In hindsight, it was an exchange that encapsulated years of shopper frustration.
On an earnings call in January, a Wall Street analyst asked Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Tim Wentworth about his efforts to ease the strain that the U.S. drugstore chain’s security measures were putting on its sales. As millions of American shoppers know, and many deeply resent, a great many items in a typical Walgreens are locked up behind glass—obtainable only with help from a clerk. (And, by the way, good luck finding a clerk.)
Wentworth responded that countering shoplifting was like “hand-to-hand combat.” He then made a comment that earned him countless headlines: “When you lock things up, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively.”
