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If you see someone shoving six bottles of whisky in their coat, yes you did.
There's a difference between stealing for survival and stealing for profit.
Whether or not I saw something has zero to do with what they're stealing and everything to do with where they're stealing from.
You do not steal from Mom and Pop shops. I ~~will~~ may not say anything to the staff, but I might pay for it or I might direct you to a better place to go steal.
If I see something in Walmart, no I fucking didn't. I don't care what it is.
Edit: based on the reply. It's a good point, but not something I've personally run into so it's not something I've had to consider. I've seen idiot kids doing idiot kid things. I've seen people in need. I've not seen a gang or tweakers stealing from a local shop, only large retailers (no I didn't, I do not give a shit) or individuals (I give many shits about this and my response ranges from stopping them to getting evidence to give to the owners depending on more factors than I can list).
You would watch criminal gangs strip your local shop of high value items to resell for profit, and then offer to pay for it? We're not talking about someone in need stealing essentials here.
You bring up a good point. No, I wouldn't. I phrased it poorly. Imagine I'm having empathy for those in need or redirecting dumb ass kids doing dumb ass kid things.
But honestly criminal gangs aren't generally doing penny ante local shop bullshit. They'll shake them down, but it's just not worth it to steal from local shops when big retailers offer more goods in one place. Unless it's a boutique shop, and I'll be honest, I don't go to those.
Well I'll draw the line at alcohol which I see as a public negative. But chocolate?
Can you honestly tell me that the price increases and volume decreases for it have yielded in a better quality product? Someone has to rebalance that scale if the food regulators wont.
Chocolate has experienced extremely high inflation lately because climate change is causing crop failures in countries where chocolate is grown. So no, it hasn't yielded a better-quality product - it has just been necessary to have chocolate on the shelves at all.
That puts a floor on the price that retailers can sell the product for and have it make sense. If carrying the product at that price results in losses due to theft, there's no point selling it for less, because that will incur greater losses. They might try anti-theft measures, or increasing the price to balance the losses - neither of which benefit people in general. If none of that works, they'll just not sell the product at all.
Shouldn't the retailer soak up some of those costs if their suppliers are unable to deliver? In a rational economy where there would be more competition, surely they would take that financial hit to retain their shoppers whilst offsetting the cost on another product.
They don't seem to be doing that. None of them seem to be doing that, and I'm just not buying that the reason is solely because of climate change
I think supermarkets' low profit margins are reflective of a fairly competitive sector. Do you think Sainsbury's, Tesco, Lidl, Asda and the rest all colluded to increase prices on chocolate products... at a time when, coincidentally, the price of cocoa quadrupled? I don't think there's any evidence of that, and the price increase is adequately explained by other factors.
It's worth saying that the commodity price has now come back down (I only just realised this). So prices should be coming back down as well. But prices are always quite sticky, especially on the way down. There are quite easily explained reasons for that which we can go into if you want.
But to answer your question, "Shouldn’t the retailer soak up some of those costs" the rational thing to do is to absorb costs for as long as that is the most profitable thing to do. But if commodity prices literally go up 4X, the only way you can absorb the cost is to be making a large loss on every bar of chocolate sold. Why would you do that, instead of either a) charging more or b) using the shelf space and distribution costs for something else?
You can lay out a scenario where it's rational for the retailer to keep stocking a loss-making product - to get people in the door and to buy other things which net a greater profit than is lost on the chocolate or whatever. But that's just a scenario, and clearly it's only a question of tweaking some values to come up with a scenario where that loss-leader strategy makes no economic sense. Clearly the supermarkets didn't believe it made economic sense.
This isn't people stealing chocolate because it's expensive, it's people stealing chocolate, cuts of meat, and alcohol etc. to resell. They aren't 'rebalancing' anything, they are organised groups who are stealing in bulk to make a profit. This actually increases prices of those goods for everyone else.
Surely they're reselling at far lower prices than they're listed in stores (otherwise who would buy their stolen goods), which forces then the official price for that product to go down in the area, in order to retain shoppers.
For example, there was a time when my cornershop guy was selling 12 packs of Coke for £3.50. I didn't ask where he got them, but I definitely stopped going to my local Sainsbury's for a while (which is currently selling 4 packs for £4.50).
The thief got a cut, the cornershop guy got a cut, and the savings were passed on to me. The retailer's stockholders lost some minor value.
I fail to see how this is not a rebalancing of prices.
Because the targets of theft then have to invest in more security while making less money, raising prices for customers.
The shop that bought the item legitimately has to pay the full price of the item from the manufacturer / distributor. They have to sell the item at cost + VAT + a percentage to make money
The thief can sell at whatever price they like because they have no costs and don't pay VAT on the sale.
The second shop has to sell the item at the new cost + new VAT + a percentage to make money. They save twice, on the cost of the item and the amount of VAT they pay.
The people who lose from this are:
If the legitimate shop goes out of business then the whole system fails. Your cheap coke is being subsidised by honest customers.
The thieves aren't taking all their warehouse stock and leaving the sales people on their knees tearing their shirts and cursing the sky.
We're talking 1-2% maximum shrinkage from theft. In the 90s where theft was rampant, such losses were part of doing business, they just soaked it up.
I can believe them upping their security somewhat might incur some cost, but not to the degree of price inflation that we're seeing
Most of the price inflation is because of global supply factors, such as war and climate change driving up the cost of wheat and cocoa, for example.
Shop attendants are absolutely affected as the number of violent and abusive confrontations was estimated around 1300 per day in 2024.
Nah, I didn't see jack, daniels or otherwise. Fuck the corporations.
It doesn't affect them: they've already been paid. It's the shop who takes the loss and the average customer who ends up paying more.
So it does affect them, then?
Producer - has already been paid by legitimate shop for goods, isn't affected by theft.
Legitimate shop - pays for goods then doesn't get paid. Is affected.
And? I said "corporation". I don't give a fuck how "Legitimate" they are. I hope they are affected and I very much want them to be affected.
Sainsbury's is majority owned by Qatar Investment Authority - a sovereign wealth fund, the rest is private equity.
Tesco's is majority owned by fucking BlackRock and over 80% of the shares are other misc private equity.
Morrisons is owned by US private equity in whole.
ASDA is owned by private equity and Walmart.
By all means shop at Coop and Waitrose then, but you're missing the point: this is making things more expensive for everyone else. Shops have to raise prices to offset losses and investment in security.
If everyone bought stolen goods the legitimate shops would go out of business and the shoplifters would have nowhere to steal from. Your cheap goods are being subsidised by honest customers.
I know I missed a few lol. There's M&S too.
No, you're missing mine.
I've never bought from one of those shoplifters and I've never personally met or seen one, the only place I've heard them mentioned is the internet, I have zero self-interested motivation here, I'm arguing only based on principle and nothing more.
Now you're getting it. I do hope they do go out of business, I hope every single corpo goes out of business and we can fix the world's problems instead of perpetually transferring all our money to the ultra-rich and the elderly boomers who destroyed the world so they could vote for more racism and despair.
Nothing less than total corpo death.
Then we can sail to the stars.
Unless you have evidence that supermarkets are artificially inflating prices this isn't going to fix anything. Goods cost money to make. Shoplifting doesn't pay for the production of goods. This isn't a sustainable way of supplying people with food. It raises prices for customers. It exposes shop workers to violence and abuse. It funds criminal gangs.
And then to top it all off people like you come swanning in thinking you're supporting Robin Hood and his merry men and that just a few more shoplifters will cause Tesco to collapse and that whatever replaces it (because you haven't actually thought about what replaces it) will be some Star Trek utopian paradise compared to the devilry of having to pay cost + a margin. (Hint: Robin Hood gave to the poor, not sold to the poor).
What you may notice about Co-op and Waitrose (one being a consumer co-operative and the other owned by a trust on behalf of its employees) is that they are on the more expensive side of supermarkets. They aren't transferring your money to the ultra rich. They aren't funding the campaigns of right wing would-be dictators. They are paying a fair price for the goods that they sell, and they are paying a fair wage to the employees who work there. The other supermarkets are often cheaper on many items. Mass shoplifting isn't going to help this.
The real problem is that the cost of many goods is too high. The real causes of this are climate change, international conflict, brexit and other tariffs, labour related costs, and to some extent, profiteering of the part of the producers. Notice how shoplifting doesn't address any of these issues.
These companies are stealing from people but you draw the line at a poor person stealing from them?
My local shop is stealing from me?