Australia’s $3 billion shoplifting shame: Research reveals retail theft surge

A perception that retail theft is a victimless crime couldn’t be further from the truth, as a business owner tells of the true cost of petty crooks.

Thieves are costing Australian retailers billions of dollars each year, taking advantage of self-serve check-outs and using “brazen” tactics against small businesses.

An exhaustive report says crime-related losses are equal to about 1 per cent of total revenue for the industry both here and in New Zealand, which adds up to an estimated $3.37 billion pinched by crims in the 2017/18 financial year.

Shoplifting is on the rise, according to the Australia and New Zealand Retail Crime Survey, which now accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the total losses.

The alarming figures don’t surprise cafe and gallery owner Rachel Power, who told news.com.au her security cameras catch up to six shoplifters a day during the peak season.

“Because we’re in a predominantly tourist location, we find a lot of the problems we have happen around the end of the fruit-picking season,” she said.

Mrs Power says the shifty thieves poach anything from magnets to T-shirts to bottles of alcohol. Picture: Greg Power

The survey’s lead researcher from the University of London, Emmeline Taylor, said the introduction of self-serve check-outs meant petty criminals tended to believe the risk was worth the reward.

“Thieves now tell me that it’s easy to get away with petty theft,” she said.

“Thieves are becoming more brazen. We have seen this in the recent ‘steaming’ technique used by gangs to overpower mobile phone shops in broad daylight, often intimidating staff and pushing customers out of the way to reach the stock.”

Mrs Power said the thieves in her store, Waterfalls Cafe and Gallery in Tasmania, typically opted for a more subtle technique — what she’s labelled the “swipe and hide”.

“They tend to walk past quickly and they’ll grab it and hide it underneath their mobile phone, or they’ll have a pamphlet which they’ll open out to A4-size and they’ll just hide it in behind that,” she said.

She said the shifty thieves poached anything from magnets to T-shirts to bottles of alcohol.

And similar to the survey’s findings, Mrs Power said the frequency of theft had “definitely” increased in the seven years her family had owned the business.

Dr Taylor said petty retail theft was also on the rise because it was more commonly viewed as a “victimless crime” because of the perception the large retailers build expected losses into their profit margin.

“But it couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said. “We calculate that $3.37 billion is enough to employ 85,000 supermarket check-out staff for a year.”

Mrs Power says she catches up to six thieves a day in the peak season. Picture: Greg Power

Mrs Power said she could attest to shoplifting being a significant drag on her household income.

“The problem that I have is people don’t realise that it’s actually a privately owned business,” she said.

“Our cafe is located inside a visitor centre in the national park. We’re right next to Tasmanian Parks, which is a government department, and they (thieves) just assume we’re a part of Parks.”

According to the survey, mobile phone stores suffer the highest average value of theft with an estimated $1000 lost per incident, while baby milk formula, meat and face creams are most commonly stolen from supermarkets.

The grocery stores typically lose about $20 per incident, but theft in those businesses occurs much more frequently.

The re-sale potential of stolen goods online is also blamed for the rise as well as baby formula being sold to China as part of the “daigou” traders phenomenon.

Mrs Power said she’d had to take matters into her own hands, employing a technique to publicly shame would-be thieves.

“I found the best way (to bust them) is to do it loudly because if I approach them and there’s no one else around, they just shrug their shoulders and say whatever,” the business owner said.

“And you just know they don’t care and they’re going to do it at the next shop.

“My favourite thing to do, particularly when we’re really busy and there’s 80 other people in the shop, is to very loudly announce that I’m waiting to serve them at the cash register if they’d like to come up and pay for what they’re just put in their pocket.”

The survey was conducted by Aptus Research in partnership with the Profit Protection Future Forum Australia and New Zealand and sponsored by retail technology company Checkpoint Systems.

The survey pulled together figures from more than 9000 stores across the two countries with combined annual turnover of about $95 billion.

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Originally published as Australia’s $3 billion shoplifting shame: Research reveals retail theft surge