Deep Dive Into American Shoplifting Trends
Shoplifting Survey Finds Such Stealing is Widespread

Four in 10 Americans admit to boosting goods from stores, study shows.

More than 40% of American adults report having stolen merchandise from a store at some point in their lives, a recent survey by Express Legal Funding has found.

Some highlights from the survey:

Overall Prevalence

• 40% of respondents admitted to having shoplifted at least once
• 66% of respondents in all age groups know someone who has shoplifted before

Gender Differences

• Women shoplift more than men. 43% of women vs. 37% of men reported prior shoplifting
• Women are consistently more likely than men to know someone who has shoplifted

Age Trends

• The likelihood of shoplifting decreases with age

Motivations

• Financial hardship was the most prevalent and consistently cited primary reason for shoplifting
• Seeking a high or thrill from stealing was reported as the main factor for shoplifting by 19%

Deterrents

• The most commonly cited reason for hesitation towards retail theft across all regions is the belief that shoplifting is morally wrong or against their religion (70%), followed by the fear of getting in trouble with the police.

Click here for more from the survey by Express Legal Funding.  instoremag.com


The Fight Over Prop 47 Reaches Fever Pitch
As CA crime surges, Newsom seeks to keep Prop 47 off ballot

• Proposition 47 lessened penalties for certain crimes
• Burglary up 10.6% in Los Angeles
• Bipartisan efforts ongoing to cut down on crime

California Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to push to keep a decade-old initiative that lessened penalties for certain crimes off the November ballot in place of other safety measures as burglaries and other offenses continue to rise across the state.

Proposition 47, which took effect in 2014, has been blamed for easing up on people who commit crimes, including theft. Newsom, a Democrat, has been sounding tougher on crimes recently at a time when Californians have complained about the uptick in crime in their communities.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, homicides have increased by 10.6% year-to-date as of June 4. Robberies have also jumped by 17.6% over 2023, and more specifically, robberies that have taken place at Los Angeles businesses, restaurants, liquor stores and clothing stores account for 894 robberies this year, which is up 43.6% from 2023.

Los Angeles isn’t the only California city experiencing a jump in crime, according to police. Homicides are up 83% in Long Beach and 133% in Fresno compared to 2023. Meanwhile, car thefts are up 52% in Long Beach, while shoplifting is up 79% in San Bernadino, according to law enforcement statistics.

While aware of the surge in crime, Newsom is continuing to try to keep reforms to Prop 47 off the ballot this fall. A bipartisan effort has been ongoing in Sacramento to give the ballot initiative more teeth and increase penalties for criminals, including repeat offenders.

Those efforts come at a time when Newsom is pushing his own safety bills to crack down on crime, which he would prefer go in front of the state’s voters rather than reforms to the existing law. Newsom told reporters he doesn’t see the need to have something on the ballot if it isn’t achieving what it set out to accomplish.  newsnationnow.com


California's Anti-Theft Legislation Faces 11th Hour Change That Could Sink It
New change coming to retail theft legislation could splinter support for tough-on-crime initiative
Legislative leaders plan to fast-track bills to crack down on retail theft in California and are using the package of reforms to pressure supporters of a proposed tough-on-crime initiative headed for the November ballot to abandon that effort.

In a closed-door discussion this week, representatives for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) met with the leaders behind the Californians for Safer Communities Coalition, the group led by local district attorneys that has spent the last six months campaigning for voter support to reform Proposition 47, which voters passed in 2014.

Two people with knowledge of the meeting said legislative leaders are moving forward with a hard-ball approach that would make voters choose between the two efforts — and could splinter support for the ballot measure.

Unless the ballot measure is withdrawn, the Democratic leadership plans to add an “inoperability clause” to its legislation that would revoke the new laws if voters pass the statewide proposition in November, according to the sources and a letter Republicans sent to legislative leaders.

The Republican lawmakers in the letter condemned those changes, saying they would “do grave damage” to the bipartisan progress made on retail theft. Lawmakers are advancing a bipartisan 12-bill legislative package that would address the issues of retail theft and focus on protecting the safety of workers and store owners, without harsher penalties for some offenders.  latimes.com


Shoppers Continue to React Negatively to Product Lockups
‘Super irritating,’ cry Walmart shoppers now ‘escorted’ to checkout after waiting to have everyday kids item unlocked

The U.S. Sun has compiled a list of major retailers taking anti-theft measures

Walmart shoppers are outraged with the mega-store for locking up everyday items. The retail giant keeps products locked behind glass due to new efforts to stop theft - even cheap items like kids' toys.

Kids items like baseball cards aren't the only goods protected by anti-theft glass cabinets as stores are locking up underwear, socks, toiletries, birth control, and more products to curb shoplifting.

The Reason for the Glass

Walmart has faced several major theft issues in recent years as President and CEO Doug McMillon described a "historic high" in retail theft numbers for the company. The company reported $6.5 billion in losses last year due to "shrinkage" — which is product loss due to theft.

Some shoppers have even threatened to ditch Walmart for Target due to their frustration with the anti-theft measures.

Another social media user claiming to be a former Walmart employee recently said they experienced "dumb" anti-theft measures relating to the glass cabinets and mentioned another possible solution.

"It's absolutely ridiculous how a multibillion dollar company won't hire a security/surveillance team but will lock up stuff that shouldn't be locked up in the first place," they wrote. the-sun.com


Violent Crime is Down, But Americans Don't Believe It
Why aren't Americans willing to believe good news about crime?
The best data we have available shows that violent crime in the United States has declined significantly over the past couple of years. But ask the average American and they’ll confidently tell you that it’s actually going up.

According to the FBI’s preliminary analysis, crimes like murder, rape and assault fell in 2023 at what could prove to be a record pace, erasing a pandemic-era spike in violent crimes and bringing the national rates near the lowest levels ever recorded. The rate of property crimes like burglary and theft has also declined.

In survey after survey, though, Americans consistently say they believe crime is increasing. In a poll taken late last year, 77% of people said crime is getting worse, and two-thirds said crime is an extremely or very serious problem. The last time Americans were so pessimistic about crime was in the early 1990s, when the violent crime rate was more than double what it is today.

This gap between perception and reality has real-world impacts. The campaign to enact police and criminal justice reform gained major momentum in the wake of the nationwide protest movement following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. But it has largely stalled — and in some cases been rolled back — as members of both parties have returned to promoting “tough on crime” policies.

Part of the disconnect appears to come down to human nature. We tend to put more weight on negative events, whether we experience them personally or simply hear about them, much more than times when everything goes well. Gallup has been polling on perceptions of crime for 25 years, and almost every year a majority of people say it’s going up, even though the actual crime rate has been cut by more than half over that same period.

Experts say there are also plenty of cultural forces that feed our predispositions on crime. Watching the news or using social media, which frequently focuses on out-of-context acts of individual violence, can make crime seem much more prominent than it really is. Politics plays a major role as well. yahoo.com


VIDEO: Curbing organized retail crime

Murders are down across NYC, but Brownsville has endured one tragic death after another in 2024
 

Electronic Shelf Labels Deployed at 2,300 Walmart Locations by 2026
Walmart to bring electronic shelf labels to thousands of stores

The retailer expects to deploy the technology to 2,300 locations by 2026 in a bid to improve efficiency and customer service.

Walmart plans to install electronic shelf labels in 2,300 stores by 2026, the company announced Thursday. The retailer’s decision to deploy the digital tags on a large scale follows a test at a single supercenter in Grapevine, Texas.

Walmart’s move promises to sharply expand the presence of ESLs in U.S. grocery retail locations, where the technology has been relatively slow to take off.

Walmart is looking to electronic shelf labels to help its employees update prices on its shelves, track product supplies more efficiently and allow them to provide customers with “an even better shopping experience,” Daniela Boscan, a Walmart food and consumable team lead in Hurst, Texas, wrote in a post on the company’s website.

Walmart stores typically stock more than 120,000 items and change prices on “thousands” of products every week, Boscan said.

The shift from paper tags to ESLs, which Walmart calls digital shelf labels, will reduce the time it takes workers to update prices from two days to just a few minutes, according to Boscan’s post. In addition, associates will use lights on the tags to identify shelves that need to be replenished.

Walmart also expects lights on the tags to help workers assemble orders for e-commerce customers faster and more accurately by guiding them to products as they move through store aisles. retaildive.com


Amazon's Brick & Mortar Mission a Failure?
Amazon is tinkering with grocery business. Some are unsure it’s working
When Amazon introduced its cashierless checkout system — aptly called Just Walk Out — the tech was seen as the latest prong in Amazon’s mission to transform brick-and-mortar stores and become a dominant competitor in the grocery industry.

Roughly seven years later, Amazon is taking that technology out of its grocery stores, and the revolution it had hoped to bring has yet to materialize.

Amazon says it is still committed to its grocery efforts — which these days include sales from Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh grocery stores, Amazon Go convenience stores and Whole Foods Market. But analysts are divided on how to interpret recent changes in Amazon’s grocery strategy.

On top of removing the Just Walk Out technology from Fresh grocery stores, Amazon closed some stores, paused expansion for new locations and reformatted others. It laid off some workers in its grocery division, shelved its idea for drive-up pickup sites and experimented with a new subscription model for online shoppers.

Is Amazon’s grocery business approaching its expiration date?

“In the world of nonperishable, nonedibles, Amazon is very dominant,” said Sucharita Kodali, an analyst from Forrester who has followed Amazon’s grocery efforts since they started. “In fresh foods, Amazon is not a significant player.”

“If I were Kroger, I would not spend a lot of time focusing on Amazon as a competitive threat.”

At the company’s annual shareholders meeting last month, CEO Andy Jassy listed grocery as one of the many businesses Amazon is passionate about growing. Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told reporters earlier this year the company was “pleased” with its growth in physical stores.  seattletimes.com


Retail Sales Surge in May
NRF: Retail sales jump in May; largest month-over-month gain in over a year
Retail sales rose significantly, showing strong increases both month-over-month and year-over-year, as consumers continued to spend and drive growth.

Total retail sales (excluding automobiles and gasoline but including restaurants) rose 1.35% month-over-month in May and were up 3.03% year-over-year, according to the CNBC/Retail Monitor released Monday by the National Retail Federation (NRF). That compared with an increase of 0.26% month-over-month and a decrease of 0.6% year-over-year in April.

Core retail sales (excluding automobiles, gasoline and restaurants) rose 1.2% month-over-month in May and were up 2.88% year-over-year. That compared with an increase of 0.4% month-over-month and a decrease of 0.05% year-over-year in April. chainstoreage.com


More Retailers Invest in AI
Will Accenture’s AI Support Help Bath & Body Works Stabilize?
Bath & Body Works, a retailer of personal care and home fragrance products, has embarked on a multi-year partnership with Accenture to overhaul and streamline its digital and technology platforms. This strategic move aims to elevate the brand by integrating the latest advancements in digital technology, marketing technology (MarTech), artificial intelligence (AI), and generative AI (GenAI) to stimulate growth and enhance customer experiences for Bath & Body Works. retailwire.com


TJX to expand into Mexico

Buc-ee’s opens 75,00-sq.-ft. store — its largest location yet