‘What’s next, pay toilets?’ says Walmart shopper as men’s ‘essentials’ locked up and customers baffled by new policies

SHOPPERS are fed up with seeing shelves of low-priced merchandise locked up at Walmart — and fear worse could be coming.

As major retailers like Walmart and Target blame shoplifting for costing their companies hundreds of millions of dollars annually, more and more antitheft measures are showing up in stores.

From the proliferation of receipt checking to greater surveillance technology, shoppers have faced an array of new security requirements to pick up even the simplest of items.

And some customers are tired of it.

One shopper recently complained about seeing basic men's products under lock and key at his local Walmart.

"What's this world coming to?" Toto ROSANNA (@PeachyKeenz1958) asked sarcastically in a tweet on Monday.

"Fruit of the Looms locked up at Walmart. Now, I found men's belts under lock and key," he said.

"What's next, pay toilets again!!!" they wondered.

MANY SHOPPERS UNHAPPY

Several other shoppers have made similar complaints in the past.

Another customer named Alexander Carrillo (@godsmackfan459) shared photos of Walmart aisles full of locked merchandise last month.

"Bruh they got the pens all locked up here at my Walmart," he wrote alongside a photo of Bic pens behind glass.

More customers chimed in with their frustrations.

"Even the razors and shaving cream is locked up too... who's gonna steal pens and shaving cream," one person replied.

"Omggg Walmart done locked up the energy drinks," Riana (@coffeeinamug) said.

"What has da world come to???"

RETAIL THEFT ON THE RISE?

Multiple retail leaders have recently said that shoplifting has increased over the last few years, especially organized theft.

Most companies do not publish clear data about crime, however — they categorize shoplifting as a form of 'shrinkage', or product loss due to theft, damage, and other forms of loss.

The National Retail Federation estimated in 2022 that retail shrink cost stores close to $100 billion a year.

But less than a year later, the organization retracted the study citing the use of erroneous data leading to a major exaggeration of the impact of theft on retail profits.

The initial flawed report "led to a massively overinflated figure that was getting circulated in the press," Trevor Wagener, a researcher and chief economist for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, told the Canadian national broadcaster CBC.

It is nearly impossible to pin down the cost of retail crime, Wagener said.

"Generally, you won't have the evidence as a retailer looking through your security footage," he said.