Imagine you are at a Walmart, and the item you really need is trapped behind a locked glass case. You wait for an employee, and you wait, and you wait. Eventually, you just want to walk away. A Houston mom on TikTok decided she was done waiting, and her solution has gone viral with over 980K views. In a clip posted by Lalyreyes, you can see her and another person talking to her son, instructing him to grab a specific item from a sealed Walmart case. As he steps into frame, you realize that he had already climbed into the case from a partial opening further down. He then grabss the product and edges back out while the adults laugh and tell him to hurry up. The caption on the video perfectly sums up the vibe: “WHEN THEY TAKE TOO LONG TO HELP YOU AT WALMART , SO YOU HAVE TO IMPROVISE.” The comment section blew up with reactions from people who clearly feel the same level of annoyance. One user noted, “Girl they do be taking their sweet time.” So when presented with this solution, another user captured the sentiment of many in the comments perfectly by saying, “we are not using our kids to its fullest potential.” Retailers have been trying to figure out a solution Many others discussed the retailer’s behavior. One user noted, “when they take forever to come lol and then they get mad.” Some users even chimed in with their own experiences of being ignored by staff, as a user shared, “I called Walmart once because I was waiting on them to open up the formula section I was there for 30 min I called to tell them the second they heard that I was there waiting for 30 min they hung up on me” It is easy to laugh at the video, but the reality is that the retail industry is struggling to find a balance between security and customer convenience. According to Modern Retail, retailers have been exploring ways to keep the cases from being an impediment, but a concrete solution hasn’t been set yet. @lalyreyes20 WHEN THEY TAKE TOO LONG TO HELP YOU AT WALMART , SO YOU HAVE TO IMPROVISE. MANDAR A JUNIOR ASER EL JALE #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #funny #paratiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ♬ original sound – Bossy_661 For the last few years, major chains like Walmart, Target, Foot Locker, and Nordstrom have reported an increase in retail shrink and theft. The outlet noted that the NRF’s 2023 National Retail Security Survey found the average shrink rate in 2022 hit 1.6%, which represents a massive $112.1 billion in losses. Because of this, stores started locking everything up, even though many workers left their jobs at record rates around the same time. David Marcotte, a senior vice president at Kantar Consulting, noted that retailers felt a need to secure products because new employees were less familiar with how to handle problematic customers. They had to find a solution that was relatively independent of labor. The problem is that locking up items ruins the shopping experience. It causes cart abandonment and makes customers feel like they are not trusted. Melissa Minkow, the director of retail strategy for CI&T, put it bluntly: “It’s not nice to feel like a retailer doesn’t trust you, and that’s kind of the message that the lock-ups send automatically, in a very kind of harsh way.” A 2024 Consumer World survey showed that less than 32% of shoppers actually go through the trouble of finding an employee to unlock a protected item. If you cannot get the product, you simply do not buy it. Research from Numerator found that more than a quarter of 5,000 shoppers surveyed said a retailer loses their purchase when items are locked up. It is a major issue for companies trying to keep their numbers up. Modern retail noted that retailers are now testing new technology to fix this. CVS has been piloting a system where members of its ExtraCare loyalty program can unlock shelves using an app. Walmart is reportedly testing similar technology that would let employees and potentially Walmart+ members unlock cases themselves. There is even a company called Indyme working with 26 retailers on similar tech. While this might be an improvement, it is not a perfect fix. Some people have had to wait even when they weren’t at cases. One Tennessee woman recently took to TikTok to share that she had to wait 2 hours for a Walmart pickup order. In the meantime, an influencer went looking for a quiet day to quickly finish their shopping. Despite heading there at 7 AM, she got recognized and ended up at a meet-up.