U.S. retailers admit they lied about shoplifting, retail crime again

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U.S. retailers admit they lied about shoplifting, again | Boing Boing
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I am telling you, there is zero mathematical/economic evidence that shoplifting even registers as a problem

Stores invest millions in anti-theft security, in technical, logistical, and physical ways. All of those things cost money.

Stores make money by selling things.

Literally THE ENTIRE point of being a massive chain is that random noise like shoplifting disappears into the overwhelming roar of economies of scale

That's not the entire point of it at all. Efficiency is.

Also: https://blog.gitnux.com/walmart-shrinkage-statistics/

Stores invest millions in anti-theft security, in technical, logistical, and physical ways. All of those things cost money.

You are making a clear logical fallacy by acting like this proves shoplifting must actually significantly impact their bottom line. Further there is abundant evidence that corporations invest massive amounts of money into things that don't actually help them economically. Don't tell me you also believe the narrative that markets are magically always rational??

You don't seem to be able to understand this isn't about numbers, it is about narratives.

You are making a clear logical fallacy by acting like this proves shoplifting m

If they invest the money, the money is spent, thus affecting the bottom line

Not sure why you're trying to argue this so hard, but there is no percent chance you will be correct here. Costs are indeed passed forward onto customers.

Further there is abundant evidence that corporations invest massive amounts of money into things that don’t actually help them economically.

The efficacy is completely irrelevant. What's relevant is the costs induced. You are correct that people are irrational. That doesn't change the fact that the irrationality costs them money, which they make back via pricing.

Also I assure you that Wal-Mart has a very large team whose only goal is to measure the cost/benefit analysis of decisions like these - and those teams also cost money. Even the concept existing at all raises prices.

If they invest the money, the money is spent, thus affecting the bottom line

Not sure why you’re trying to argue this so hard, but there is no percent chance you will be correct here. Costs are indeed passed forward onto customers.

ahahahaha so now you are blaming me for the irrational economic behavior of corporations? I feel so powerful now, thank you.

Yes I am blaming the cause for the effect. You are correct.

Bro just say you're a thief and you don't give a shit. You don't need to do all the gymnastics. You can just be a thief.

Just admit you are an idiot conservative who doesn't actually care about facts, numbers or reality, all you care about is a good morality story.

Man you're stealing all the irony too lol

“Companies say these incidents have led to a spike in merchandise losses, known as shrink. The metric incorporates inventory losses caused by external theft, including organized retail crime, employee theft, human errors, vendor fraud, damaged or mismarked items and other losses.

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.

Shrink is an “issue where you’ve got a problem, but there’s no way to know exactly where the losses are coming from,” said Richard Hollinger, a retired professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Florida, who studies retail losses and launched the retail industry’s first annual security survey in the early 1990s.

According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual survey of around 60 retail member companies, shrink is a “rapidly ballooning issue.” In 2021, retail shrink hit $94.5 billion, up only 4% from 2020 but a 53% jump from 2019.

But, in fact, the average shrink rate as a percentage of sales dropped to 1.4% in 2021 from 1.6% in 2020, according to the latest NRF survey. That number has hovered around 1.4% for more than a decade.“

Ok ok so the concern for shoplifting from Random’s doesn’t even warrant tracking as a separate stat (it is no more important than workers occasionally misplacing boxes in the supply chain??), we are talking about <1% of sales. Sorry not going to lose sleep over that?

How about those organized shoplifting sprees that we keep hearing about? What does the national Retail Foundation, the group that is going to be the most concerned about this out of any?

“The NRF estimates that organized retail crime costs companies an average of just 7 cents for every $100 in sales.”

sigh y’all are full of shit and I am tired of it

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html

Man you're really passionate about trying to justify your stealing lol