As the festive season approaches, Australian retailers are steeling themselves for more than the usual holiday bustle.
This year, they’re facing a confluence of challenges that could push many to the brink: soaring living costs, stretched household budgets, and a disturbing nationwide surge in retail theft.
The trend is unsettling, with a noticeable shift in the behaviour of thieves.
Gone are the days of furtive glances and quick getaways. Today’s shoplifters are audacious, often locking eyes with employees as they brazenly exit with pilfered items. This boldness is accompanied by an alarming rise in verbal threats and even weapon-related intimidation in shopping centres, bottle shops, and supermarkets across the country.
The statistics paint a grim picture. New South Wales has witnessed a 38% increase in retail theft over two years, while Victoria has seen a 39% rise, with total incidents reaching 28,174. Queensland’s shoplifting offences have jumped by 28%, hitting a record high of 26,229. South Australia and Western Australia are experiencing similar patterns.
But perhaps the most shocking aspect of this trend is the demographic of the culprits.
Parents, often with their children in tow, are stealing everyday items like steak, groceries, and snacks, using strollers and shopping bags to hide their loot. These are not seasoned criminals; they are ordinary people driven to desperate measures. Police estimate that up to 40% of these offenders are first-time thieves.
Experts in retail crime have categorised shoplifters into six distinct types: The desperate–stealing out of necessity, the inexperienced opportunist, the thrill-seeker, the ‘booster’–stealing to resell, the kleptomaniac, and the absent-minded.
What’s alarming is the rapid increase in the first category—those stealing out of perceived necessity, particularly among parents and the elderly who never envisioned themselves as lawbreakers.
This surge in theft comes at the worst possible time for small and medium-sized retailers. The Christmas season should be a time of prosperity, but instead, many are grappling with higher staffing costs and dwindling margins due to theft.
The human toll is significant. When confronted, shame and embarrassment often lead to aggressive responses, endangering retail workers—many of whom are casual employees earning modest wages.
While major supermarkets are turning to high-tech solutions like facial recognition, the real answer may lie in understanding human behaviour. Shoplifters often betray themselves with subtle cues: limited arm movement, lowered chins with raised shoulders, frequent glances at CCTV cameras, and a shift in focus from products to people. Their pace often quickens near exits, a sign that trained staff can detect.
The solution isn’t more surveillance or confrontation but revamping customer service. Attentive staff can deter those with ill intentions while engaging positively with genuine customers. Store layout, lighting, and visibility can also play a crucial role in reducing theft opportunities.
Investing in staff training to recognise behavioural indicators and handle confrontations safely is crucial. The solution isn’t just about more cameras or confrontations—it’s about smarter training, more effective prevention strategies, and a community-wide recognition that we’re all in this together.
What are your thoughts on the rise in retail theft and its impact on communities? Have you noticed any changes in shopping behaviour or store security where you live? We’d love to hear your insights! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Retail workers are there to serve customers not to apprehend thieves.
So most just leave thieves alone as they are not being paid to cop a potential beating from a rough thief.
Stores should hire security guards if they want to stop the thieving.
Fifty years or so ago, goods were put behind counters where only the shop staff could reach them and customers asked for the product they wanted and were handed their good packaged and ready to take home AFTER they. paid for them. An old friend who ran a large grocery store said we would rue the day supermarkets came to town. They would put an end to service and the social benefits of shopping the way we used to, and prices would be lower for a time and then skyrocket. He was absolutely correct! And oh how some of us mourn what was lost! My uncle was the grocery delivery man. He collected orders in the morning, packed the products and loaded them into a van, and delivered them in the afternoon. He helped the frail and elderly put the goods away. He reported to caring neighbours and friends if anyone was ill or struggling in any way and people rallied to help. I recall, as a young child, taking cooked meals to a lady a block away and collecting the dirty plates after she’d eaten. Men chopped and stacked wood and mowed lawns for the sick and frail and widows. Uncle made sure the community was well informed of any need.
If we went to the store, we chatted with the shop assistant and grocers kept broken biscuits on hand for little ones.
No theft back then!
Yes, that was a good era to grow up in.
I rememeber going tto our local grocers and, as said, all the goddiess were on the shelves the other sidee pf the counter. When you asked for an item , the young lady, to a 10 yerold, probably eighteen, would pck theitem up and it was paid for. There wan’t any shoplifting and these girls used a till like a typwriter, a cash register, I’m sure many of you know what I mean. Also there was another store further down the road that had many tins cuboidal i shape about 30 cmss square with a variety of bisccuits per tin, PLUS the lovely Broken biscuit tin all on display at the front of the store , outside. That was in the 50s.
I used to work in a customer greeter position in a Department Store and there is nothing new in what is mentioned in the above article. There will always be those who will steal and rarely is it out of need. Usually it is just because these people like to think they are clever. I learned in my position that the ones who do it most often are the ones who look least like what the general population think a shop lifter would look like. There are numerous methods that sure opened my eyes in my time of employment. People would say to me, “Do I look like a shoplifter?” and I would answer, “I don’t know, what does a shoplifter look like?”