The shoplifting scare might not have been real — but its effects are
It turns out shoplifting isn’t spiraling out of control, but lawmakers are pushing for tougher penalties for low-level and nonviolent crimes anyway.
Over the last couple of years, it seemed that America was experiencing a shoplifting epidemic. Videos of people brazenly stealing merchandise from retailers often went viral; chains closed some of their stores and cited a rise in theft as the primary reason; and drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens started locking up more of their inventory, including everyday items like toothpaste, soaps, and snacks. Lawmakers from both major parties called for, and in some cases even implemented, more punitive law enforcement policies aimed at bucking the apparent trend.
But evidence of a spike in shoplifting, it turns out, was mostly anecdotal. In fact, there’s little data to suggest that there’s a nationwide problem in need of an immediate response from city councils or state legislatures. Instead, what America seems to be experiencing is less of a shoplifting wave and more of a moral panic.
…
Now, those more forgiving criminal justice policies are at risk, in part because of a perceived trend that appears to have been overblown.
Shoplifting is a real and increasing problem and looking at how many cases are reported is a nonsensical metric because microscopically few issues are ever reported. I have seen this first hand and a huge uptick started well before the pandemic. The actual accelerator is the ease of monetizing gains with the rise of online marketplaces most specifically Facebook.
Once upon a time the prime way to monetize would be to sell to people like pawn shops or used goods shops willing to pay 1/4 of sticker. The only things reasonably monetizable was singular high dollar figure items like expensive tools.
Then craigslist came into being but buying such goods was inherently skeevy and your target market was inherently small and it took a lot of time per item. Again the only monteizable items are singualr high dollar figure items where it's reasonable to spend a half hour to an hour per item meeting up. Again prices are expected to be a fraction of sticker.
Fast forward to online markets. Now you can get the majority of sticker with payment processing and shipping and tap with a few online stores into a massive portion of the populace. Now anything that isn't insanely specific can be moved easily just list it and wait for your online shoppers to put it in their cart and take your outgoing ill gotten gains to the post office. A goddamn idiot can do it.
If you work at a store and you pay attention you can see the people you are used to see stealing selling your stores shit online. To anyone really paying attention it's completely fucking obvious. It changes the incentive structure.
If you go to a store you will notice stores doing a LOT more to make theft less trivial. All the expensive shit and some that isn't that expensive is behind cages, there is more loss prevention, more security in places, more prosecution of organized losers. This money isn't spent for no reason. There are more assholes coming through and its usually the same cadre of assholes and a substantial minority are absolutely willing to threaten workers if called out.
Fuck shitty people.
Shoplifting is trending up, it's just not the moral panic Republicans made it out to be.
https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/shoplifting-statistics/
It's also not generally driven by poor people trying to survive
So yeah dude is pretty much spot on. Check out the lists of what is typically stolen - things that are easily resold, and shit teens like (because teens steal a lot for a variety of reasons). Essentials don't make the list anywhere
First - This article is conflating "shrink" and 'retail theft". Shrink accounts for losses including theft, but also accounts for accounting losses, damaged goods, and lost shipments. Theft itself is broken up into "external theft" and "emoyee theft". External theft was 36% of that 1.6% ($40B). (https://cdn.nrf.com/sites/default/files/2023-09/NRF_National_Retail_Security_Survey_2023.pdf)
Second, these statics are from FY2022, which ended Jan 30th, 2023. We won't know FY2023, as it is not over yet, so we don't know if it is truely "trending up" or holding steady - we have ONE (1) years' worth of data of increased shrink.
Third - shrink, according to their own statistics, ROSE between FY2021 and FY2022, yet FY2022 was on par with FY2019 (1.62%) and FY2020(1.6%), while FY2021 decreased to 1.4% - so, again... no "trend" of an increase. Also no "trend" of a decrease, for that matter. (https://cdn.nrf.com/sites/default/files/2020-07/RS-105905_2020_NationalRetailSecuritySurvey.pdf) (https://cdn.nrf.com/sites/default/files/2021-08/2021%20National%20Retail%20Security%20Survey%20updated.pdf)
They even retracted their statement last month (https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/)
Further, if we take their own data again, external theft to be that figure above ($40B), and again use the NRF's statistics that cybercrime rose to an average of $4M per incident, you can quickly see how this idea of shoplifting being majorly problematic is erroneous. Moreover, the NRF lists shoplifting as only the third most important worry of surveyed retailers - in their own words, they are more concerned about shootings and cybercrime than inperson shoplifting.
Lastly, this all needs to be put in context. Taking the $112.1B adjustment as 1.6% of retail sales, this totals $7.1T... so, in reality, EXTERNAL THEFT (not employee theft, not product loss due to damage or shipping to the wrong place) was .00576% of total sales, and over the period of 2019 to 2022, retail profits (which are taken into acount AFTER things like theft have been factored in) have steadily increased up to the 2022 level of 5.9% (after skyrocketing in 2021 to over 13%) so even while they are claiming that retail theft is growing, even total shrink isn't effecting their overall margins. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/197576/annual-retail-sales-in-the-us-since-1992/#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%202022,increase%20from%20the%20year%20before.) (https://www.forrester.com/blogs/us-retail-industry-sales-and-profits-trends-2001-2022-steady-growth/#:~:text=US%20Retail%20Net%20Profit%20Trends&text=The%20retail%20net%20margin%20remained,decreased%20to%203.3%25%20in%202022.)
Now - of course this is an overall look at retail - this doesn't take into account the individual annecdotes, or the massive differnces between small local retailers and big box stores, nor does it look into the differnces between online retailers, store fronts, and the differences in theft experienced by each (e.g. amazon is massive - are they over-representing both profit margin and shrink due to cymbercrime?).
I made a hobby out of fucking with shoplifters for YEARS. For a sample size of one store it is real and obvious.