![]() ![]() It lost nearly 3 percent in sales to shrink - he says it’s a number that wouldn’t have been acceptable a few years ago but is now par for the course. Last year, the Walmart that Riley worked at outside of Baltimore was well above the NRF average. “All these companies that are screaming about theft, they’re kind of complicit in it because they keep reducing staff” That’s a big number - it’s also one that companies could take more steps to bring down, workers say. Taken as a percentage of sales, that translates to an increase from $93.9 billion to $112.1 billion in losses. According to the National Retail Federation, the average shrink rate increased from 1.4 percent in 2021 to 1.6 percent in 2022. “Shrink” - retail-speak for missing inventory that may have been stolen by outside parties or its own workers, damaged, or just plain lost - is inevitable. Some amount of shoplifting is always going to happen. because there’s no return on the investment.” Slowing down stealing isn’t free In conversation after conversation, one thing became clear: While many corporations are frustrated by retail theft, they’re not doing enough to try to solve it.Īs David Rey, the author of Larceny on 34th Street: An In-Depth Look at Professional Shoplifting in One of the World’s Largest Stores – A Memoir, explained to Vox in an interview, “Most retailers really don’t spend when it comes to asset protection, when it comes to the resources needed to protect themselves from shoplifting. I interviewed more than a dozen workers in retail and loss prevention - and two retail thieves - about what the country’s supposed shoplifting epidemic looks and feels like on the ground. But these solutions would all cost money the company was apparently not willing to dole out. He’s got some ideas, like increasing staffing and, really, locking up the liquor, which would mean more work for employees but would also have increased safety. Part of the matter is there just isn’t great data out there on what’s going on.įiguring out what to do about it all was above Jonathan’s pay grade. ![]() Some people overstate the spike in shoplifting, others underplay it. Retail theft is a problem, albeit one that can be difficult to unpack. They’d show up hours after being called and ask whether the perpetrators were still there (they obviously weren’t) and which way they’d gone (what does it matter if it was six hours ago?). “The company didn’t really seem that interested in solving the problem, they seemed more interested in, I don’t know, complaining,” he says. It also blew them off when they warned of camera blind spots that shoplifters were aware of. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.Ĭorporate ignored employees’ requests to put booze in locked cases because the liquor aisle is an area of the store that attracts some especially “sketchy” characters. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. ![]()
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