Nothing derails a shopping trip quite like a standoff with a locked display case. In this scenario, are you more likely to ask a store associate for help or buy the product from another retailer like Amazon? According to a 2024 Consumer World survey, 13 percent of shoppers would flag down an employee, while 55 percent said they’d buy the locked-up product elsewhere. To bridge this gap, CVS is (slowly!) rolling out a new feature that would grant shoppers access to caged merchandise. But there’s one caveat: You’ll have to download the CVS Health app.
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The new feature is currently being tested at three CVS locations.
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CVS has no plans to stop locking up its products; however, a handy new feature in the CVS Health app could make it easier for shoppers to get hygiene products and over-the-counter medicine without the help of a call button or store employee.
“People really, really dislike locked cabinets,” Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president of ventures at CVS Health, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
The new feature would allow customers to unlock display cases from the comfort of their phones. So, how does it work?
Firstly, you must be a loyalty program member. Customers “need to be logged in [to the CVS Health app], on the local store Wi-Fi and with their device’s Bluetooth enabled to activate the feature,” according to The WSJ report.
As of this writing, a pilot version of the feature is being tested at three stores. From there, Mandadi said the company plans to expand to 10 to 15 stores. If beta testing goes well, the feature will become available at all locations.
Some say the new feature is merely a means to get more app downloads.
However, analysts claim that the long-awaited feature may be merely a strategic incentive to get the CVS Health app on more phones. “You’re talking about behavior change. If most people shop in-store, they have a certain way of doing it,” analyst Don Scheibenreif, the vice president of consulting company Gartner, told The WSJ.
With the app, he argued, “They have to have compelling reasons for you to open it and use it in the store.” And that’s where this polished new feature comes in.
The CVS Health app currently registers 14.1 million monthly active users — about a 22 percent increase from 2024, per Mandadi.
RELATED: Target Shoppers Are Walking Out Over “Punitive” Anti-Theft Measures.
Meanwhile, Walgreens is doubling down on its locked cases.
While CVS is looking towards the future, Walgreens isn’t backing down from its locked display cases, despite declining sales. In a January 2025 earnings call, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth said shoplifting is still a “hand-to-hand combat battle.” In terms of a solution, Wentworth said the company doesn’t “have anything magnificent to share” at the moment.
“When you lock things up, for example, you don’t sell as many of them. We’ve kind of proven that pretty conclusively,” he said, per CNN.
Either way, Walgreens is looking to get “creative” about retail theft, though action steps remain to be seen.