On September 26, Target announced it was closing nine stores "because theft and organized retail crime are…contributing to unsustainable business performance." Target said that before making the decision to close stores, it "invested heavily in strategies to prevent and stop theft and organized retail crime." But ultimately, the company asserted, those efforts were not enough to make those stores "successful."
It's a shame that local TV news stations will never see this info and just credulously report what retailers tell them. The data clearly show that there is more shoplifting reported at outlets that aren't closing. I wonder how the closures map to racial demographics.
My local Giant grocery store has now closed one entrance, which affects those using the handicapped parking spaces. They now have a longer trip to get from their car to the entrance. This is in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the US, outside DC.
I have to think this is more due to insufficient staffing than to some ring of thieves running through the store stealing Tide. As it is, grocery stores these days have maybe one checkout lane staffed and shunt everyone to do their own checking out and bagging. So called "express" self-check is anything but.
Oh yes, "Crime is rampant and rising...", a current Republican talking point about crime in Blue cities and states! Your article reveals another example of how we are not told the truth by corporate heads. It appears that poor management and merchandise selection caused more "shrink" than theft. If Target studied more about what works for Walmart--and what does not, their time might have been well spent.
Damn. Judd once again exposes how facts can be a stubborn thing. I hear this propaganda daily at work from other workers, especially when I have to unlock a cage and escort a customer to the front with product. Sensational events that get exponentially exposed on social media become the rule rather than the exception. Corporate America then uses those events as reasons to do what Target is doing here. Way to go Judd once again.
The thread that runs through this reporting and pretty much most stories these days is the endless acts of lying. Everyone lies about their financial assets, their personal interactions and relationships, their political and business motivations and results, their words and actions, even though everyone heard and witnessed their words and actions on film. Almost every advertisement is peppered with lies. Lying has become beyond normalized, and it is destroying every aspect of peace and civilization. Lying leads to distrust of political leaders (perhaps the most unscrupulous of liars), the government in general, the military, the education system, sports, and our fellow man. We have become either inured or furious or hopeless about it.
'Thou shall not bear false witness' represents some of the biggest lies of all, religions.
Too bad humans would never consider passing basic laws about lying. Perjury enforcement represents a weak last resort in a minimum of cases.
"Companies may be overemphasizing crime to deflect from internal issues."
This is exactly what they are doing. Two major Target stores (located in "urban" neighborhoods) here in Chicago closed abruptly a few years ago with the same excuse and then more recently, Walmart closed all 4 Chicago area (read "urban") stores with only a brief announcement on a Tuesday that they would close that coming Sunday. All you seniors with medical needs be damned! Of course they blame the dreaded shrink.
{I blame the fact the Paul Vallas lost the mayoral election and word on the street tells of a planned financial alliance between WalMart and CPS (Chgo Public Schools) brokered by Vallas to provide all the kiddies back-to-school needs at discounted prices, cutting out ANYONE else selling school supplies, especially Mom & Pop stores}.
Of course there are "other forces" at work. Follow the damn money, like always!
Thank you for exposing this corporate blame game nonsense. Too big to manage/control/operate profitably leads back to corporate upper level greed wherein the brick and mortar network of stores. They are restricted as to proper funding for proper management...has little or nothing to do with shrinkage and more to due with tax related beneficial restructuring along with perhaps some collusive real estate and building deals? American business at its worst.
* Having worked in retail for several years, I know that much more theft occurs than is reported to the police. Much of it is internal. The need for employees makes for very lax hiring scrutiny. It is amazing how brazen it is. Not just in urban areas, but suburban and rural areas too.
* Every incident, no matter how small, has the potential for violence against employees that must be factored into a store disposition decision. So, even if the shrink numbers in one store may be less than another, are the lower number stores' incidents more violent and dangerous to the employees?
* Question that makes one go hmmmm. Are retailers angling for some kind of shrink reimbursement from local governments to open or maintain stores?
I don't mean to argue Judd's points as they are valid too. Just that we can't discount non-reported theft.
They took a big stock hit last year. Not sure how that is going now. Excuses on the Shoplifting train are a hot topic you certainly exposed here. My feeling is online shopping affects big box stores more than shoplifting. "Customer Lifting" is their bigger problem. I was at our Target Monday night...lot's of shoppers. Plenty of action outside at the order pick up station. Less impulse buying if you don't go in the store.
Then there's Amazon. It affects shopping at big box stores like Target and Walmart, Lowes and Home Depot, etc and especially the local shopping mall. Retail is evolving in ways corporations do not understand or want to understand. So to keep the stockholder happy, point a finger. MSM won't do the work PI does to expose it.
Claiming “shrink” is how retailers write off poor stocking decisions. It’s a tale as old as Target. This all sounds so familiar. Walgreens? CVS? I can’t keep them straight. This is the identical story, they got caught, Target tried it anyway. Dumb.
When Axios published that story, the second sentence was "Organized retail crime accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, a National Retail Federation report released Tuesday found." That was a complete lie and not even close to what the report said, so I emailed them about it. They didn't respond, but did silently edit the story to remove the word "organized", which is STILL WRONG. A huge portion of that number is from the "process, control failures, and errors" category, which is not crime, and "retail crime" also implies external theft in the context of the story.
Axios is very popular and influential, very frustrating that they seem to not even have fact checkers for their own stories.
So they want more money for the upper management and ceo. As usual close the stores in black neighborhoods and blane shoplifting. So disappointed in target
It’s hard to compare the Folsom Street Target to the downtown location. I think its biggest problem was not crime but lack of business. They only took over that location from a big box sports retailer in 2019. It gets very little foot or car traffic because it’s wedged under the freeway in an inconvenient location. I don’t even think most people knew there was a Target there. It probably would have closed even if there wasn’t a single incident of shoplifting.
Pretending like organized retail theft, which is not mere shoplifting, does not happen is silly. I have been in stores when it was happening and it is a very unstable situation for other parltrons and store employees. One of the disconnects is enforcement. There is none. Police do not respond and I would suspect many incidents go unreported. There is a growing sensation of lawlessness that is important to address. I'm not sure the statistical evidence is the whole story. Thank you for the solid reporting. You might get good insight from RILA, the trade association for big retail. They have been dealing with organized retail crime for a long time.
It's a shame that local TV news stations will never see this info and just credulously report what retailers tell them. The data clearly show that there is more shoplifting reported at outlets that aren't closing. I wonder how the closures map to racial demographics.
My local Giant grocery store has now closed one entrance, which affects those using the handicapped parking spaces. They now have a longer trip to get from their car to the entrance. This is in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the US, outside DC.
I have to think this is more due to insufficient staffing than to some ring of thieves running through the store stealing Tide. As it is, grocery stores these days have maybe one checkout lane staffed and shunt everyone to do their own checking out and bagging. So called "express" self-check is anything but.
In other words, “due to massive retail theft” really means, “we were shortsighted and greedy and we need someone else to take the fall for it.”
Oh yes, "Crime is rampant and rising...", a current Republican talking point about crime in Blue cities and states! Your article reveals another example of how we are not told the truth by corporate heads. It appears that poor management and merchandise selection caused more "shrink" than theft. If Target studied more about what works for Walmart--and what does not, their time might have been well spent.
Damn. Judd once again exposes how facts can be a stubborn thing. I hear this propaganda daily at work from other workers, especially when I have to unlock a cage and escort a customer to the front with product. Sensational events that get exponentially exposed on social media become the rule rather than the exception. Corporate America then uses those events as reasons to do what Target is doing here. Way to go Judd once again.
The thread that runs through this reporting and pretty much most stories these days is the endless acts of lying. Everyone lies about their financial assets, their personal interactions and relationships, their political and business motivations and results, their words and actions, even though everyone heard and witnessed their words and actions on film. Almost every advertisement is peppered with lies. Lying has become beyond normalized, and it is destroying every aspect of peace and civilization. Lying leads to distrust of political leaders (perhaps the most unscrupulous of liars), the government in general, the military, the education system, sports, and our fellow man. We have become either inured or furious or hopeless about it.
'Thou shall not bear false witness' represents some of the biggest lies of all, religions.
Too bad humans would never consider passing basic laws about lying. Perjury enforcement represents a weak last resort in a minimum of cases.
"Companies may be overemphasizing crime to deflect from internal issues."
This is exactly what they are doing. Two major Target stores (located in "urban" neighborhoods) here in Chicago closed abruptly a few years ago with the same excuse and then more recently, Walmart closed all 4 Chicago area (read "urban") stores with only a brief announcement on a Tuesday that they would close that coming Sunday. All you seniors with medical needs be damned! Of course they blame the dreaded shrink.
{I blame the fact the Paul Vallas lost the mayoral election and word on the street tells of a planned financial alliance between WalMart and CPS (Chgo Public Schools) brokered by Vallas to provide all the kiddies back-to-school needs at discounted prices, cutting out ANYONE else selling school supplies, especially Mom & Pop stores}.
Of course there are "other forces" at work. Follow the damn money, like always!
Thank you for exposing this corporate blame game nonsense. Too big to manage/control/operate profitably leads back to corporate upper level greed wherein the brick and mortar network of stores. They are restricted as to proper funding for proper management...has little or nothing to do with shrinkage and more to due with tax related beneficial restructuring along with perhaps some collusive real estate and building deals? American business at its worst.
A few things here.
* Having worked in retail for several years, I know that much more theft occurs than is reported to the police. Much of it is internal. The need for employees makes for very lax hiring scrutiny. It is amazing how brazen it is. Not just in urban areas, but suburban and rural areas too.
* Every incident, no matter how small, has the potential for violence against employees that must be factored into a store disposition decision. So, even if the shrink numbers in one store may be less than another, are the lower number stores' incidents more violent and dangerous to the employees?
* Question that makes one go hmmmm. Are retailers angling for some kind of shrink reimbursement from local governments to open or maintain stores?
I don't mean to argue Judd's points as they are valid too. Just that we can't discount non-reported theft.
They took a big stock hit last year. Not sure how that is going now. Excuses on the Shoplifting train are a hot topic you certainly exposed here. My feeling is online shopping affects big box stores more than shoplifting. "Customer Lifting" is their bigger problem. I was at our Target Monday night...lot's of shoppers. Plenty of action outside at the order pick up station. Less impulse buying if you don't go in the store.
Then there's Amazon. It affects shopping at big box stores like Target and Walmart, Lowes and Home Depot, etc and especially the local shopping mall. Retail is evolving in ways corporations do not understand or want to understand. So to keep the stockholder happy, point a finger. MSM won't do the work PI does to expose it.
Thanks Judd and Co! Good reporting.
Claiming “shrink” is how retailers write off poor stocking decisions. It’s a tale as old as Target. This all sounds so familiar. Walgreens? CVS? I can’t keep them straight. This is the identical story, they got caught, Target tried it anyway. Dumb.
Is there something different about Harlem and the upper east side driving Targets crime wave narrative? I can't quite put my finger on it...
In related news, it is the Democrats’ fault that Republicans are dysfunctional. Just another entry in the Projection and Gaslighting files.
When Axios published that story, the second sentence was "Organized retail crime accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, a National Retail Federation report released Tuesday found." That was a complete lie and not even close to what the report said, so I emailed them about it. They didn't respond, but did silently edit the story to remove the word "organized", which is STILL WRONG. A huge portion of that number is from the "process, control failures, and errors" category, which is not crime, and "retail crime" also implies external theft in the context of the story.
Axios is very popular and influential, very frustrating that they seem to not even have fact checkers for their own stories.
So they want more money for the upper management and ceo. As usual close the stores in black neighborhoods and blane shoplifting. So disappointed in target
It’s hard to compare the Folsom Street Target to the downtown location. I think its biggest problem was not crime but lack of business. They only took over that location from a big box sports retailer in 2019. It gets very little foot or car traffic because it’s wedged under the freeway in an inconvenient location. I don’t even think most people knew there was a Target there. It probably would have closed even if there wasn’t a single incident of shoplifting.
Pretending like organized retail theft, which is not mere shoplifting, does not happen is silly. I have been in stores when it was happening and it is a very unstable situation for other parltrons and store employees. One of the disconnects is enforcement. There is none. Police do not respond and I would suspect many incidents go unreported. There is a growing sensation of lawlessness that is important to address. I'm not sure the statistical evidence is the whole story. Thank you for the solid reporting. You might get good insight from RILA, the trade association for big retail. They have been dealing with organized retail crime for a long time.