Retail crime costing more than $2.5b a year

Thursday, 5 October 2023

Tyla-lee Nelson, manager of retail store Anime House on Wellington’s Dixon St, says she has experienced a rise in retail crime over the past year.

She was responding to a a survey released yesterday which found an estimated $1.3 billion was lost to shoplifting and internal crime over the past year and another $1.1b from the direct costs of loss prevention.

Retail NZ’s latest Retail Crime Survey has found almost all the retailers who took part have been the victim of retail crime over the past year, with 92% of those surveyed saying they had experienced it.

“We definitely get thieves,” Nelson said.

The store had many security cameras and, if they saw a theft they would step in when the person attempted to leave, ask for the return of the item, warning if they didn’t hand it over they would contact the Police.

“They’re a lot more likely to comply with us if we offer them a bit of a chance.” About 90% of the time the items were handed back.

Nelson said homeless people in the area, who seemed to be suffering from various illnesses and addictions, were the main drivers of the retail crime she experienced.

“If we could kind of usher them out of being in this main CBD area, I don’t think the crime rate would be so high in this area.”

However, on the plus side, she had noticed a lot more Police patrolling the area. ,

Retail NZ’s latest Retail Crime Survey has found almost all the retailers who took part have been the victim of retail crime over the past year, with 92% of those surveyed saying they had experienced it.

Of the responses, 82% said shoplifting was the most frequent crime in the past year. Retailers lost an estimated $1.1b in external crime, including burglary, and $250m in internal crimes such as employee or supplier theft or fraud.

Threatening behaviour and damage were also reported by over half of the retailers.

Retail NZ estimated the total annual cost of retail crime at $2.56b, including the cost of crime prevention and well-being costs for staff affected by crime.

Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young said the high percentage was incredibly disappointing. “I’d hazard a guess that it's probably higher than that.”

Young said many of the retailers surveyed owned multiple stores, so the survey included many shopfronts. There were challenges around reporting retail crime statistics, leading to the amount being under-reported in some cases.

“Burglary is normally reported, but shoplifting may not be … robbery comes with violent or aggressive actions that come alongside it, whereas shoplifting doesn't have that.

“There may be some internal theft or some other bits and pieces happen where people don’t have the time or capacity to report it.”

Young said she believed police, while effective at charging offenders, did not have the resources to combat the rising retail crime trends.

Delays in the courts meant they were an ineffectual deterrent, and there was a high rate of re-offending.

Prabhjot Kaur is the manager of MetroMart on Riccarton Road. She said she has groups of teenagers stealing things from her store two or three times a week.

“They are coming into our store shouting, bullying me and just grabbing things … then they run away,” she said.

Kaur said she shouts at them to come back because they need to pay but they respond that the police can’t do anything because they’re teenagers.

This sense of impunity was identified as a contributing factor in the Retail NZ report.

A few months ago, Kaur said a roughly 30-year-old came into the store, tried to punch her and then stole some vapes. “We are not safe in store.”

She referred to Janak Patel, an Auckland dairy worker who was killed while working at an Auckland dairy in 2022.

Kaur said she can’t hire any new staff because they cannot handle the “aggressive” environment.

Staff retention has become a struggle for many businesses with the retail sector increasingly being seen as a more dangerous and less desirable place to work, according to the survey.

Why is retail crime rising?

The reason why New Zealand is experiencing a spike in retail crime is varied and complicated, experts say.

While many linked increased shoplifting with the cost of living crisis, the cost of day-to-day expenses can’t be entirely blamed for the spike in retail crime, Young said.

She associated the rise in retail crime with a breakdown in societal expectations during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have seen a significant increase in crime and aggressive behaviour in stores since Covid. It does feel that there's been a change in the social fabric around how we want to engage with each other.”

Young added that organised crime, where people were stealing to order and young people wanting to gain “notoriety” on social media, were also factors in rising retail crime.

“Young people are doing those things for social media and the digital platforms that are available these days, they certainly have had a role to play, and then you've got people that commit crimes because that’s their job. Those seem to be the three key areas we’re seeing.”