http://www.upiu.com/articles/retail-stores%E2%80%99-policies-benefit-shoplifters
Summary:
Many retail companies do not prosecute shoplifters because of the cost post-arrest and the risk of hurting their brand's image. So most of the shoplifting cases go undiscovered because they are not reported. According to the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention, shoplifting is now one of the most prevalent crimes in the U.S. 550,000 incident occur each day and more than $1.3 billion in merchandise is stolen each year. Retailers raise the prices of their merchandise to make up for losses. This isn't fair for the honest consumers. Every store has a loss and prevention budget for stolen items. If retailers go over the budget, prices will increase. Each store's security plan varies, but in the end shoplifters will do whatever to get what they want. There are professional shoplifters and juveniles. Professionals are likely to go to high end stores. Companies have policies that don't allow employees to accuse customers of shoplifting even if they saw it happen because of the risk of bodily harm. There are security guards, but there also is a limit to what they can do.
Connection:
This article relates to Chapter 18 in Marketing Today because the chapter talks about how policies and services the retailers provide help the customers. But in this article they show how shoplifters benefit from some of these policies. So just because of a company policy, an employee can't accuse a customer of shoplifting, and this lets them get away. And what do the customers get in return, higher prices to pay. Just because companies don't want to pay the money it takes to prosecute the shoplifter, the honest consumers have to pay the price. The textbook also talks about legal charges. It all depends on the security policy, if the customer will be charged. In the text it says that the store might not choose to press charges, but that the local police might. But they don't really mention anything about that in the article. Refund and return policies are also helping shoplifters. If a store doesn't ask for receipts when your returning something, shoplifters can steal things from one store and go to another to get a refund.
Reflection:
I don't like how the store policies are working in the favor of shoplifters. This is not fair for the honest consumers. Just because shoplifters can't be stopped, we should pay higher prices to make up the amount of money that is lost in merchandise due to shoplifting. Cases like these should be reported. And when we go into stores, they make us take our bags off, but they can't actually stop shoplifters. This really upsets me. I also do agree that employees shouldn't get involved in these situations for safety reasons, but this doesn't mean nothing else can be done. Security guards are there for a reason, and they should have some right to stop shoplifters. At the end of the day, I think something should definitely be done to stop shoplifters.
