California Getting a Jump on Black Friday Shopping

[Gil Bang 25922]

1 minute ago, Hefeweizen said:

I was in SF a couple of weeks ago and managed to survive so this hits close to home.  

Yeah.   The GF saw something online at a boutique on Little Italy, so she asked me to drive her down to get it.  She agreed to be there when they opened, so I could be home by kickoff.  We managed to fit in brunch with mimosas.   

I feared for my life, but the mimosa helped me overcome the fear. 

[Hefeweizen 5310]

Just now, Gil Bang said:

Yeah.   The GF saw something online at a boutique on Little Italy, so she asked me to drive her down to get it.  She agreed to be there when they opened, so I could be home by kickoff.  We managed to fit in brunch with mimosas.   

I feared for my life, but the mimosa helped me overcome the fear. 

It’s basically like being in a war zone out here.  A war with my wallet!

[Doc Sam Beckett 5792]

31 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

Yeah.   The GF saw something online at a boutique on Little Italy, so she asked me to drive her down to get it.  She agreed to be there when they opened, so I could be home by kickoff.  We managed to fit in brunch with mimosas.   

I feared for my life, but the mimosa helped me overcome the fear. 

You obviously haven't been to many big cities. You have to locate main street and that's where downtown is. In San Diego, he's not talking about Little Italy, gaslamp, embarcadero, seaport, golden hill, north park, balboa or any of that shit. Downtown San Diego is Logan Heights. 

Side note, next time you're in the area around breakfast, El Carrito has great micheladas and while it's not my suegra's menudo, it's pretty damn good. Lots of cool shops around too, but it's Barrio Logan gasp! 

[Biff Tannen 45667]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

 

tell that to Raj Goatme and the rest of the Oakland business owners 

You don’t get to qualify this statement 

scumbag

[Gil Bang 25922]

I don't know anything about this sheriff, but...

 

 

 

[StassneyHorn 6575]

“Don’t film inside” is a serious business now. Like the cops knew, better than anyone, it’s homeless people taking small items and Target doesn’t want the reputation of hurting peoples lives who need help the most.

donate to my patreon plz

Edited November 10, 2023 by StassneyHorn

[Willfully Horn 8002]

Out of control crime destroys quality of life,

@Incredulity?

Mote versus beam.
 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Willfully Horn

[Incredulity 11657]

Your copy paste from Mother Jones isn’t legible on mobile beyond the blurry headlines.  Further what I can make out doesn’t appear to have any data source reference.

We’ve discussed this before. The federal DOL has a robust wage and hour enforcement division.  So please send them any complaints you encounter.

 

[Willfully Horn 8002]

23 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Your copy paste from Mother Jones isn’t legible on mobile beyond the blurry headlines.  Further what I can make out doesn’t appear to have any data source reference.

We’ve discussed this before. The federal DOL has a robust wage and hour enforcement division.  So please send them any complaints you encounter.

 

Some notice would be helpful.

Not MJ:

Quote

Wage theft—employers’ failure to pay workers money they are legally entitled to—affects far more people than more well-known and feared forms of theft such as bank robberies, convenience store robberies, street and highway robberies, and gas station robberies. Employers steal billions of dollars from their employees each year by working them off the clock, by failing to pay the minimum wage, or by cheating them of overtime pay they have a right to receive. Survey research shows that well over two-thirds of low-wage workers have been the victims of wage theft.

In 2012, there were 292,074 robberies of all kinds, including bank robberies, residential robberies, convenience store and gas station robberies, and street robberies. The total value of the property taken in those crimes was $340,850,358. By contrast, the total amount recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million in 2012. This is almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. Further, the nearly $1 billion successfully recovered is only the tip of the wage theft iceberg, since most victims never sue and never complain to the government.

 

https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/
 

Hey, you were complaining about quality of life. Now you seem dismissive of out of control crime.

[Incredulity 11657]

1 hour ago, Willfully Horn said:

Now you seem dismissive of out of control crime.

Do I?  I quite literally directed you or anyone else with a complaint to DOL. For the thousandth time they have a robust enforcement process.

But, 10 year old articles from EPI with broken links to leftist labor publications (unprotectedworkers.org) are extremely helpful.

[Willfully Horn 8002]

5 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Do I?  I quite literally directed you or anyone else with a complaint to DOL. For the thousandth time they have a robust enforcement process.

But, 10 year old articles from EPI with broken links to leftist labor publications (unprotectedworkers.org) are extremely helpful.

Did you read the part that states wage theft totals are considered merely the tip of an iceberg, or where workers often need lawyers to engage the “robust” DOL? How do you justify the robust descriptor if lawyers are needed? Do you suppose hiring lawyers to engage the less robust PDs might benefit retailers? 

[Incredulity 11657]

4 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Did you read the part that states wage theft totals are considered merely the tip of an iceberg, or where workers often need lawyers to engage the “robust” DOL?

Unprotectedworkers.com description is tip of iceberg.  Shockedpikachuface.jpeg

Why would someone, “need a lawyer” when you can literally file a complaint online with DOL?

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints

it will get answered.  Try it out, or don’t.  The assertion a lawyer is needed is absurd.

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Incredulity

[Willfully Horn 8002]

2 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Unprotectedworkers.com description is tip of iceberg.  Shockedpikachuface.jpeg

Why would someone, “need a lawyer” when you can literally file a complaint online with DOL?

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints

it will get answered.  Try it out, or don’t.  The assertion a lawyer is needed is absurd.

 

That’s what was reported. 
 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you are facile enough to view the federal government as the deus ex machina solving wage theft, and so, to dismiss it as a source of societal harm. Nor that you vote for a party that openly is trying to dismantle the ability of the federal government to solve such problems.

I can’t say with certainty that you are dishonest about caring about society. But, I do think you care more about the term Black Friday.

[safe sex 11703]

1 hour ago, Willfully Horn said:

I can’t say with certainty that you are dishonest about caring about society.

[Incredulity 11657]

13 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you are facile enough to view the federal government as the deus ex machina solving wage theft, and so, to dismiss it as a source of societal harm.

So who then in your leftist fantasy world should be tasked with enforcing FEDERAL wage and hour laws?  Or are you just barfing word salad?

[Willfully Horn 8002]

3 hours ago, Incredulity said:

So who then in your leftist fantasy world should be tasked with enforcing FEDERAL wage and hour laws?  Or are you just barfing word salad?

You keep sliding around the issue, in keeping with the divisive, racially tinged, narrative of your talking points. Democrat big cities bad, because theft. Don’t look at wage theft, which is much, much worse. Wage theft also led to cities declaring themselves sanctuary cities, because employers would stiff those workers with uncertain immigration status. Bonus! Sanctuary cities BAD is the cry from the right, not deadbeat employers are bad.

Ffs, the right is currently in lockstep behind an infamous deadbeat, and has tolerated an identity thief among their official ranks. But, they will focus on retail shrinkage, by God, and insinuate that it is out of control, while ignoring context, like relative cost to society and that employees are the main culprits.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Willfully Horn

[Incredulity 11657]

23 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

You keep sliding around the issue

Side splitting laughing.

24 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

the divisive, racially tinged, narrative of your talking points

Kindly fuck your own face.

 

25 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

and that employees are the main culprits.

I assume you are meaning to type employers here.  You keep making this claim but only post decade old leftist publications with broken links.  

[Willfully Horn 8002]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

Side splitting laughing.

Kindly fuck your own face.

 

I assume you are meaning to type employers here.  You keep making this claim but only post decade old leftist publications with broken links.  

Here’s a report from this year. You will learn that outside theft is 38% of shrinkage. As stated by the National Retail Federation, employee theft is 28.5% and control failures 25.7% (the last two are indeed more than external loss.)

https://popular.info/p/a-closer-look-at-californias-267

 

This article revisits the one that I think you based this thread upon. It includes the following:

”In a major shift, Walgreens, which said it saw a spike in shrink during the pandemic and cited organized retail crime in its decision to close five San Francisco stores in 2021, is backtracking.

“Maybe we cried too much last year” about shrink numbers, Walgreens finance chief James Kehoe said on an earnings call earlier this month.

During its latest quarter, the company’s shrink rate fell to around 2.5% from 3.5% of total sales last year.”

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html
 

So, since your beef has been minced, why don’t you nut up and admit you were wrong. Instead, go write a letter about how Republican appointees are squandering taxpayer funds, paying $76M to an individual not to do the job they were hired to do.

 

[RDCanecutter 26402]

Why are we arguing? Let's go steal something.

[Incredulity 11657]

2 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Here’s a report from this year. You will learn that outside theft is 38% of shrinkage. As stated by the National Retail Federation, employee theft is 28.5% and control failures 25.7% (the last two are indeed more than external loss.)

https://popular.info/p/a-closer-look-at-californias-267

 

This article revisits the one that I think you based this thread upon. It includes the following:

”In a major shift, Walgreens, which said it saw a spike in shrink during the pandemic and cited organized retail crime in its decision to close five San Francisco stores in 2021, is backtracking.

“Maybe we cried too much last year” about shrink numbers, Walgreens finance chief James Kehoe said on an earnings call earlier this month.

During its latest quarter, the company’s shrink rate fell to around 2.5% from 3.5% of total sales last year.”

 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html
 

So, since your beef has been minced, why don’t you nut up and admit you were wrong. Instead, go write a letter about how Republican appointees are squandering taxpayer funds, paying $76M to an individual not to do the job they were hired to do.

 

So you’re now off the wage theft topic and now denying there is an increase in retail theft and crime in California. And somehow in your brain I am the one, “sliding around the issue”.

[Willfully Horn 8002]

49 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

So you’re now off the wage theft topic and now denying there is an increase in retail theft and crime in California. And somehow in your brain I am the one, “sliding around the issue”.

Putting that theft into context is not, and has never been, a denial. But you know that, and have nothing else to bleat, do ewe?

[HornOnTheBayou 8919]

@Willfully Horn, you are doing God's work on this thread. But, brother, don't forget that you are arguing with an imbecile.

[Incredulity 11657]

13 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

@Willfully Horn, you are doing God's work on this thread. But, brother, don't forget that you are arguing with an imbecile.

[Bullneck 19073]

Every time I see this thread bumped, this is what I see:

Incredulity must work in retail.

[elfenix 34227]

On 11/13/2023 at 11:42 PM, BeardIP said:

"But the conversation isn’t just about protecting workers from AI, as some labor unions are now using AI to protect workers.Take, for example, the new app WeClock, which describes itself as “a self-tracking app to fight wage theft and foster worker wellbeing.” The app gives workers access to data typically reserved for the large corporations that employ them .It can track data points like: How much you move vs. stay still. How much time you spend using work apps.T he time and distance spent commuting. The temperature, loudness, and darkness of your work environment. By allowing workers to track their own data, the company hopes to empower workers to discuss “the presence or absence of decent work, fair work, working conditions, or work/life balance.”" https://blog.hubspot.com/ai/ai-vs-labor-unions

sounds like the only use of 'AI' is putting it in the marketing pitch. 

[We’reTexas 1473]

2 hours ago, BeardIP said:

Quote: “I’ve been on the East Coast and on the West Coast in many of those stores that you’ve talked about where items have been locked up, and actually what we hear from the guests is a big thank you, because we are in stock with the brands that they need when they’re shopping in our stores.”

Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are grateful the chain is keeping the toothpaste they want behind more glass than the Mona Lisa, since it keeps items from getting boosted by thieves who leave shelves bare. The executive’s comments on shoppers' gratitude for the high security around their deodorant came as the retailer released its third-quarter earnings report showing that while sales dipped, profits surged by 36%, thanks largely to tight inventory management and tamping down expenses.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/15/target-earnings-ceo-says-customers-thankful-for-locked-items.html

Yeah that’s bullshit. 

[wildcat09 29348]

This thread is just an endless cycle of a couple of posters posting comments from executives and trade groups lying about theft being up, to inevitably be refuted by the rest of us posting actual data as well as follow-up admissions from those same executives that their prior statements were full of shit. 

 

[Willfully Horn 8002]

On 11/16/2023 at 12:00 PM, wildcat09 said:

This thread is just an endless cycle of a couple of posters posting comments from executives and trade groups lying about theft being up, to inevitably be refuted by the rest of us posting actual data as well as follow-up admissions from those same executives that their prior statements were full of shit. 

 

Came to the conclusion @Incredulity is incredulous he lost his testicles. Could be mistaken, but he doesn’t have the balls to admit when someone he relied on got things wrong.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Willfully Horn

[Incredulity 11657]

Go hump someone else’s leg.

 

fucking bitchass

[Incredulity 11657]

On 11/16/2023 at 10:00 AM, wildcat09 said:

This thread is just an endless cycle of a couple of posters posting comments from executives and trade groups lying about theft being up, to inevitably be refuted by the rest of us posting actual data as well as follow-up admissions from those same executives that their prior statements were full of shit. 

 

Nevermind the minority business owners in Oakland repeatedly posted about above.  Myopia personified 

[aggie08 21492]

[Incredulity 11657]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:26 AM, BeardIP said:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/business/sephora-perfume-locked-up/index.html

Sephora has locked up all its perfume. It says too many people were stealing

That isn’t REALLY happening/Surly Leftists 

[Willfully Horn 8002]

6 hours ago, Incredulity said:

That isn’t REALLY happening/Surly Leftists 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Willfully Horn
Apologies to eunuchs.

[StassneyHorn 6575]

Women love stealing makeup

[HenryJames 66038]

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/

[Longhorn_Fan68 33867]

4 hours ago, HenryJames said:

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/

[Incredulity 11657]

They retracted "organized" not the amount.

[StassneyHorn 6575]

On 12/7/2023 at 5:45 AM, HenryJames said:

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/

 

Retail Group Retracts Startling Claim About ‘Organized’ Shoplifting

The National Retail Federation had said that nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft. It was likely closer to 5 percent.

Spoiler

A national lobbying group has retracted its startling estimate that “organized retail crime” was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting.

The group, the National Retail Federation, edited that claim last week from a widely cited report issued in April, after the trade publication Retail Dive revealed that faulty data had been used to arrive at the inaccurate figure.

The retraction comes as retail chains like Target continue to claim that they are the victims of large shoplifting operations that have cut into profits, forcing them to close stores or inconvenience customers by locking products away.

The claims have been fueled by widely shared videos of a few instances of brazen shoplifters, including images of masked groups smashing windows and grabbing high-end purses and cellphones. But the data show this impression of rampant criminality was a mirage.

 

 

In fact, retail theft has been lower this year in most of the country than it was a few years ago, according to police data. Some exceptions, including New York City, exist. But in most major cities, shoplifting incidents have fallen 7 percent since 2019.

Organized retail crime, in which multiple individuals steal products from several stores to later sell on the black market, is a real phenomenon, said Trevor Wagener, the chief economist at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, who has conducted research on retail data. But he said organized groups were likely responsible for just about 5 percent of the store merchandise that disappeared from 2016 to 2020.

 

He emphasized that there’s “a lot of uncertainty and imprecision” in measuring losses, because it is difficult to parse out what is shoplifting and what is organized crime.

Mr. Wagener testified in Congress in June about the discrepancy in the National Retail Federation’s report.

Even as it retracted the figure and revised the report, the federation, which has more than 17,000 member companies, insisted in an emailed statement that its focus on the problem was appropriate.

 

 

“We stand behind the widely understood fact that organized retail crime is a serious problem impacting retailers of all sizes and communities across our nation,” the statement said. “At the same time, we recognize the challenges the retail industry and law enforcement have with gathering and analyzing an accurate and agreed-upon set of data.”

 

At issue is “total annual shrink” — the industry term for the value of merchandise that disappears from stores without being paid for, through theft, damage and inventory tracking mistakes.

Mary McGinty, a spokeswoman for the federation, said the error was caused by an analyst from K2 Integrity, an advisory firm that helped produce the report.

The analyst, who was not named, linked a 2021 National Retail Federation survey with a quote from Ben Dugan, the former president of the advocacy group Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, who said in Senate testimony in 2021 that organized retail crime “accounts for $45 billion in annual losses for retailers.”

Mr. Dugan was citing the federation’s 2016 National Retail Security Survey, which was actually referring to the overall cost of shrink in 2015 — not the amount lost to just organized retail crime, Ms. McGinty said.

 

 

Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights lawyer who has studied and critiqued how the media has covered organized retail crime, said that the retraction underscored how some news organizations, which have extensively covered the issue of shoplifting, were “used as a tool by certain vested interests to gin up a lot of fear about this issue when, in fact, it was pretty clear all along that the facts didn’t add up.”

One of the most prominent examples came in October 2021, when Walgreens said it would close five stores in San Francisco, citing repeated instances of organized shoplifting. The company’s decision had come months after a video seen millions of times showed a man, garbage bag in hand, openly stealing products from a Walgreens as others watched.

But an October 2021 analysis by The San Francisco Chronicle showed that Police Department data on shoplifting did not support Walgreen’s explanation for the store closings.

Eventually, Walgreens retreated from its claims. In January, an executive at the company said that Walgreens might have overstated the effects on its business, saying: “Maybe we cried too much last year.”

Mr. Karakatsanis said the exaggerated narrative of widespread shoplifting was weaponized by the retail industry as it lobbied Congress to pass bills that would regulate online retailers, which they claim is where much of the stolen product ends up.

 

 

Commentators and politicians have seized on the issue. Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California, responded to reports of large-scale thefts in the state with a call for tough prosecution of shoplifters and a plan to invest millions of dollars to fight “organized retail theft.” Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, signed a bill last year aimed at retail theft, and former President Donald J. Trump called for violence, telling Republican activists in California this year that the police should shoot shoplifters as they are leaving a store.

Mr. Wagener, the chief economist at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said that the National Retail Federation’s report in April immediately stuck out to him as wrong. The error was troubling, he said, because the federation has long been viewed as a trusted provider of data for the industry.

What made the federation’s mistake even more surprising, Mr. Wagener said, was how starkly the figure contrasted to the group’s own previous findings.

In 2020, the federation said in a report that organized retail crime cost retailers an average of $719,548 per $1 billion in sales — a number that would point nowhere near the roughly 50 percent claim made in the April report.

Another National Retail Federation survey showed that all external theft — including thefts unrelated to organized retail crime — accounted for 37 percent of shrink, a figure that would still be billions of dollars less than the incorrect estimate of 50 percent made in April.

 

 

“It would be a bit like the census claiming that nearly half of the U.S. population lives in the state of Rhode Island,” Mr. Wagener said.

 

[aggie08 21492]

You expect Incredulity to read?? Come on, now.

"We may have been off by a factor of 10, but believe us on everything else we say!"

Edited December 9, 2023 by aggie08

[Incredulity 11657]

2 hours ago, aggie08 said:

You expect Incredulity to read?? Come on, now.

"We may have been off by a factor of 10, but believe us on everything else we say!"

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt

[Willfully Horn 8002]

8 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt

Take your masochistic public shame kink elsewhere, you creep.

I’ve seen enough. Ignore.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Willfully Horn

[mchookem 16325]

9 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt

 

[Bullneck 19073]

9 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt

 

[Incredulity 11657]

7 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

I’ve seen enough. Ignore

[hobbes2702 13031]

On 12/7/2023 at 11:41 AM, Incredulity said:

They retracted "organized" not the amount.

Can you read?

[Gil Bang 25922]

Two men convicted of retail theft at a Kohl's in Colorado tried to get a lesser punishment because they stole stuff that was on sale.

The men's attorneys made an argument for reduced charges after admitting stealing from the store in Parker, Colorado.

The case was described in a Tuesday news from the district attorney for Colorado's 18th Judicial District.

Michael Green, 50, and Byron Bolden, 37, were nicknamed the "KitchenAid Mixer Crew" by the DA in reference to the kitchen appliances they stole.

 

They also took designer shoes and clothing.

They were both ultimately convicted of felony theft. However, the DA's office said the men's attorneys argued for softer misdemeanor charges, citing discounts on the items.

According to The Denver Gazette, the men cited discounts on the sticker prices, and Kohl's coupons they had, to bring the items down below the threshold for felony theft in Colorado, which is $2,000.

The documented value of the items stolen was $2,094.98, the district attorney's office said.

 

The argument failed to sway the judge, as both men received felony convictions. Green was sentenced to 15 months in prison and Bolden to 90 days in jail with credit for time served as a condition of 18 months probation.

According to KMGH-TV, a local Denver TV station, prosecutors argued that sales and discounts only count if you actually pay.

John Kellner, the district attorney, said in the press release: "Just because an item is 'on sale' doesn't mean it's free to steal, and these defendants now get to think about this lesson in jail and prison."

He added: "Retailers in our community are fed up with theft and my office will actively prosecute these offenders."

 

The convictions followed the identification of Green and Bolden through surveillance footage. After being arrested, they both initially pleaded not guilty, before pivoting to their argument around the sale price.

Deputy District Attorney, Sherri Giger argued in the press release that retail theft is not a "victimless" crime.

She said: "We've all seen news articles about the impact of rising retail theft, including stores forced into closing, as well as price increases passed along to paying customers to offset loss."

Retail crime has ballooned in recent years, with retailers like Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Walgreens, Dick's, and more having called out theft as major threat to their businesses.

[elfenix 34227]

I would not be embarrassed to make that argument. I wouldn't be embarrassed to appeal that argument. Especially for Kohls which has never once sold anything at MSRP. After coupon price would be a step too far but definitely whatever was on the electronic tag that day.

[wildcat09 29348]

On 12/9/2023 at 11:21 AM, StassneyHorn said:

 

Retail Group Retracts Startling Claim About ‘Organized’ Shoplifting

The National Retail Federation had said that nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft. It was likely closer to 5 percent.

  Reveal hidden contents

A national lobbying group has retracted its startling estimate that “organized retail crime” was responsible for nearly half the $94.5 billion in store merchandise that disappeared in 2021, a figure that helped amplify claims that the United States was experiencing a nationwide wave of shoplifting.

The group, the National Retail Federation, edited that claim last week from a widely cited report issued in April, after the trade publication Retail Dive revealed that faulty data had been used to arrive at the inaccurate figure.

The retraction comes as retail chains like Target continue to claim that they are the victims of large shoplifting operations that have cut into profits, forcing them to close stores or inconvenience customers by locking products away.

The claims have been fueled by widely shared videos of a few instances of brazen shoplifters, including images of masked groups smashing windows and grabbing high-end purses and cellphones. But the data show this impression of rampant criminality was a mirage.

 

In fact, retail theft has been lower this year in most of the country than it was a few years ago, according to police data. Some exceptions, including New York City, exist. But in most major cities, shoplifting incidents have fallen 7 percent since 2019.

Organized retail crime, in which multiple individuals steal products from several stores to later sell on the black market, is a real phenomenon, said Trevor Wagener, the chief economist at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, who has conducted research on retail data. But he said organized groups were likely responsible for just about 5 percent of the store merchandise that disappeared from 2016 to 2020.

 

He emphasized that there’s “a lot of uncertainty and imprecision” in measuring losses, because it is difficult to parse out what is shoplifting and what is organized crime.

Mr. Wagener testified in Congress in June about the discrepancy in the National Retail Federation’s report.

Even as it retracted the figure and revised the report, the federation, which has more than 17,000 member companies, insisted in an emailed statement that its focus on the problem was appropriate.

 

“We stand behind the widely understood fact that organized retail crime is a serious problem impacting retailers of all sizes and communities across our nation,” the statement said. “At the same time, we recognize the challenges the retail industry and law enforcement have with gathering and analyzing an accurate and agreed-upon set of data.”

 

At issue is “total annual shrink” — the industry term for the value of merchandise that disappears from stores without being paid for, through theft, damage and inventory tracking mistakes.

Mary McGinty, a spokeswoman for the federation, said the error was caused by an analyst from K2 Integrity, an advisory firm that helped produce the report.

The analyst, who was not named, linked a 2021 National Retail Federation survey with a quote from Ben Dugan, the former president of the advocacy group Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, who said in Senate testimony in 2021 that organized retail crime “accounts for $45 billion in annual losses for retailers.”

Mr. Dugan was citing the federation’s 2016 National Retail Security Survey, which was actually referring to the overall cost of shrink in 2015 — not the amount lost to just organized retail crime, Ms. McGinty said.

 

Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights lawyer who has studied and critiqued how the media has covered organized retail crime, said that the retraction underscored how some news organizations, which have extensively covered the issue of shoplifting, were “used as a tool by certain vested interests to gin up a lot of fear about this issue when, in fact, it was pretty clear all along that the facts didn’t add up.”

One of the most prominent examples came in October 2021, when Walgreens said it would close five stores in San Francisco, citing repeated instances of organized shoplifting. The company’s decision had come months after a video seen millions of times showed a man, garbage bag in hand, openly stealing products from a Walgreens as others watched.

But an October 2021 analysis by The San Francisco Chronicle showed that Police Department data on shoplifting did not support Walgreen’s explanation for the store closings.

Eventually, Walgreens retreated from its claims. In January, an executive at the company said that Walgreens might have overstated the effects on its business, saying: “Maybe we cried too much last year.”

Mr. Karakatsanis said the exaggerated narrative of widespread shoplifting was weaponized by the retail industry as it lobbied Congress to pass bills that would regulate online retailers, which they claim is where much of the stolen product ends up.

 

Commentators and politicians have seized on the issue. Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California, responded to reports of large-scale thefts in the state with a call for tough prosecution of shoplifters and a plan to invest millions of dollars to fight “organized retail theft.” Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, signed a bill last year aimed at retail theft, and former President Donald J. Trump called for violence, telling Republican activists in California this year that the police should shoot shoplifters as they are leaving a store.

Mr. Wagener, the chief economist at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said that the National Retail Federation’s report in April immediately stuck out to him as wrong. The error was troubling, he said, because the federation has long been viewed as a trusted provider of data for the industry.

What made the federation’s mistake even more surprising, Mr. Wagener said, was how starkly the figure contrasted to the group’s own previous findings.

In 2020, the federation said in a report that organized retail crime cost retailers an average of $719,548 per $1 billion in sales — a number that would point nowhere near the roughly 50 percent claim made in the April report.

Another National Retail Federation survey showed that all external theft — including thefts unrelated to organized retail crime — accounted for 37 percent of shrink, a figure that would still be billions of dollars less than the incorrect estimate of 50 percent made in April.

 

“It would be a bit like the census claiming that nearly half of the U.S. population lives in the state of Rhode Island,” Mr. Wagener said.

 

It's such a burden being right all the time.

[Biff Tannen 45667]

On 12/7/2023 at 11:41 AM, Incredulity said:

They retracted "organized" not the amount.

The amount was for the entirety of shrinkage and attributed to the "organized crime" part.  Perhaps an audio medium would help.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-media-shoplifting-panic-ai-journalism-wrong

 

Who am I kidding? 

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Biff Tannen
clarity

[Js1 85297]

3 hours ago, elfenix said:

I would not be embarrassed to make that argument. I wouldn't be embarrassed to appeal that argument. Especially for Kohls which has never once sold anything at MSRP. After coupon price would be a step too far but definitely whatever was on the electronic tag that day.
 

If you have enough Kohls cash, it’s basically free