'Shoplifters Gone Wild'
Why People Think It's Okay to Steal

“They pop the locks; they melt the glass; they take the keys out of employees’ hands.”

By definition, most shoplifting is petty plunder—candy bars, baby formula, lipstick. But the small stuff adds up, as demonstrated by viral videos showing shelves of deodorant or cold medicine swiped into Hefty bags by thieves who can’t even be bothered to run away. Some people contend that all of the noise about shoplifting reflects mainly a race-tinged social panic, but the retail industry is not locking up its goods, annoying its customers, and closing stores because of a few viral videos. Companies are doing it because they’re seeing their goods walk out the door, costing them billions.

Big corporate retailers, mom-and-pop shops, cops, prosecutors, and lawmakers have tried everything to stop the thefts: get tough, be gentle, invest in new surveillance technology, turn pharmacies into fortresses. Nothing seems to work. At my Target in Washington, D.C., I counted 21 aisles of goods locked behind plastic, including toothpaste, body wash, underwear, earbuds, and air fresheners—all items that impulse thieves and organized criminals alike find desirable and easiest to resell, on the street or, more often these days, online.

Whereas many on the right see the rise in shoplifting as proof of a nationwide moral collapse, many on the left deny that it’s even happening or that it is a meaningful problem. Shoplifting is one of the hardest crimes to measure, because only a tiny proportion of cases are ever reported to police. Thefts aren’t increasing in every city—in some, reported thefts have gone down—and viral videos of shoplifters-gone-wild don’t necessarily add up to a crime wave. But merchandise is disappearing off shelves at such high rates that stores have resorted to extreme measures to defend themselves—even at the risk of alienating paying customers. The surge, retailers and industry experts say, is real.  theatlantic.com

Some businesses try to look tough by dressing the guards in black tactical gear or equipping them with a German shepherd or a handgun, but “you’re mainly intimidating your customers,” he said. “If I pull up in the parking lot and see that, I’m pulling out.”

Hardening the target—creating what the industry calls the “fortress store”—doesn’t work either. Adding physical barriers and locking away products “not only deters shoplifters; it deters legitimate customers,” Mershimer said. Ditto for limiting the amount of stock placed on display: A mostly empty shelf is more of a turnoff to real customers than to thieves.

Some stores have started locking their front doors, buzzing in only people who look like paying customers. But what does a paying customer look like? Door buzzers are invitations for a discrimination lawsuit.


Violent Crime Actually Rose 4.5%, FBI Revision Shows
FBI revised 2022 crime data to show violent offenses rose rather than dropped
The FBI quietly adjusted its figures for 2022 in recent weeks — and the new numbers show that offenses actually ticked up overall. The apparent stealth edit to the bureau’s statistics, first reported by RealClearInvestigations, shows that the raw number of violent crime incidents — including murders, assaults and rapes — rose to 1,256,671 in 2022 from 1,197,930 in 2021, an increase of 4.9%.

In October of 2023, the FBI put out a press release unveiling its national crime data for 2022, which found that “national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7% in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates.” Initially, the bureau projected that the violent crime rate relative to the US population had slipped by 2.1% in 2022 compared to 2021.

But the FBI’s adjustment now suggests that the rate of violent crime actually jumped by about 4.5% over the same period. The upward revision went unmentioned in the bureau’s annual crime figures press release from September of this year, which announced that violent crime dropped by roughly 3% year-over-year in 2023.

The Crime Prevention Research Center first identified the FBI’s subtle fix, citing a spreadsheet breaking down the original data. In 2021, the bureau appears to have concluded it overcounted violent crime incidents by 55,786 and undercounted them in 2022 by 24,243. nypost.com


Progressives Oppose Prop. 36
CA’s Prop. 36 won’t address retail theft, drug addiction or homelessness: Opinion
Proponents of Proposition 36 call it the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act,” yet it will create no new homes, no shelters and no treatment programs. It should have been called the “More Money for Prisons, Less Money for Schools and Drug Treatment Act.”

That’s because the proposition, if enacted this November, will send people with drug problems to prison or jail rather than treatment, increasing jail and prison costs by hundreds of millions of dollars a year at a time when the state already has a significant budget deficit.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that Prop. 36 will strip about $100 million annually from substance abuse treatment and reentry programs. And because the measure includes no new revenue or mechanisms to pay for these added costs, it will likely force California to slash funding for our schools, health care and other vital programs. yahoo.com

 
Is crime going up or down in New Jersey? The answer is complicated
 
Harris says violent crime is down. Trump says it's up. Here's a fact check.
 

'The Current Pharmacy Model is Not Sustainable'
Why your drug store is closing

CVS is closing 900 stores. Rite-Aid is closing 500. Walgreens announced Tuesday it plans to close 1,200 stores, meaning 1 in 7 will disappear. What is going on with America’s drug stores?

Walgreens and other chains overexpanded during the 1990s and 2000s to drive out competitors and draw more customers. They are now shutting down because of shifting consumer habits, competition and changes in the pharmacy industry.

Around 25% of Walgreens’ stores aren’t profitable, CEO Tim Wentworth said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in June, and the chain will look to close stores that are right by one another or struggling to hold down theft.

Walgreens and other retailers say they have been hit by shoplifting since the pandemic, and resorted to locking up items or closing high-theft stores. But shoplifting alone doesn’t explain Walgreens’ problems, and the company subsequently admitted last year it “cried too much” over the impact of the would-be scourge. Meanwhile, increased competition and failed growth strategies, like acquiring primary care providers, continue to have reverberating impacts on drug stores.

“We are at a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable,” Wentworth said in June.

CVS, the largest US chain, closed 244 stores between 2018 and 2020. In 2021, it announced plans to close an additional 900 stores. Earlier this month, CVS said it planned to cut about 2,900 jobs corporate jobs.

And Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy last year, closing up to 500 stores. cnn.com


Consumer Outlook Healthy & Supply Chain Stable
Holiday shopping season: An early look at how retail stores and e-commerce are getting ready for the rush

The consumer outlook is similar to last year & the supply chain is looking more stable.

The consumer continues to look healthy and the supply chain has regained stability as the holiday shopping season begins.

That’s according to DHL Supply Chain’s new CEO for North America, Patrick Kelleher, who told CNBC the shipping company is seeing more promotional items make their way out of warehouses and to retailers, but not in a signal of increased consumer weakness compared to the prior year.

“Across the board, we are seeing volumes very similar to what we’ve seen in past years, especially last year,” said Kelleher.

Freight is considered a forward-looking indicator of a retailer’s expectations of the consumer, and Kelleher said more promotional items have left or are leaving warehouses and filling store shelves, but he added, “I think it’s very consistent from what we’ve seen in past years in terms of the combination of retailers’ engagement of promotional strategies around particular product categories, sell-through of their core offerings. We don’t see a big shift there.”  cnbc.com


Election Day's Business Impact
Companies are talking about how Election Day will impact them, from slowing beer sales to people flying less
The US presidential election is just under three weeks away, and companies from Citigroup to Delta are flagging how it might affect their businesses. CEOs and other business leaders have weighed in on Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and the effects that each candidate would have on their companies if elected.

But they're also pointing to the effects that Election Day, November 5, will likely have on their businesses — everything from drinkers buying less to companies issuing debt sooner. Constellation Brands, which makes Corona and Modelo, often sees beer consumption slow down around contentious US elections, CEO William Newlands said during an earnings call on October 3.

Delta Air Lines expects a 1 percentage point hit to its revenue this quarter as people avoid traveling in the two weeks around Election Day, Glen Hauenstein, Delta's president, said on Thursday. Delta saw something similar happen after the 2016 election, Hauenstein said at the time.

Differences between Harris and Trump on taxes, tariffs, and other issues could lead to very different outcomes for Wall Street depending on who wins the presidential election. businessinsider.com


400 New Stores
Ulta Beauty plans to open 400 new stores, hit 50M loyalty members
Ulta Beauty’s profitability strategy includes aggressive growth in store count and loyalty program size.

At its 2024 Investor Day event, the nation’s largest beauty retailer, which recently reported its first quarterly revenue and earnings per share misses since 2020, unveiled a strategy to drive profitable growth and market share in beauty and wellness that includes accelerating new store openings to reach a total of more than 1,800 over the long-term. Ulta currently has more than 1,400 locations mnationwide.

The retailer maintained its guidance for fiscal year 2024 and expects a total of 60 to 65 net new stores and 40-45 remodel and relocation projects.  chainstoreage.com


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