Many keep pointing out the Walmart theft numbers and his they correlate to the local crime stats. I wonder if there is a correlation to theft numbers and distance to nearest bus stop.
So the presence of a store lead to people shoplifting in said store? I suppose if the Wal-Mart were not there, the shoplifting wouldn't have happened. Perhaps we shouldn't have stores then.
Do you have any evidence of a crime increase aside from the existence of a store allowing people to shoplift from the store? I'm not asking for your perception here, because it has little to do with what the real crime rate is.
The shoplifting would have happened at other stores, in the townships where those people live -- other ones.
What do you mean evidence? I'm stating as an established fact that the township's crime rate increased. With people from out of town that were shopping at Walmart. The police keep track of this information.
> While crime data doesn't capture all incidents of theft, as some go unreported, it does provide a reliable way to measure relative levels of theft among stores.
Wal-Mart is big enough that they can take those thefts as a loss.
I see it working. If done right, it could leverage into neighborliness. It should be marketed that way. I can see people doing it just to have an excuse to meet their neighbors.
I think it's on a store-by-store basis. My grandfather works at a Wal-Mart in a small town with a large minority population and said they average 10-12K in merchandise stolen each month. The store is open 24 hours, but they still only have 1 security guard working 9-5 because they'd lose more money from lost sales due to minority groups typically having bad experiences with authority figures and avoiding the store.
People may understand negative numbers, but if I read a title that said "Retail theft accounts for -15% of net profit for Walmart", I'd be pretty confused.
Hell, I'd say comparing theft to gross sales is most fitting comparison, as it's the cost that the consumer actually sees. 50% of gross sales would mean for each 2 sales of an item, 1 gets stolen. Maybe it doesn't give a good view of how much it impacts a business with theft being priced in, but it sure does paint a good picture of how much theft happens.
What does Walmart do to create an environment where theft is easy and common? Seems like they do things about the same as any other store (from a shopper's standpoint).
After looking through a few links I don't have as good data as was in my retail training in 2004 or so, but https://www.businessinsider.com/stop-blaming-theft-shrink-ta... talks about them being fairly comparable, and that retail mismanagement is within 10% or so of the problems due to theft.
Overall my point is just that the retail theft story is blown way out of proportion, and many media and political outfits benefit from concern around crime.
For quantitative data, I think we should be looking at store closures.
How many stores closed in a city in a given time period? Is it more or less than other comparable cities? You have to normalize this data by population.
I think individual thefts are just that - anecdata, which sways one way or another too far in any given time period. But something like stores/pharmacies, where systematic theft can occur would be a better indicator
(1) The crime rate increased -- like, Walmart-related crime was a big proportion of the crime rate. This was a community whose raunchiest establishment was an AMC theater.
(2) They weren't making "crime trips" -- they just came to shop at Walmart and crime happened. For example, shoplifting, on impulse. Some fights and such.
The point is, the crime caused by the train line may also partly be of this sort -- impulsive shoplifting, rather than deliberate shoplifting trips.
For one, Walgreens has shuttered a portion of their SF fleet due to increased theft and lack of enforcement. I would trust their inventory theft statistics much more than the police department’s, and so do they.
On the other hand, what evidence there that this effect is not more pronounced than it was in the past?
WalMart definitely has an image issue for me. In my town (very low crime), they're the only store with clear theft prevention in place.
You walk in through a one-way turnstile, they have a permanent police presence, clear loss prevention people randomly throughout the store, and someone doing loss prevention just after check out.
I'm sure other stores in our area have loss prevention, but they hide it much better. WalMart is the only store where I feel like I'm being scrutinized for wanting to buy the products they sell.
Unlikely. Winco is by far the cheapest grocery store chain in the area, and no Walmart is far from a Winco. In other areas, this would absolutely be true but in Portland the impact is likely to negligible if at all. I’d honestly assume, like the others have said poor performance is the reason for closing not theft.
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