Shoplifting in retail stores accounts for billions and billions of dollars around the globe. In the United States alone, annual shoplifting losses amount to $13+ billion.
Take a look at this NEW YouTube video from the Wall Street Journal to see what items are shoplifted most frequently in the United States.
This is a very big problem in today’s society. I personally think the way to fix this issue is to increase the amount of security in stores and punishment that is given to criminals. It is something that should not be overlooked, as businesses are losing billions of dollars.
Companies should keep better track on their inventory and monitor their stores better. Perhaps taking count of the things that are most frequently stolen, they can have surveillance posted in these areas.
It was very interesting watching this video about shoplifting from the Wall Street Journal. It is amazing how businesses are losing billions of dollers from shoplifting. The 13 billion dollers that was stolen last year is very alarming. Buisinesses has to do a better job of making sure they catch these people more or maybe have the punishment for shoplifting be greater so people don’t try to shoplift.
$13 billion is a staggering amount of money in losses but I think that should show retailers that they need to do more for security and having items like sunglasses and makeup on high alert because those are smaller items. I’m actually surprised jewelry wasn’t on this list.
In my honest opinion this list was weird. Shoplifting is definitely a problem in America, there is no debate about that, but this list seems askew. One would think, considering the rising amount of people in poverty or the shrinking middle class, that food water and clothing would be high on a most shoplifted list. Instead this list was composed of nothing but material luxuries. The thing that really confused me was champagne. Who on earth wants to steal champagne. For anyone who has recently been in, or purchased an item from Sephora or Mac, they know how expensive their makeup items are being sold at. Often when I go into Sephora there is one security guard and no more than 10 employees on the store floor. Including the 4 at the register, that leaves 6 employees actively walking around. At any given moment those 6 employees are preoccupied by helping patrons or applying makeup. Yes, they have sensors, but only on the outside packaging. Once the item is taken out, I see why makeup is high on this list. Although at the same time it shouldn’t be. As I mentioned, makeup, despite its size, is not always cheap. Same goes for any store selling high quality bathing suits, sunglasses, or even champagne. These retailers can afford to hire extra security to monitor their expensive inventory. It is apparent certain items are easily stolen because of their small size, therefore they should be monitored more.
I think this was a very interesting video however I question its accuracy. I think it is extremely tough to put a number on how much was stolen. Also even if you could determine how much money worth of goods was stolen making a list of which items were stolen the most is almost impossible to do. If people are stealing the items it would be hard to know what there stealing because there most likely isn’t an inventory system in place. On another note, I think that stores should invest in security systems to prevent stealing. A big part of theft is giving people a way to steal. If there was no way to break the system or a way to steal, people would be unable to take things.
Not surprised at all that Sunglasses, Fashion Accessories, and Makeup were on this list. However I was VERY surprised to hear the Wine & Spirits took the #1 spot. Large bottles seems to be rather difficult to smuggle out of a store, but then again I’ve never tried it so who knows. Store owners clearly need to do a better job monitoring their swimwear, as it definitely is not difficult to steal. I have to say, I was expecting some sort of food to be on this list in one way or another and was a bit caught off guard when it wasn’t.
It is really crazy to believe that people are able to take some of these things from stores unnoticed. Im not surprised by anything on the list really because most of the items are relatively small and can fit in a bag or sometimes a pocket. The only thing that seems off is the wines and spirits because those can be relatively large. It must be a skill of theirs to take this stuff, but I didn’t realize that the people who actually do buy these things end up having to make up for the amount lost when items are stolen. Stores really should increase security for their own benefit.
I think it was interesting how certain items topped the list of most shoplifted items in the United States was not the same as the top items in the rest of the world. It shows the differences in values in regards to material goods in the US and elsewhere in the world. It would have been more interesting had the video discussed the prevalence of shoplifting in the US in comparison to other countries as well.
The REPORTED shoplifting rate in the U.S. is higher because we have better records. There is more under-reported shoplifting in other countries.
Although most of the items that are stolen tend to be smaller items in size, they are by no means cheaper than larger items such as televisions and computers. I think that retailers need to find a better inventory control system because having to take 36% of losses from shoplifting is way to large a percentage, and the fact that consumers that don’t use the “5 finger discount” have to pay the price of the loss is unfair as well. Unfortunately with certain laws, stores cannot accuse someone of stealing something without solid proof, but increased security will more likely than not keep bold individuals from stealing items. I think that it is important for companies to weigh the price of getting increased security as compared to having their merchandise stolen.
Through this video, we can see that although these products are very easy to carry, and not easily to be detected, these are common used products in our daily lives. Nowadays, many shops have a video camera, but these phenomenons are still repeated. The number of total value of goods stolen was impressive. How to put an end to this phenomenon will become businessmen and police the most important issue. Developing a new security measure can also become a research topic.
I would have never guessed those to be the top five items most likely to be stolen, especially wine. How can people get away with hiding wine bottles and getting them out of the stores without having to pay for them. Stores in the US must need a better form of security if they are losing that much money on things that shouldn’t be easy to steal.
While overal I don’t find the report on shoplifting to be very surprising i did notice a few intestine patterns highlighted in the video. Two of the first things I noticed about the number 5-2 most shoplifted US items is that they were all very small land all rarely feature any sort of security device, which makes them a obvious target for shoplifting. However while some of the shoplifting trends in the video were obvious I was very shocked that alcohol was the most shoplifted item in america, primarily because of the security sounding alcohol purchases as well as the generally awkward shape of alcohol bottles. I would be very invested to see the methodology of the study used to inform this video primarily because of the fact that alcohol was the most shoplifted product.