Bay Area innovator stops shoplifting, gives shoppers power to open padlocked shelves::New technology coming to stores could stop theft and ease customer access.
Bay Area innovator stops shoplifting, gives shoppers power to open padlocked shelves::New technology coming to stores could stop theft and ease customer access.
I would rate it as a concern. Probably not “HUGE” concern but it is impacting thing.
I work loss prevention, so I have a slight bias. But I also see how often and to the volume that it is. There are individuals I have helped with that are linked to 6 digit worth of stuff (and then of course money theft but that’s a different ball game).
Yes if a company has 30,000,000 in sales, theft seems less a problem until it gets multipld out hundreds of times a 1,500,000 of saleable items being stolen can and is something that happens with the current security stuff. And while that is 1/20 the of the sales that 30 mill is before paying for the product, utilities and salary.
Profit is still there but it is getting harder to hold that profit and new ways to loose/new scams pop up all the time
It’s much lower than 1/20, try 1-2% of sales
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/business/crime-spree-retailers-are-actually-overstating-the-extent-of-theft-report-says/index.html
More then Likely the overall average is hitting that. not really going to argue that. I have been at and looked at metrics for individual stores that have been 4.2,4.5, and one that was a 6% (their was a bit of restructuring that happened after that). I will state that those percentages were lost item numbers that could be accounted with other things other then theft.
The store thats in a “nicer” area and the one that has is in a really bad 1 can even out so the number is low. but the bad store can have really high numbers, numbers that can be worse as it goes through. Also keep in mind that the overall theft % has stayed “constant” by the link you gave, and thats with the annoying glass cases and other such being used to try to lower shrink. better measures are needed as time passes. A case an area cost 6k to order for the area I was in, and the store chose to put it there. or the ones that are paying for off duty officers to help. If they didnt work the stores wouldnt use them (and yes that does happen, a security set for a store got canceled because the numbers didnt change after 5 months)
I appreciate the in depth and personal knowledge, it does add some perspective and nuance. I rarely agree with large corporation’s decisions (on principle alone haha) but I do understand why they do stuff like this