New law to curb retail theft

Retail theft exists, and may in some limited extent be organized. But the stories about a big increase in theft and organized rings is fabricated as lobbying and PR. Things are as they always were

 

I agree. I did a deeper dive yesterday looking for some hard numbers on large scale organized retail theft and couldn't find any valid numbers, which is odd since, well, this is what I freaking do for living. I found the typical retail shrinkage figures and of course sources citing the same several high profile examples. So either these numbers don't exist or they don't exist, which suggests to me that it's really about exploiting the high profile but random incidences (as we've both argued before).

 

Looks like more and more analysis showing that the “explosion” in “organized retail theft” is a lobbying ruse

Over the last three weeks, the narrative around Target's store closures has shifted. William Blair is an investment bank that manages about $61 billion in client assets. On October 25, William Blair published a report entitled, "Higher Levels of Organized Theft and Retailer Opportunism Boost Shrink Narrative." The report acknowledges that levels of theft in 2022 were elevated, but rather than an alarming trend, it represented "shrink normalization coming out of the pandemic, when temporary closures and subsequent in-store shopping restrictions led to a more dramatic decrease in shrink." The report states that retailers are emphasizing the impact of theft "to draw attention away from margin headwinds in the form of higher promotions and weaker inventory management in recent quarters."

Edited to remove the cross out - not sure what happened or how to fix

 

It’s a rouse. 100%. It’s as ridiculous as panic over immigrant caravans, kitty litter in schools for furries, and bathroom danger. Not sure when the right will target an actual issue to solve but I hope I am alive to see it.

 

Yeah, I read some of that and also where Walgreen's CEO admitted that this organized theft wasn't what it was being portrayed as.

Besides the exaggeration, there is also conflation. I suspect that where there is probably more organized theft wrt to cargo, but that is likely not to be reported as larceny and likely under other shrinkage. There are also allusions to more violence occurring in retail. I don't know if it's true or we're just aware of it more or that there is more incivility captured on video--espec during the pandemic--but it does seem to me to feed into these perceptions, and then gets conflated with "organized theft."

Still, organized retail theft has *always* been a thing, but on a small scale, meaning small groups of people coordinating. Nothing new at all. Other hand, larceny rates in the US have dropped by over 55% since the early 1990s. And remain near historic lows. But because there is also far more stores than there were even 30 years ago and far more people, the absolute number of incidents hasn't dropped quite as much as the rates. And at the same time, despite dropping rates, some cities have seen notable increases over the past decade (e.g. San Fran).

 

Great stuff

 

NYT finally catching on



The shoplifting problem “is being talked about as if it’s much more widespread than it probably is,” said Sonia Lapinsky, a retail expert at the consulting firm AlixPartners.

There seem to be several reasons that shoplifting has received so much attention lately:

• 
  
• Videos of extreme but rare crimes can go viral today. On social media, people post videos of looting flash mobs or thieves ramming cars into stores. “There are millions of property crimes a year,” said Jeff Asher of the research firm AH Datalytics. As a result, people can always find outlandish anecdotes, even if crime is down.
• Conservative media has promoted these videos as evidence of disorder in liberal cities and under President Biden.
• Retailers have an interest in spreading the shoplifting narrative because it can suggest that disappointing profits are beyond their control.

Is Shoplifting Really Surging?

 

Edit to four paragraph limit, please

 

Done - was hoping a group of indented bullet points counted as a single paragraph