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British Retail Consortium retail crime survey reports a reduction in shop theft.
The British Retail Consortium's (BRC's) Retail Crime Survey 2011, published last Monday shows fewer incidents for many types of crime but each incident on average has been more costly and total losses have increased sharply compared with the previous year. Expenditure on crime prevention by retailers taking part in the survey rose by 1.4 per cent to £214 million, a median spend of £700,000 per company. This has substantially reduced incidents of opportunistic crime, but combating the rise in violent crime retailers and their staff are exposed to requires the support of law makers and enforcers.
Despite a reduction in offences, the cost of retail crime has risen significantl with the overall cost increasing by 31 per cent to £1.4 billion. This is equivalent to 130,000 retail jobs.
A worrying trend this year is the increase in threats and verbal abuse to retail staff which has increased by 83 per cent when compared to last year. Robberies have also increased by 20 per cent with retailers reporting an increase in the use of weapons and violence.
Key findings from the survey include:
- More than 35,000 retail workers suffered from physical attacks, verbal abuse and anti-social behaviour during the course of the year, excluding staff affected by the August riots. There were 26 incidents per 1000 employees last year, an increase of 83 per cent on 2009/10. The rise is partly attributed to staff being encouraged to report all threats and incidents of verbal assault
- For the retailers in our survey the August riots had an impact on more than 20,000 retail staff, representing 1.5 per cent of retail employees. 56 per cent of retailers affected by the riots also reported a negative impact on sales in the immediate aftermath of the disturbances
- The estimated total value of goods stolen by customers across the whole sector was over £147 million, up £10 million on the previous year
- Customer theft accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the cost of crime for the retailers in our survey. The number of customer thefts is between 1.5 and 2 million a year, more than one every minute. The number of incidents fell by 19 per cent compared with the previous year but losses still rose as costs per incident went up 21 per cent to £85.50, from £70.44 in 2009/10
- The number of burglaries per 100 stores was down 42 per cent but the cost per incident rose sharply by 83 per cent. The average value of goods taken in a burglary was more than £2,000
- Incidents of fraud increased significantly with 78 per cent of retailers noting a rise. It now accounts for more than 28 per cent of retail crime by cost, second only to customer theft.
Click here to download the crime survey
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