I didnt work at a CVS but i worked a similar store in my town and we usually only put those on high theft SKU's (SKU is specific to one type of item where as a UPC would be a group of items ex. A bottle vs. a green bottle)
At my old job in retail, we would have regular stocks audits (I think that's the name) where an external company would come in and count stock. With the purchase/transaction history of the store, this would allow management to determine items that were selling well, and items that were commonly stolen.
The highest for our store was always alcohol, but usually mid-range spirits, so a £20 vodka bottle would be security tagged, but a top-shelf £50-£60 vodka would just have a reduced on-the-shelf amount.
This also meant however, so items were tagged whereas surrounding items where not eg. disposable bbq's were a big loss at summer time, but lighter fluid, coal and BBQ utensils where not, so on only the disposal BBQ would be givens a security sticker.
This also occurred in the health and beauty isles, but to what extent I'm not sure. It's unfortunately probably just someone doing what a machine tells them, nothing inherintly malicious.
The highest for our store was always alcohol, but usually mid-range spirits, so a £20 vodka bottle would be security tagged, but a top-shelf £50-£60 vodka would just have a reduced on-the-shelf amount.
This also occurred in the health and beauty isles, but to what extent I'm not sure. It's unfortunately probably just someone doing what a machine tells them, nothing inherintly malicious.