That's because laws aren't enforced.
Just a single anecdote. In SF shoplifting police reports tripled one month because a single target location tested a new system where internal shoplifting incidents were also sent to the police.
Just a single anecdote. In SF shoplifting police reports tripled one month because a single target location tested a new system where internal shoplifting incidents were also sent to the police.
It's surprising to me that employee shrink is never looked at as an issue. I personally think that is much more of an issue.
thank god that facts don't care about your personal opinions on the matter[1]
https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/criminals-pharmacies-bur...
The article you shared highlights smash and grabs of controlled pharmaceuticals from small mom and pop pharmacies. That's not the type of theft I have any experience with. You're also the only person who invoked drugs.
The article only references one pix11 article, which itself only references a single bust... in Texas... of a ring operating in Arkansas... outside of New York.
> What am I misunderstanding from your posts?
The entire context of the thread above you.
The state being, in the article, NY. They just happen to mention Arkansas in a related fashion.
As for pharmacies locking up small items as well, it's very obvious why it happens, it's becauase of a high occurence of theft. Is this rocket science? Do you think they do it because they can't get enough of the operational overhead of dealing with customers every time they need an item? I bring drugs into the mix because this is all interrelated. Robberries love pharmacies, or at least historically have until they started locking everything up. Drugs are a big factor, and by extension the small stuff gets taken too.
The recent double stabbing near 14th & 1st was a mentally ill guy in a drug deal dispute in which he was paying via stolen merchandise. People interviewed described him as a regular who would barter his stolen goods for whatever he needed (in the NYT before someone accuses me of reading the wrong sources).
Who said that there wasn't? Prior to current history, people sold boosted goods out of the back of cars or in the back of the same bodegas.
> The recent double stabbing near 14th & 1st was a mentally ill guy in a drug deal dispute in which he was paying via stolen merchandise. People interviewed described him as a regular who would barter his stolen goods for whatever he needed (in the NYT before someone accuses me of reading the wrong sources).
This still is not a brazen robbery, so it doesn't address what I said at all. Addicts have been fighting and killing each other in this city for literally decades.
Do you really believe you can conclude this from your personal observations?
The company has all the data on theft. At the end of the day, they are motivated by profit. Don’t you think they ran the numbers and found that locking items to prevent crime, even if it’s an additional barrier to paying customers, was better for business?
edit: fixed a typo
My experience is admittedly anecdata.
> The company has all the data on theft. At the end of the day, they are motivated by profit.
One of the modern fallacies that we've all fallen victim to at one point or another is that "more data" == "logical action".
> Don’t you think they ran the numbers and found that locking items to prevent crime, even if it’s an additional barrier to paying customers, was better for business?
It prevents an aspect of shrink that they can control through an affordable means, that does not mean that it is the vast majority of shrink.
Companies are short term irrational thinkers. Thank the market for that. If they can lock everything up and say "You can expect a reduction in shrink, please pay me and my shareholders", they will. That's easier than locking up employee thieves, which is even easier than actually trying to fight Amazon (who is eating their revenue/lunch).
For example: A local target here in Seattle was closed, citing retail theft. I stopped by there before closure; they had everything locked up and most of the shelves were empty. A grim sight, but the key point of the story was that said Target was also surrounded by other grocery store alternatives which did not lock items up and whose shelves were not empty. All within roughly a block or a block and a half of distance.
The empirical observation is that they closed the stores with less retail theft than the ones they kept open.
Yes, because none of the retailers have been willing to cough up data.
If the data supported that shoplifting is a problem and that locking things up helped, the companies would be trumpeting the data. There was a very recent article that nobody, not even the main retailers trade association, seems to know if locking things up is actually improving the situation or not.
The primary hypothesis seems to be that employee theft is the real issue and no retailer wants to admit it because it opens up a whole host of issues that are all solved with "pay money". (ie. Why aren't they paying their employees more? Why aren't they prosecuting these thefts? etc.)
It's on their financial statements and it has been discussed in their earnings calls. The euphemism for theft is "slippage."
As to whether locking things up helps, most of the thefts I have seen recently involve someone politely asking for a good to be unlocked, then walking out the door with it in hand. The lock only stops one person from taking all of it at once.
"Sales lost to locking up" is a lot harder to track, and nobody has been willing to be forthright about it.
Mostly, this is sleight of hand. None of these companies want to admit that online (even their own!) is eating their lunch.