Retail theft has emerged as a significant challenge for businesses across the country, with retailers often citing escalating losses and safety concerns as factors driving difficult decisions, including store closures. This issue has sparked a broader debate, fueled by differing perspectives on its true scale and impact. While some accounts depict a landscape significantly altered by theft and organized crime, others suggest the problem may be overstated, potentially overshadowing other economic pressures impacting the retail sector.
Shoppers are also directly experiencing the effects of this trend. Recent data suggests that nearly half of Americans have adjusted their shopping routines due to widespread closures and the implementation of anti-theft measures. These tactics, such as securing items behind locked displays or conducting receipt checks, are designed to deter theft but have, in turn, impacted the customer experience.
A survey commissioned by The U.S. Sun, polling one thousand Americans, shed light on these evolving habits. It found that 48% of respondents view self-checkout favorably, a practice that gained traction during the pandemic and has continued, sometimes to the frustration of shoppers. More significantly, the survey explored the impact of security measures on accessibility.
About 16% of those polled reported being unable to retrieve an item they needed because it was locked up during their last shopping trip. While locking up expensive goods has long been common, retailers are now increasingly placing even essential items like vitamins, deodorant, and underwear behind glass. This requires customers to wait for an employee, adding considerable time to what might have been a quick errand.
Frustration over these measures is palpable among some shoppers. One individual shared on social media, “A lot of people used to see Target as a way to unwind and discover new products.” They added, “But now it feels like I’m BEGGING y’all to spend MY money. Them locking stuff up takes away the ‘fantasy’ they used to have.” Another noted the long waits for staff assistance, describing, “Every aisle at my target had people waiting for staff. And waiting. And waiting.”
Despite these customer frustrations, retailers emphasize the necessity of such measures. Target CEO Brian Cornell offered a different perspective, telling CNBC that shoppers are often appreciative. Actually what we hear from the guests is a big thank you, because we are in stock with the brands that they need when they’re shopping in our stores,” he stated, suggesting that security helps ensure product availability.
The financial toll attributed to theft is substantial according to industry reports. The 2023 National Retail Security Survey indicated that theft-related losses climbed from $93.9 billion in 2021 to $112.1 billion in 2022. David Johnston, NRF Vice President for Asset Protection and Retail Operations, characterized the situation as dire, stating, “Retailers are seeing unprecedented levels of theft coupled with rampant crime in their stores, and the situation is only becoming more dire.
Rising costs linked to shoplifting and inflation have indeed led to stores closing their doors. Target, for instance, closed nine stores last year across four states, citing theft incidents. In a press release at the time, Target explained, “We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests and contributing to unsustainable business performance.” Walgreens closed a Maryland location following theft and violent incidents, with one shopper telling an ABC affiliate, “You can simply be walking and they take your purse and start running and they leave you with nothing.
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Other retailers, including Whole Foods and Nordstrom in San Francisco and Rite Aid in New York City, have also pointed to theft as a reason for store closures. The CEO of Rite Aid mentioned “unexpected headwinds this quarter from front-end shrink, particularly in our New York urban stores” contributing to their decision to close locations.
However, not everyone agrees that theft is the primary driver of store closures. Some critics argue that these shutdowns are more closely linked to shifts in the retail landscape, particularly the rise of online shopping, which reduces foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores. This perspective suggests that CEOs might be emphasizing theft to deflect blame for performance challenges rooted in these broader market changes or internal management issues.
Fueling this skepticism are instances like comments from Walgreens’s CFO, James Kehoe, who admitted on an earnings call that the company might have “cried too much last year” regarding theft. Furthermore, some analyses of police data have reportedly shown that certain stores that closed actually had lower reported theft rates compared to nearby stores that remained open, raising questions about crime being the sole, or even primary, cause for those specific closures.
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Adding to the complexity is the frequent misinterpretation of ‘shrink’ figures. For example, a claim circulating online stated that shoplifting caused $112 billion in losses nationally in 2022. The NRF defines ‘shrink’ as all inventory losses, which includes not just external theft (like shoplifting) but also employee theft, administrative errors, vendor fraud, and damaged goods. The NRF’s estimate is that only 36% of this total shrink is attributable to external theft.
The actual prevalence of shoplifting is difficult to determine with certainty. Existing data sources often paint an incomplete or ambiguous picture. Police administrative data, while widely used, has long-recognized limitations in capturing the true extent of crime. For instance, historical comparisons suggest that apparent surges in police-recorded shoplifting might reflect changes in reporting practices rather than actual crime rates.
A fundamental challenge is detection; many shoplifting incidents simply go unnoticed. Older studies estimated detection rates as low as 1 in 100 or even 1 in 1,000, though more recent claims from organizations like the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention suggest a higher rate of 1 in 49. Regardless, the number of detected incidents is likely a fraction of the total.
Furthermore, detected incidents are not always reported to the police. A survey of small business owners found only 33% reported shoplifting to police or insurance. Reasons cited include the reporting process being too time-consuming (55%), hesitation to involve police (49%), and doubts about law enforcement effectiveness (34%). These challenges disproportionately affect smaller operations with fewer resources to dedicate to reporting.
This leads to a situation where police data on shoplifting is heavily skewed by reports from a relatively small number of large retailers. In New York City, for example, a combined 18 department stores and 7 chain pharmacies accounted for 20% of reported thefts, with chain stores, chain pharmacies, and department stores together making up 75% of the city’s reported shoplifting. This pattern is consistent across other major cities analyzed.
In San Francisco, half of all shoplifting reports in one month came from a single chain store location, and the top 25 locations represented 63.2% of reported incidents. Similar concentrations are seen in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, and Seattle. Changes in reporting practices at these few high-volume locations can significantly alter a city’s overall reported theft statistics, potentially creating a misleading impression of citywide crime trends.
A striking illustration of this issue comes from a single Target store within San Francisco’s Metreon shopping center. In late 2021, this location saw its share of citywide shoplifting complaints jump dramatically, largely attributed to the implementation of a new reporting system. Yet, in June 2022, reported incidents from this location abruptly slowed, with data suggesting reports were only filed when arrests were made.
Emails from an SFPD sergeant revealed that before the new system, fewer than 10% of incidents at the store were believed to be documented, with nearly 2,000 shoplifting incidents worth over $330,000 reportedly going unreported in a single month. When SFPD conducted a focused enforcement operation (“Operation Blitz ’23”) at this location in November 2023, resulting in 17 arrests, 15 reported incidents suddenly appeared in the data after months of near-zero reporting.
This stark contrast between internal estimates, the results of targeted enforcement, and public data highlights the significant gap in reporting. It suggests that shoplifting is likely far more prevalent than official records indicate, and that the available data is heavily influenced by the reporting practices and capacity of a limited number of retailers and the focus of law enforcement efforts. Understanding the true scope of retail theft, therefore, requires looking beyond aggregate numbers and examining the underlying data collection and reporting mechanisms at local and company levels.
Ultimately, while retailers face real challenges from theft impacting their operations and driving strategic decisions like closures, the publicly available data is complex and incomplete. It serves more as a reflection of reporting behaviors than a definitive measure of the crime itself, making a clear, unified assessment of the problem’s scale an ongoing challenge for policymakers and the public alike.
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