A light-fingered lot

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 20

A light-fingered lot

Shopkeepers must face a glum prospect if, as they are told, theft from shops is increasing. New Zealand’s retailers already lose an estimated $350 million a year to the depredations of shoplifters and staff. This is more than $1 million in stolen merchandise disappearing out the door each trading day; it is also more than the country pays in wages and salaries to a police force that is expected to keep the lid on all crime. Even at this figure, the size of the loss might be understated. Studies in the United States show a loss to theft equal to 2 per cent of turnover, and this figure might reasonably be taken as a workable approximation of New Zealand’s experience. Based on this model and recorded retail sales, the New Zealand loss to shoplifting and staff pilfering — euphemistically known in the trade as “stock" shrinkage” — is probably closer to $440 million. According to one investigative and security firm advising retailers on the problem, a loss rate of 5 per cent of ail stock is not uncommon, and one retailer recently sought help to combat “stock shrinkage” of 17 per cent. The principal victims of this type of crime — the retailers whose profit margins and ability to stay in business are being eroded by the heavy losses — are only too well aware of the size of the problem. The wider community also is victim to “stock shrinkage,” because all have to bear the higher prices that are charged to help offset the cost of theft, or have to help shoulder

higher insurance premiums that must be charged to cover claims for theft, or simply are inconvenienced by the measures that must be instituted to limit stock theft. Retailers’ organisations up and down the country have been holding security courses for. their members, but there are still a great many stores that do not prosecute shoplifters as a matter of course. Retailers in one North Island shopping centre, however, are reported to have adopted a policy under which persons who have been convicted of shoplifting are banned from their stores altogether. There are difficulties with such an extreme approach, but it does show the acute pressure some retailers feel that shoplifters are putting them under. Preventive measures, however, attempt only to stem the tide, not alter its direction. What is needed is a change in the public’s attitude to this particular form of theft, which costs more in stolen property than burglaries, robberies, or the, value of stolen cars each year. The vast sums involved, the growing trend towards gang or team operations, and above all the luxury nature of much of the material stolen — confirming that greed not need is the chief motive for these thefts — place “stock shrinkage” firmly in the realm of crime. It is time that the community stopped pretending that it is anything less. Abandoning delicate euphemisms such as “stock shrinkage” and “shoplifting” would be a useful first step towards shaking off soft and woolly thinking about theft from stores.