Locked Cabinets, Reduced Hours And Store Closures: Retail Theft In NYC

HARLEM, NY – In September 2023, Target closed its East Harlem store, the result of ongoing theft and organized retail crime putting the safety of employees and customers at risk, the company said.

The store, situated in East River Plaza at 517 East 117th Street near FDR Drive, was among nine Target locations across four states that were closed due to similar challenges last fall.

Nearly a year later, the company posted earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations, in part because Target has apparently “solved” retail theft, according to Yahoo Finance.

Sources even reportedly told the New York Post that “sales and customer traffic bounced back…after [Target] closed crime-afflicted stores – suggesting more retailers may begin shuttering locations over shoplifting.”

If more retailers follow Target’s lead, New Yorkers could have even fewer brick-and-mortar options to count on for essentials, in an environment already characterized by so-called zombie pharmacies, or empty drugstores that stay vacant for years.

To get a sense of how retailers are responding to theft, Patch caught up with David Johnson, Vice President of Asset Protection & Retail Operations at the National Retail Federation (NRF).

Profitability And Retention

First of all, making the decision to close a store is never easy, according to Johnson.

“Retailers are very aware of what their locations are made of, from a profitability standpoint. Many locations [know] their shrink results and what their shrinkage is,” Johnson said, referring to the loss of inventory that occurs in retail stores due to various factors, including theft.

In considering how to handle a problem store, retailers weigh the security options they have, as well as the effectiveness of this security and the safety of the store’s environment.

But theft creates other problems that extend far beyond inventory protection. It disrupts the overall shopping experience, diminishes customer trust, and erodes the store’s reputation.

It also puts employees at risk, making them less likely to stay on the job.

“In having conversations with our retail members, the ability to hire and retain labor because of what’s happening in the environment, this is first and foremost an issue for them,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to go into work every day and have to be regularly impacted by incidents of theft, threats of violence, or the potential of violence.”

‘Fast, Quick, And Dirty’

According to a recent survey conducted by the NRF, in response to theft, 28% of retailers reported closing a specific store location, 45% reported reducing operating hours, and 30% said they opted to reduce or shift in-store product selection.

“If we were to go back a few years, pre-Covid, did you see a lot of items locked up? Did you see the security officers in stores?” Johnson asked. “Probably not.”

“In 2022, retailers started to see a serious uptick in what was happening [with retail theft]. In many instances, they needed to do some fast, quick, and maybe dirty protective measures, and that’s when we started to see unarmed security, chain links across some freezers, and an increase in locked cabinets.”

In New York City, reported shoplifting incidents rose 64% between January 2019 and June 2023, according to recent data, and the NRF believes that internal and external theft accounted for as much as $73 billion in losses in 2022.

The dilemma is clear: retailers don’t want to deter shoppers, but they also have to protect their products and their employees.

“Retailers know what shoppers want, and how shoppers want to experience shopping in their stores, and they are very aware of what it means to the shopping experience and to the consumer when they lock up items and have to remove items from the floor. They know it does not promote a positive shopping experience,” Johnson said.

‘Face Matching’

Although new technologies may help retailers address theft while preserving the customer experience, they could also create other problems.

For example, new shopping carts can stop carts at an exit door or designated boundary, but some customers report being stopped within designated boundaries.

Other retailers are placing RFID technology on all items, making it easier for stores to track merchandise, and creating another sticker or tag for customers to deal with and employees to manage.

Still others are considering advanced camera systems to flag repeat shoplifters when they visit a store. But does that imply retailers are using facial recognition software?

“The reality is that it’s face matching, and the retailers that are using these technologies are saying, ‘I have witnessed an individual steal, here is an image, place it into the system, and if that person comes back in and is matched to the picture, I can do something about it.’”

Policy Shifts

Both Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams are attuned to retail theft, Johnson said.

“New York, over the past 6-7 months, has stepped up and continued to build strong relationships with the retailers in their space. The mayor has a retail theft task force that’s bringing together community leaders, law enforcement, and retailers, to see what they could do to reduce the amount of retail crime and the organized retail crime that they’re seeing. The state legislature has worked on a lot of new laws to strengthen deterrents. They have the ability to hit organized retail crime groups with tougher penalties, as well as to put in place easier ways to investigate and prosecute [incidents], like aggregation of thefts.”

Aggregation of thefts refers to the legal practice of combining multiple smaller thefts or shoplifting incidents into a single charge, an option New York introduced in May 2024.

“The individuals stealing know what the felony threshold is, and steal underneath that felony threshold [at each] retailer. So it’s not the aggregate total, it’s the individual total for each victim. So that could mean four misdemeanors, versus if law enforcement finds you with a trunk full of merchandise, that could become a felony [if thefts are aggregated],” Johnson explained.

In May, the state also elevated assaulting a retail worker performing their job from a misdemeanor to a felony.

‘Theft For Greed’

The measures are in part a response to the changing nature of retail theft.

“We’re seeing a lot more ‘theft for greed’ versus ‘theft for need,’” Johnson said.

Much of this “theft for greed” is conducted by organized retail crime rings, who operate very differently from the shoplifter you might imagine.

“Organized retail crime is not a singular event or a crime itself, that is shoplifting, robbery, burglary, or other events where items are stolen. Organized retail crime is a group of individuals who are structured, orchestrated, have a hierarchy to accept stolen goods or purchase stolen goods, and then resell them back into the marketplace, whether it be through direct selling via online platforms, at a local store buying stolen goods and reselling them through the front door, or even via a structured group that has a distribution network who can rechannel those products into legitimate establishments,” Johnson explained.

Consumers should be wary of merchandise that has a sticker price well below what that item is normally offered for, and should pay extra attention to any goods that have an expiration date.

“These organized retail crime groups have changed expiration dates on medicine, baby formula, and in a couple cases, they’ve altered the [composition of the] items themselves,” Johnson said.

Will Retailers Follow Target’s Example?

“My opinion is that there’s always going to be a strong brick-and-mortar retail environment. All the retailers have large online presences, and I think what we need to do is have a robust community effort with curtailing these crimes so that we have a vibrant and trusted retail economy for consumers who are comfortable shopping however they want to.”

Has a store you depend on reduced its hours – or closed? Have you seen locked shelves in your neighborhood? Got something about a shopping experience you want to share? Email michael.mcdowell@patch.com.