I was watching CrimeWatch last night and a particular clip showed a young man stealing a ring from a jewelers shop. It made me wonder whether or not the current economic climate has an affect on the retail crime.
In 2012 the British Retail Consortium conducted a survey into the current state of retail crime in the UK. 44 retailers participated. I’m guessing that it didn’t include the often forgotten about Independents as the combined turnover accounts for 58% of total retail turnover in the UK.
Here are some headline figures from the report;
Retail crime cost UK retailers £1.6 billion in 2011-12 – up 15% on previous year.
This maybe due to a focus on Higher value items
There are various different categories of retail crime. They include; customer
theft, employee theft, burglary, criminal damage and fraud. Most of the categories saw an increase in levels.
Interestingly despite these increases and the overall cost, there was a significant reduction in the amount of crime reported to the Police.
Furthermore, increased spend of crime prevention (Approximately 7.1%) didn’t help reduce crime incidents.
But not all crime occurs in the shop. E-crime is on the rise and is the most costly. Identity fraud increased 80%.
Most shocking is that 28,700 staff were subject to physical or verbal abuse during the year. However, my feeling is that this number would be significantly more when you factor in independent retailers.
So what are the ways that shop owners can protect themselves and their stock.
If you want to read the study in greater detail you can download the BRC Retail Crime study here.