Eli5: How do supermarkets like walmart make sure everybody left the store before they close?

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Do they have employees walking down each isle at closing? Isn’t there a chance somebody still walking on a different isle then they are?

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16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

When a retail store closes for the day, they’re not actually closed down for the day. The employees still have work to do, they’ve got cleaning, and restocking shelves, and other things to do. At closing time they don’t let anymore customers into the store and see the last customers out of the store and then they do the closing working and then lock up the store after that work is all done.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Walmart generally doesn’t close. However, other retailers do close. In many cases, you’ll have “we’re closing in X minutes, please come up to the front to finish your purchases”. You’ll also have employees walk the aisles prior to closing to ensure all customers are gone.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Worked security for a department store: after the closing announcements we would do a walk through, check the bathrooms, and dressing rooms. After all employees left and doors were locked, we would turn on the motion alarms and hang out in the security office for a few minutes to see if anything was setting of the motion alarms before we left

Anonymous 0 Comments

In small city of 300-500k people places like Walmart do not close as it’s a 24/7 operation(this is standard) A crew of 10-16 folk come in and make sure the store is stocked for the next day. An hour before closing there will be an evening crew delivering and working on freight to the various isles. So this will take care of security of the various isles; next once the night crew disperses to their designated departments the individual will walk through their department checking for anything. As the store closes you have two different shifts doing security checks.

So the answer to your question is basically standard procedure by employees will take care of any security of left over customers.

Last minute customers are directed to the cashier and handled accordingly.

Worked backshift for Canadian Walmart for 6 years. It would extremely difficult to get past most diligent night crews, they tend to come in and take over.

Anonymous 0 Comments

There have been several cases of people ‘living’ in a Wal Mart store, one I recall was male who stayed up to 4-5 days. He’d built a few spots to hide with makeshift beds, one was inside a wall of toilet paper boxes. He wore diapers to avoid detection at night.

Anonymous 0 Comments

At closing time, stores do remind customers of closing time and encourage them to be done with their shopping.

But ultimately, stores don’t have to do much. Customers already have the incentive not to remain in the store, because if they hid somewhere until everyone was gone, they would now be locked inside the store with no way out. You could certainly have a whole night in the store for yourself, but ultimately, why would you want that? You would just be arrested in the morning anyway. So the incentive actually rests with *customers* not wanting to be in a store past closing time.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I worked at an OfficeMax in Toledo 92-93 and they found remnants of someone sleeping behind the topstock of paper cases.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It actually happens all the time. Do a quick google search for “person stuck in store” and you’ll see lots of examples, people stuck inside a CVS or Aldi or other store after hours.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Costco does this thing where the employees basically form a wall from the end of the store, and herd all the customers to the registers while blocking them from going further into the store

Anonymous 0 Comments

I used to do this when i worked at Costco—it was called “The Walk” over the radio. The bay door was pulled down at closing time, and we would slowly march forward one aisle at a time like a wave, essentially shadowing anyone still in the store one to give them the hint to not take their time.