The article suggests "organized crime". Basically it's gone beyond petty theft to organized rings who have efficient fencing organizations. In the old days it would be hard to get much money for the stick of deodorant you just stole, but apparently criminals have figured out how to use online market places to make it profitable and have started organizing large numbers of street level thieves to get their supply.

Well, the only company mentioned by name is eBay, which was used as a fence for 300k in stolen goods by a single couple.

So you could maybe make a case that Amazon makes it easier for retail theft, but you also have to seemingly ban all online retailing, which seems rather anticompetitive.

The answer is that the stores claim shoplifting is way up and costing them immense amounts of money. As always, the only citations are the corporations and their lobbying group. It's standard tough-on-crime sophistry.