by Jose Nino, Big League Politics:
According to a report by Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge, big box department store chain Target revealed that it’s combatting a significant organized retail crime wave throughout 2022. This rise in retail crime has apparently done a significant number on its profits this year.
In response to these acts of theft, the company has implemented merchandising strategies to prevent theft. Though these strategies have apparently been futile.
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On November 16, 2022, Target reported lower earnings, reduced guidance, and even warned how consumers are not spending as much due to the inflationary environment the US currently finds itself in.
The big box retail also highlighted how gross profit margins fell by $400 million in 2022 because of shrink — industry jargon for theft and other losses in products.
“There’s a handful of things that can drive shrink in our business and theft is certainly a key driver.
We know we’re not alone across retail in seeing a trend that I think has gotten increasingly worse over the last 12 to 18 months.
“So we’re taking the right actions in our stores to help curb that trend where we can, but that becomes an increasing headwind on our business and we know the business of other,” Target CFO Michael Fiddelke said.
Yahoo Finance spoke with the Target spokesperson, who said the problem is primarily due to “organized retail crime.”
The rise in organized retail crime is not a coincidence. It has largely been incentivized by the criminal justice policies that progressive prosecutors have pursued in blue cities across the nation. These policies tend to be lax in nature in which criminals are given a slap on the wrist for their misdeeds.
Target has blamed organized crime gangs for most of the store thefts. Durden noted that “thefts are so bad at the Target in Minneapolis downtown that everyday toiletries are locked behind shatterproof glass cabinets.”
The level of theft has been so alarming that Target and other big box retailers have called on Congress to take action. The US Chamber of Commerce has labeled this spate of looting at retail stores as a “national crisis.”
Per figures from the most recent National Retail Federation report, goods that were stolen at retail stores swelled to $94.5 billion in 2021. For perspective, in 2020 that figure stood at $90.8 billion. In 2022, those numbers are expected to surpass $100 billion.
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