Free Republic

BOSTON — A major drugstore chain is shutting down another location in Boston in just a matter of days and people who live in the area are concerned that they are now living in a “pharmacy desert.” The Walgreens at 416 Warren Street in Roxbury will shut its doors for good come Martin Luther King Jr. Day, becoming the chain’s fourth city location to close in a little over a year. In late 2022, Walgreens suddenly shuttered locations in Mattapan, Hyde Park, and on Washington Street in Roxbury. Some Boston City Councilors have blasted the company for closing stores in...

Consumers should anticipate two major alterations to their shopping experience in the coming year, an expert has warned. A consumer specialist is forecasting a grim conclusion for two contentious supermarket policies that could reshape shoppers’ habits. Supermarket Guru, Phil Lempert has projected retail tendencies for a quarter of a century, and his recent predictions might come as good news to some shoppers. In a conversation with The U.S. Sun, the expert explained that security concerns and consumer preferences may be the main drivers of these changes. “From a security standpoint, what’s happened is the retailers with self-checkout have had to...

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV/Gray News) – Defense attorneys for two men who stole items from a Kohl’s store in Colorado suggested their clients should face lesser charges because the items they took were on sale. According to a news release Tuesday from the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, 50-year-old Michael Green and 37-year-old Byron Bolden were sentenced to jail after stealing from a Kohl’s store in Parker. The DA’s office said Green and Bolden stole clothing and high-end KitchenAid appliances.

Major retailers have experienced a wave of store closures in 2023, an 80% surge from the year prior, Coresight Research reports. The top reasons include bankruptcy of one major chain and some stores just not performing well in certain areas. The continued growth of online shopping is another factor, and other retailers said that theft is a major reason for their decision to close some stores, according to CBS News. When Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy in April, it led to the closure of 866 stores, a Coresight report finds. The second largest number of closed stores was...

Try to buy anything these days – at a grocery or department store, at a discounter or specialty shop alike, from low end to high end – and you will likely have the same experience, especially in the busy hours of lunch hour, the early evening after work, and of course the weekend: You are going to stand in line longer than you remember from before the so-called pandemic of 2020. Why the difference? Why has so much changed in just a few short years? We all have the same experience – more often in blue states than in red,...

Cities across the United States have seen huge increases in retail theft since 2019 with New York City and Los Angeles suffering the most. There have been 8,453 more shoplifting incidents across 24 cities in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2019, according to data from the Council on Criminal Justice. Crime-ridden New York City has seen the biggest impact with a 64 percent increase in retail theft, followed by Los Angeles with a 61 percent jump and Virginia Beach, Virginia, which has seen a 44 percent rise. Dallas and Raleigh, North Carolina, round off...

The new capability enables cashierless shopping for softline goods like clothing, fan gear, hats and shoes. Dive Brief: Continuing to enhance its retail tech, Amazon is adding radio-frequency identification to its Just Walk Out tech, the company announced Tuesday. The company partnered with Avery Dennison, an RFID sensor and digital identification tech provider, to add the capability. At locations using the technology, shoppers can take their desired items, each of which has a unique RFID tag, and pay as they pass through an exit gate using their debit or credit cards or by scanning their hand at an Amazon One...

San Francisco stores have quietly disabled self-checkout recently, indicating a trend in “defensive retailing” that may soon spread across the city. While innovative measures to prevent theft at Bay Area retailers have been well documented this year, the changes to self-checkout are a more recent development. The Safeway at 1335 Webster St. in the Fillmore District closed down its self-checkout area a few months ago, an employee confirmed to SFGATE. Target on San Francisco’s Mission Street also has closed its self-checkout kiosks, rotating the screens backward to make them unusable to customers, SFGATE confirmed. While Safeway and Target did not...

A new law due to come into effect in California next month will see stores issued with fines if they fail to comply with radical gender ideology. The law, which comes into effect on January 1, 2024, mandates stores that sell children’s items to have a gender-neutral section. Details of the “woke” new law are confirmed on a state government website. The law applies to any company that sells “childcare items” or toys and employs a minimum of 500 employees across store locations. It requires that they offer a section where “a reasonable selection of the items and toys for...

I don’t often take advantage of Black Friday deals, but I needed a set of tires, so I steeled myself for battle, and entered the hunt. The one thing most shops don’t advertise online is the country of origin (I wonder why), so I handled that part by phone. I called the shop, identified the deal I was looking for, and asked them to check the country of manufacture (as far as I’m concerned, USA would be nice, but I don’t want tires made in China). He put me on hold while he looked at the tire, and returned with...

Just when it seemed like Target had gotten rid of all the controversy it was embroiled in, this year, the retail chain was hit with yet another one. A viral TikTok video posted by @djdowneygirl exposed the franchise for misguiding customers with sale prices. The TikToker did this by removing the sale price placard of a few products to reveal the original pricing below, which turned out to be the same.Netizens were outraged by the alleged scam perpetrated by the retail chain but many were even more disappointed at people for easily falling for such prices.

The California Highway Patrol is increasing its operations to help curb organized retail crime under a new order from the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. “When criminals run out of stores with stolen goods, they need to be arrested and escorted directly into jail cells,” Newsom wrote in a statement announcing the effort. “Leveraging hundreds of millions of dollars in law enforcement investments, the California Highway Patrol — working with allied agencies — is increasing enforcement efforts and conducting and supporting covert and confidential takedowns to stop these criminals in their tracks during the holiday season, and year-round.

Retailers across New York state say there’s no end in sight to the rising epidemic of organized shoplifting rings — and warn it could lead to more store closures, increased costs for consumers and threats of violence against store employees. Store owners said they lost $4.4 billion last year as a result of retail theft — which they say adds to the urgency for Gov. Kathy Hochul to crack down. However, Hochul vetoed a bipartisan bill last week — to the chagrin of store owners — that would have created a task force to combat organized theft. ... The Retail...

How charming…. Target just hired someone named Erik Thompson, also known as the Gay Cruella on Instagram (duh), who is Target’s new LGBTQIA+ (say that 10 times fast!) multicultural merchandising strategy and Pride businesses leader! Yes, really. It’s no secret that the retail store Target has not endeared itself to Christians anytime lately. In fact, Target’s main focus in recent years has been about pushing ‘LGBTQ’ propaganda by prioritizing products that support that specific agenda. They’ve done this in spite of the mostly negative responses they’ve received for their trouble. Back in June, Target even backtracked on pushing their “pride”...

A newly-opened boutique store in Seattle has suffered two 'crash-and-grab' burglaries within four days as the worrying trend spreads across the state. Rush Hour, which specializes in buying, selling, and trading sneakers, streetwear, and vintage items, was smashed into just before 5am on November 17 using a stolen Chevrolet Silverado. The thieves then ran inside to steal their merchandise but the owners of the store were optimistic this would not deter them and hoped to recoup some their losses on Black Friday. But they were again targeted by thieves on November 20 who used a stolen Kia Sedona to crash...

Mega retail chain Target is under fire for 'sexualizing' Christmas with a LGBTQ+holiday decoration line that features 'Pride Santa' and a 'Pride Christmas Nutcracker' Figurine. The 'Fabriche Pride Santa' features St. Nicholas holding the rainbow Pride Flag, the symbol of the LGBTQ community, bearing the slogan 'Love is Love' on his white shirt with rainbow suspenders. A wooden Nutcracker figurine - dressed in a blue and white jacket with rainbow lapels, a rainbow hat and holding a 'progress flag' - is also part of the 2023 holiday collection. The items are available for sale on the company's website despite the...

As we enter the Christmas season in earnest, with decorating, gift shopping, and other seasonal activities keeping us busy, we cannot help but notice the unprecedented level of inflation everywhere we go. There are several reasons for these three years of price hikes, of course. It’s not all caused entirely by a single issue. But there is one major cause that outshines the rest: the cost of diesel fuel. What, you don’t buy diesel, yourself? You don’t have to. In many ways, the American economy itself runs on diesel fuel. Transportation costs – inbound and outbound, raw materials and finished...

Target has promoted Erik Thompson to Senior LGBTQIA+ Strategist and Pride Lead, according to a @LibsofTikTok post on X and Thompson’s LinkedIn profile.In his new role overseeing Target’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual marketing, Thompson says he plans to “flip the script and rewrite the narrative of CPG [consumer packaged goods] retail industries to better serve all segments and thoughtfully & authentically cater to *ALL guests, ALL humans & ALL hearts* who enter our stores and across the nation.”

Target’s sales slumped last quarter and the retail giant is predicting a slow holiday shopping season. Target’s sales tumbled 4.9% — the second quarter in a row sales have dropped. And the company forecast a weak holiday, as customers continue to forgo discretionary purchases like furniture, electronics and some clothing. Target expects sales to decline by mid-single digits this holiday season. Shoppers have become more cautious in the face of inflation, higher interest rates and the resumption of student loan repayments. Consumers aren’t spending on home improvement projects the way they were during the pandemic, Home Depot said Tuesday. Retail...

Target CEO Brian Cornell suggested that the backlash the retail giant faced back in May over its LGBTQ Pride displays was the first time some team members claimed it was "not safe" at work. Cornell appeared Thursday on CNBC where he discussed declining sales, particularly following protests and critiques of its Pride Month merchandise. While on the topic, he insisted that employees felt more unsafe during the controversy than they did during natural disasters and violent Black Lives Matter protests. "This is my 10th holiday season at Target. You and I have been talking almost every quarter during those 10...