Does theft prevention in stores end up preventing sales as well?

I'm not familiar with the language of business, so perhaps a study on this has been posted online and I just couldn't find it. This is something I thought of today and wondered if anyone has related data.

Do measures taken by stores to prevent theft, such as the devices to lock products to the rack, end up driving away a significant number of potential customers as well? In Walmart, for example, if I see that a relatively inexpensive item in the electronics department is locked to the rack and requires an employee's assistance and possibly the requirement of paying for the item separately from my other purchases, I find myself much more likely to just buy it on Amazon. Not only am I likely to find that the product costs less on Amazon, the five minutes it takes me to order the product seems preferable to the half hour I'll spend waiting for an overworked employee to be able to assist me. Of course there is the shipping time to consider, but assuming I'm not in dire need of the product right at that instant, I'll still usually choose to order it online.

I tried to consider some circumstances that might take place and imagined myself in both the role of a potential customer and a potential thief looking at the same relatively inexpensive type of product that is offered from a variety of brands at a variety of prices. The most popular brand is obviously seen as the greatest target for thieves, so it is locked to the rack. The other brands, both slightly cheaper and slightly more expensive than the popular brand, are not locked. If, as a potential customer, I specifically intend to buy the most popular brand and find it locked to the rack, I end up leaving the store without buying any of the product. If I'm the potential thief, however, and I really want one of that product, I'm probably going to target one of the other brands instead.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this or know if this situation has been studied? I'm curious as to whether the prevented thefts far out-value the potentially prevented sales, or vice versa. This is almost a topic for /t/showerthoughts, but I thought perhaps I might find some knowledgeable opinions or data by asking here. (If this is an entirely unacceptable place for this discussion, please let me know and I'll try to find a more appropriate place.)