It’s not only NY, LA, SF. Retail crime has hit a bustling Kansas metropolis
cnn.com
cnn.com
Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up <https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-s...>
The Great Shoplifting Freak-Out <https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/12/shoplifti...>
I find locked cases to be extremely annoying. What would have been quick purchase turns into me giving up after not being able to track down an employee to unlock the case.
Yet another way to make in-person shopping less appealing than ordering online. But now there are all kinds of of dodgy online sellers selling the things that used to be on the shelf, along with complaints from buyers who didn't get the thing they ordered.
"Uh.... shoplifting?"
"We can't have that! How can you fix it? We'll pay any reasonable amount."
"Um... we could put locked doors on the shelves?"
"Brilliant! Do it!"
There's no conversation about how this hastens the inevitable death of retail by eliminating physical access, the one advantage it has over ordering online.
When I was a kid there was a company called "consumer's distributing". They sent out catalogs. You'd come into the store with the catalog number of the item you wanted to purchase and stand in line in front of a big desk. You'd give them the number and they'd fetch the item from a warehouse out back.
That's the retail model we're starting to move back towards. It's completely unsustainable.
Ha. I barely remembered that place. It seemed braindead at the time.
> But the retail industry’s own figures on shrink cast doubt on their claim that the problem is ballooning. Researchers say retailers may be blaming theft for losses when they don’t actually know the cause.
The Atlantic link is from 2021.
Are you a native to any of these cities?
Couldn't a national slowdown in shoplift mask spikes in these cities? Why is this scenario not addressed or analyzed?
They also claim that theft as a percentage of sales has gone down. The only reason they would phrase it this way is because as an actual quantity of money, it has gone up.
It might seem reasonable to expect that losses due to shoplifting are roughly proportional to sales. But it's not clear that it should be that way. I would say that we should expect the amount of shoplifting to be capped by whatever amount can be stolen stealthily. It's natural and very reasonable imo to object to people waltzing around the shop taking whatever they want and brazenly walking out the door with a smile and a wave. We are not bound to accept that just because sales have increased.
The article hints that the real problem is that traditional retails are losing out to Amazon. But if that were true then sales would be down and shoplifting as a proportion of sales would surely be up, since no one can shoplift from Amazon.
The Marshall Project article linked from your CNN piece suggests several forces at work <https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/02/27/shoplifting-re...>, one of which is that companies don't want to pay for private security any more and may want local law enforcement funding raised up to externalize the costs on taxpayers.
Some stores limit the number of customers that are permitted in the store at one time, but it's a pain when you are required to queue outside.