U.S. retailers admit they lied about shoplifting, retail crime again
The circle of life. Stores fail for complex reasons → retailer quietly posts accurate analysis of its own mistakes → retailer loudly posts press release blaming shoplifters and gangs → media likes …
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They are talking about organized retail theft. Individuals stealing still could make up a large amount of loss. Article doesn't seem clear to me on that point.
Stores have insurance to protect them against theft.
Having insurance isn't a free money glitch. Insurance companies wouldn't be able to operate if the insurance didn't cost more than the claim payouts.
And the more they use the coverage, the more it costs.
Have you ever filed claims against your home or auto insurance? Even when it was fully in policy and not your fault, your rates likely spiked.
And the more they use the coverage, the more it costs.
Oh no! Anyway…
Costs running high means something isn't as profitable. Meaning they might close a store.
Why don't you care what happens to poor people?
You think a corporation wil just eat those costs? Not a chance, they're going to raise the prices on you and all of your neighbors to compensate.
Yes, I'm well aware corporations never miss an opportunity to fuck people over.
Then what was the point of your previous comment? Theft has a real and measurable impact on your community.
They literally closed those stores without actual theft issues. You think they're gonna reopen them now that they've admitted they were lying? Of course not. Sounds like imaginary theft has a ReAl aNd MeSUrAbLe impact on my community too. Fuck 'em.
I never commented about Target closing or reopening stores. My comment was relating to insurance not just being free money that covers bad stuff happening. There's also such a thing as being uninsurable.
I'm all for bashing corporate greed but claiming theft isn't a big deal because they have insurance is a bad take.
Let's take a step back from this pointless argument. Shrink rates have been between 1-2% for arguably forever. Retailers currently are aghast that their shrink losses went from $90 billion to $120 billion! Yikes! That sounds like a big increase!
Yet, that shrink percentage has not significantly increased. It's been around 1.5% for a few years now. Doesn't that make you wonder though? If the percentage of shrink loss isn't increasing, how are the losses increasing 33%? And even more perplexing is, how are these companies posting record profits? Quarter after quarter their profits are increasing as much as 6% even with these record breaking shrinkage losses.
It's almost as if they have taken advantage of the publics attention of COVID era inflation, and price gouged the retail market. It's like they priced their products 33% higher than they were, in order to make record profits, and those higher prices can easily be conflated into record shrinkage losses.
Weird. I'm sure that can't be what's happening though. My always friendly Walmart has always been set on giving me the cheapest prices possible. They couldn't be trying to change the narrative to make it seem like customers are thieves. They love their customers, and would never patronize them for something as greedily evil as a drop in their revenue bucket.
Why are so stores spending so much money and labor redoing stores to add locked shelving display units for basic goods?
The cost of the shelving and maintenance increases, and the required labor increases because every customer will need an employee to unlock the displays every time they need an item like video games in the 90s.
Stores don't want to lock up toothpaste and bottle neck their sales but they're doing it en masse, why is that?
And even more perplexing is, how are these companies posting record profits?
Your amount of profit is not necessarily tied to your pricing. With 0 change in pricing, you can make more money by simply selling more things.
Stores like target will charge whatever they can, do you think target is saying well we could charge more but we won't to be nice but now that shit is getting stolen we're going to increases prices to make up for it.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that prices are at least partially a result of the cost of doing business.
What's part of the cost of doing business? Theft. Estimated shrink rates are factored into profit forecasting.
It's factored into profits but that doesn't mean it's going to change the price. The reason cost is a factor is because competitors can't charge lower than what it costs for the product. But when you have online as a competitor then things like cost of stolen items have less of an impact because you need to compete with them or other chains who have figured out how to prevent theft at a cheaper cost than you.
Wait are you telling me insurance is a scam because if you ever need to use it it'll cost more money? That's crazy dude, I feel so awful for the massive multimillion dollar companies that are forced to pay for it...
Enjoy paying higher prices for everything and having to track down every time you want to purchase an item when they lock all the shelves.
Not sure where you live but it's getting really old seeing toothpaste and basic necessities getting locked up like video games in the 90s.
I mean as you yourself noted they are already locking up stupid shit like toothpaste. Nobody is fuckn stealing enough toothpaste to effect profits. Hell I'm not sure who would even bother stealing toothpaste, it's not exactly expensive. Saving yourself like a buck at most by not buying the cheap (just as effective) stuff.
And I'm not advocating for theft sheesh. I just think it's funny that the oh so wonderfully for profit insurance companies fuck over retailers too. I was trying to comment about how insurance is maybe kind of a scam...
I'll also note that there isn't actually a widespread theft problem. Stores aren't locking up toothpaste because people are stealing it more than they used to. There were a few places, notably New York which did some really stupid shit with petty crime essentially just publicly saying they weren't gonna deal with it that caused a lot of problems but by and large toothpaste isn't locked up because people are stealing it. The company is just a dick
It's not that the toothpaste itself is the high theft item, it's just easier to lock the whole shelf rather than specific items. Notably items like Razor blades have crazy high theft rates and are usually near the toothpaste, causing them both to be locked up.
Check out some metropolitan areas for a preview of what's coming to a store near you. Denver has been locking stuff up for years already.
"I hate Amazon and Jeff Bezos! Anyway, watch me steal from this store."
Why wouldn't I steal petty shit from a large chain store like Walmart? They stole living wages from workers in many communities, they stole the diversity of local businesses that used to be in many communities, most importantly they steal from every single one of us by not paying a genuinely fair share back to the society they profit off of in terms of taxes. Sorry, not gonna feel bad for stealing some toothpaste, especially when it is a store that fired all the cashiers and has one person frantically running around helping people in a sea of obnoxious self checkout machines that all blare the same audio loop out over and over and over again.
Why wouldn’t I steal petty shit from a large chain store like Walmart?
Drives prices up for other people on your community
At first they thought at first it was greedflation, that it was the 1% siphoning off all the profits from the economy to shareholders, they thought it was massive corporations hedging families out of the housing market, austerity and lack of social safety net.... but the whole time it was ME stealing toothpaste from walmart, slowly undercutting the heart of america. They didn't realize until it was too late, I had become too powerful. I have a whole bathroom full of stolen toothpaste tubes and I am ready.
If you think shoplifting doesn't cause prices to go up, you're just wrong, man. Yes, there can be, and are, other factors, too.
Me, I prefer to not contribute to the problem.
It literally doesn't, that is the whole point of this discussion? I am telling you, there is zero mathematical/economic evidence that shoplifting even registers as a problem worth investing time and energy into for massive corporations. They do invest time and energy, but it is because the narrative is useful to them. That is what this is about, it is about a story. Not economics, not math, not hard cold reality, it is about a narrative that emotionally engages you and gets you upset. It is about a story that rationalizes the world for you in a way that directs your anxiety and fear. There is zero scientific grounding in your beliefs about shoplifting, it might as well be a spiritual or religious belief you hold and just the way people will try to take advantage of you by preying upon your spiritual beliefs, so will corporations and politicians try to take advantage of you by preying upon your belief that shoplifting actually matters to economic behemoths that shape and undermine our entire economy.
Literally THE ENTIRE point of being a massive chain is that random noise like shoplifting disappears into the overwhelming roar of economies of scale.
Well, ease of regulatory capture is another bonus but that just strengthens my argument...
That type of knee jerk conjecture is really weak. The data collected on shrinkage, as noted in the linked Reuter's article, is noisy. You can't differentiate lose due to theft or shipping mistakes or cliericsl error.
More importantly, and not mentioned directly in the boingboing article, was the cited number of rising organized theft was based upon an analyst from a security firm. The report was created in partnership with that firm. With the recent redaction, there is no mention of that firm.