how much could minor shoplifting add to the economy if:
- it was only targeting businesses that ship their profits offshore and/or avoid paying local taxes;
- the shoplifted items were items that were going to be purchased; and
- monetary savings redistributed to local businesses?
None.
Businesses don’t respond to “minor” shoplifting because of an impact to their bottom line. Retail has an idea called “float” that’s meant to account for all the losses not covered elsewhere by spoilage, damage, actual confirmed theft, etc and its always an order of magnitude larger than the volume of loss from shoplifting.
The response to shoplifting is primarily driven by insurance costs. It’s why the corner store down the street might hire some goon to stand around during peak hours and places that have to negotiate with insurance on millions of square footage spread over tens of thousands of locations tip the scales of local policy.
If they don’t do something about the “shoplifting problem”(not a problem, not a serious impact to their bottom line), their insurance plan that covers all the stores for hundreds of millions in damages and costs as much in premiums is null and void.
Okay but here’s why it won’t do what you’re asking about specifically: because not only does your shoplifting not impact the bottom line, the stores claiming there’s a shoplifting problem and then using their insurance premiums to justify draconian measures were already planning on implementing those draconian measures before they came up with the idea of shoplifting.
Pushing security system upgrades across the board outfits all stores with high definition cameras and rack mount processing equipment that can do object, facial and gait recognition. It creates a stream of data that the store has complete ownership of and can use for whatever it wants. It’s the first step to reversing one area that big box retail has lost ground to online retail in: custom pricing.
Custom pricing is arguably more powerful in the physical domain. Websites adopted it because getting people to buy shit they didn’t really want was already so hard that they said “shit, we got all this data, hey Jim, go infer what price this person will buy this stuff at!” And it worked.
Physical retailers don’t have the convenience of letting you shop from your couch, but they do have a much higher conversion rate (that’s how often a sale gets made to someone who doesn’t want to buy) when controlled for other factors. The conversion rate thing is under contention in some circles and sales and marketing people get all their news and job training from magazines so expect funny headlines if you look this up.
The point is that if you are online temporarily hovering over a marked down socket set you are only thinking about the price. If you’re stopped in target in front of a marked down socket set it’s cheap and immediate.
It’s the same logic behind the candy at the grocery checkout.
So if retailers can get the data that lets them fiddle with prices depending on who’s asking then they stand to make a tremendous amount of sales.
All that is to say that no one cares if you shoplift and so you won’t actually make any difference by doing so.
If you just wanna shoplift, do it. Your teenage girl ancestors are smiling down upon you as you palm that eye pencil.
Choosing the price per-customer like that should be illegal.
Would not help at all.
Any damage from “ethical” shoplifting, if that even exist, significant enough not to be just ignored would be turned on shoppers/clients by raising prices or locking down goods.
That would turn into just damage lower income people.
Noticed as much with some alcohol.
Same chain grocery shop.
The one a bit outside just had a brand of alcohol outside free to place into your basket while the other (near a rehabilitation center for substance abuse) locked up the same brand.Of course ethical shoplifting exists: stealing bread to feed a starving person or medication to help a sick one, etc.
Yeah, that’s why I wrote “if that even exist”. I can see corner cases where it might be a necessity, but that should never happen in a modern civilized country where medication is free and food accessible to everyone (food banks, kitchens and such).
I mean, in an ideal world, lots of things wouldn’t exist, but we don’t live in an ideal world and there are hungry people in every country, even those with robust food support systems. I live in Germany, where there is a lot of aid for those who are hungry and, whether it’s due to untreated mental health issues (including addiction) or something else, there are plenty of hungry people.
True as well.
My ex girlfriend mother had to steal from supermarkets when her husband ran away and left her and the daughter stranded.
So there are always corner cases.
Does that justify stealing? No, but when no harm is done and was a necessity, I don’t think its wrong to do. You need to survive after all, it’s a failure of society not your fault.
it was only targeting businesses that ship their profits offshore and/or avoid paying local taxes;
This is an oddly specific shoplifting question, almost as if you’re shopping for justifications for a specific concrete action.
nah, i’ve already justified it myself. just curious about the potential maths
Businesses steal so much from us it would probably just bring us to neutral
Yeah, like programs to subsidize the low wages of Walmart workers.
I’m all for supporting people who need it, but if our taxes are going towards food stamps to save Walmart money, then Walmart is just taking my money.
What if I told you that our federal taxes don’t go toward food stamps at all, and in fact pay for nothing?
The cost is not so much in losing the product but in deciding when and how much to invest in increased security. The more shoplifting happens, then the owner has to start investing in more security cameras, security guards and legal costs of dealing with law enforcement and courts. Then no matter what products or items you try to discriminate against, the owners and corporations just raise the prices of everything to cover their costs.
