Shoplifters on Shop Theft – Implications for Retailers

Shoplifters across three continents have been filmed by academic researchers for the first time as they recreated their crimes. The report, ‘Shoplifters on shop theft: implications for retailers’ offers fascinating insights into how thieves say they steal and provides retailers with insights that can help them tackle shoplifting. The report looks at the ‘decision circle’, the six key stages at which thieves make decisions about their stealing. The report outlines the different ways in which retailers inadvertently help thieves. For example, thieves were able to find plenty of blind spots in store to disguise their stealing, and staff were often disinterested in them and this made things easier, and there was a lack of effective exit controls. This international study found that although countries and stores may vary, shoplifter approaches are remarkably similar and they use very similar techniques to avoid being detected by alarms, tags, cameras and guards.

You can download the full report free below.