In the recent British Retail Consortium Crime Survey it was reported that the total cost of retail crime stood at £1.76 billion in 2021/22 with £953 million lost to customer theft and eight million incidents of theft over the year.
Retailers also spent £715 million on crime prevention in 2021/22. While some costs are critical in protecting colleagues, they also contribute to higher prices for customers by pushing up retailers’ operating costs.
Shop theft impacts retail outlets of all sizes but it can be particularly devastating to small independent retailers whose profits margins are much tighter. Often these are the retailers who can’t afford private security or high tech CCTV.
However, there are steps which can be taken by all retailers to make it more difficult for offenders to steal from their stores.
The Metropolitan Police has developed a guide called ‘Applying the ‘ten principles of crime prevention’ to retail crime to support retail outlets and help them improve security within their stores.
The document details the ten principles of crime prevention and shows how they can be applied to the retail sector by providing a number of actions to consider. The list is by no means exhaustive, and some actions overlap across various principles.
Retailers can use this as a guide to help review security in your business. For crime prevention measures to be successfully implemented, they need to be achievable, realistic and cost effective. These will vary from business to business and also between premises.
Click this link to download - Applying the ‘ten principles of crime prevention’ to retail crime
