that model never succeeded: it was so convenient and would be even better now with automation and online shopping, qr codes
I remember Service Merchandise! That conveyor belt delivered magic.
These still exist in Ireland. Argos is a big one.
Let’s go one step further and make them a gig worker so CVS doesn’t have to pay them for downtime and instead we get to tip
then a human worker inside will fetch the item off the shelf for you
Soon enough that robot will complete that whole transaction and the humans will not be needed
lol good luck with that. when they (and rite aid) started locking up their shelves I stopped buying from them.
Like the shoplifters won't make bogus accounts? Wtf are we even doing here?
How about I just shop somewhere else?
There's not a good reason to do this.
Any money saved by preventing thefts in our dying world will be lost from the customers who don't want to be treated like thieves.