Lots of products are flying off shelves at groceries, drug stores and other retailers. But not in a good way.
Diapers, batteries and coffee are among items being stolen by groups of thieves who often run in gangs, scoop up merchandise, then sell it through online marketplaces or other local retailers.
Who knew deodorant would be so prized by criminals? But it is, which is why you will see it and other benign, everyday products under lock and key at some stores: detergent, over-the-counter cold medicines, headphones, body wash, watches, cigarettes and condoms.
Yes, condoms.
The situation is concerning enough that one local municipality is joining forces with its big-box stores to stem the tide. The Target, Lowe’s, Home Depot and Kohl’s stores in Mantua have joined police to create a special task force on retail theft, according to a recent story in The Sun.
Officers have communicated with the affected retailers on how they can team to prevent theft and recover goods, including a meeting with Lowe’s employees last month. According to Mayor Robert Zimmerman, the township fielded more than 20,000 theft calls last year, a fact that has been addressed in part with the hiring of seven new officers in 2023, added The Sun.
Why is store theft so bad? Some experts claim the crime may be exaggerated to benefit the retail bottom line, but data from Capital One updated in 2024 shows that individual and organized thievery cost stores nationwide $121.6 billion in 2023. The average shoplifting incident cost retailers an average of $461.86.
The most prolific shoplifters are likely organized, according to the National Retail Federation, part of a coordinated effort to steal items and then illegally resell them online through such sites as Amazon, eBay and Walmart Marketplace. The most recent Capital One data showed that organized retail theft involving multiple perpetrators increased by as much as 26.5% between 2020 and 2021.
In New Jersey, according to Capital One’s numbers, retailers lost $2.313 billion in revenue to theft in 2022, though the crime rate is lower per capita than other state averages.
For Target, the scope of the challenge is immense, the chain’s CEO Brian Cornell told analysts last year.
“The problem affects all of us,” he explained, “limiting product availability, creating a less convenient shopping experience and putting our team and guests in harm’s way.”
Cornell meant that customers may decide not to buy a product that has to be unlocked – or buy anything at all – and store employees are adding to their workload when they have to retrieve items from behind glass. Retail theft has even resulted in store closings and injuries to those workers.
So what are solutions to the problem? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has focused on those since defining retail crime as a national crisis in 2022. Among them are coordination between retailers and police, as in Mantua; changing state laws to create a separate offense for the repeated stealing of certain amounts or products within specific time periods; and more aggressive prosecution of retail theft.
We’re not talking here about kids who lift a candy bar or pack of gum from a store, but organized criminals who steal the very pleasure of shopping.
