Pretty soon the only people still visiting stores will be the shoplifters!
Intrepid CEO, Noel Verbruggen, has a pragmatic answer to the challenges currently bedevilling retailers…
Shop staff assaults are on the increase. Theft is on the increase. Sales are down and morale, it seems, is on the floor.
Dame Sharon White has come out saying that Britain’s High streets face a crisis. With crime out of control, the JLP boss characterises regular law breaking as “an epidemic,” with retailers falling victim to increased theft owing to the lack of credible sanctions.
The Federation of Independent Retailers too has recorded an increase in crime against small shopkeepers. I was very sorry to read a BBC interview with a small shopkeeper in South London. Mr Selvaratnam has seen the occasional shoplifting incident in his store - Freshfields Market in Croydon - rise to up to nine such incidents every day. And coincidentally, at the time of interview, Mr Selvaratnam was short-staffed as he had a member of staff off sick - because of an assault by a shoplifter.
Retailers’ vulnerabilities in the face of physical crime have been exposed. Retail staff and security guards alike are in a position where they cannot confront criminals for fear of violence or legal proceedings or both! What a mess!
Staff don’t feel safe and neither do I as a shopper. What should be the beating heart of the community – the high street - is increasingly a place you only go if you really must. Having to run the gauntlet of anti-social behaviour just to get from my car to a store is no fun… but retail therapy is supposed to be an enjoyable experience!
Local government seems unequal to the task as do quasi-governmental organisations of maintaining our high streets. I don’t hear retailers (or anyone else for that matter) singing the praises of local councils or BIDS, despite the significant amounts being paid in BID fees and business rates. However, I do see dilapidated infrastructure, poor yet expensive parking, inadequate public transport and personal safety issues. And all those empty commercial properties to let… the optics are dismal.
And on top of this we are living in a society facing a cost of living crisis. The deleterious effect of this is an acceptance that “petty crime” is inevitable. A normalisation of theft on social media, a validation by some extreme pressure groups of crime as a legitimate means to protest against economic hardship and of course the proliferation of organised crime, which always seems to go hand in hand with tough times for the many.
Dame Sharon has called for a Royal Commission to be set up to look at the parlous state of Britain’s High Streets. Is it just me, or did we not just do something very similar with Mary Portas? Getting a retail expert with celebrity appeal smacked of desperation then. And, for me at least, I don’t think that has changed. Some of the recommendations were welcomed by some retailers. But what did it actually achieve? I am not sure I can point to anything. Why would we want to waste time and money doing the same thing again!
And struggling to keep control, prevent crime and bring perpetrators to justice the Police have to prioritise where they expend their finite resources. It is of course an impossible task made worse by the public pronouncements of politically savvy but otherwise naïve elected officials, whose utterly fatuous comments about what the police should and should not be doing quite frankly beggars belief.
And of course, available to all at the click of a mouse or the tap of a screen is a vast array shopping opportunities afforded us online without the need to venture out into the big wide world, delivered to your door in just hours if that is your desire. If we don’t watch out, then pretty soon the only people going into high street shops will be the shoplifters!
In summary, high street retail crime is out of control. High streets are increasingly unpleasant places to visit. And the police are being encouraged to expend resources they do not have on crimes they cannot solve by politicians who don’t know better as they flail around trying to grab hold of anything that might help them get (or retain) power at the impending election!
So, what ARE we going to do?
I recall a management consultant. His name was Sid Joynson. He was on the telly on the mid 80s…
Sid became a feature of all our living rooms by virtue of his ability to turn around businesses in record times. His philosophy can perhaps be best described as one of empowerment and pragmatism. Sid turned around people and the businesses they worked for. And when confronted with a defeated team he would tell them “I would cry you a bucket full of tears if I thought it would solve this. But it is not going to. So, we need to stop talking about it and do something about it.”
The harsh truth is that, with the greatest of respect to Dame Sharon, a Royal Commission will not report for years and achieve nothing even then. Local Authorities are led by amateur politicians on ego trips. Professional politicians will be consumed by the next general election and the consequences thereof for the next 2 years. And the police are not going to suddenly find 10,000 extra coppers cryogenically stored in the basement at Scotland Yard to thaw out and deploy!
The only people who are going to be able to do anything about the parlous state of retail right now are… the retailers. It’s not right. It is not fair. But it is the truth.
However, this is not a tale of woe. Au contraire…
I see much to encourage the view that retailers will continue to succeed despite the litany of challenges they face. This is because innovation between retailers and suppliers brings together technical and commercial experience to form a powerful alliance and new, innovative thinking.
I remember when body cameras first came out. The target market seemed to me to be law enforcement. However, Tesco have seized the initiative (and some good headlines too) recently by offering staff body worn cameras.
I am no expert, but I understand that staff finding themselves in confrontational situations have seen dramatic reduction in assaults (verbal and physical) when telling an aggressor that they are activating their body worn camera. All things considered, if that allows shop workers to feel more secure and go about their business feeling safe then it has to be a bargain in my book. Similarly award winning infrastructure like our Smart Dome allows retailers to cost effectively de-escalate potential situations to keep staff and customers safe (sorry but it has, and it does!).
Still on the subject of body worn cameras, I was mesmerised by how Next deploy these together with face recognition technology and knock on the doors of recidivist shoplifters. Immediately the system identifies the person answering the door (if they are the perpetrator) and links them to all of their crimes in a way that allows the agent on the doorstep to show the criminal the evidence and not only bring private prosecutions but also get help finding co-conspirators. It really is amazing.
Unless you have been holidaying in the Congo, without communication, for the last 18 months you cannot fail to have been impressed by the arrival of Auror to our shores. For years retailers have struggled to find an effective, commercially viable platform across which they can share data on persons of interest and help bring the criminals to justice. From what I see, the rapid adoption of this new company’s offering has taken retail by storm and so it would seem that retailers finally have what they want.
Then there is innovation of a simpler kind. Taking different approaches to long term problems. I applaud Waitrose taking the initiative of offering free coffees and subsidised canteens for the police, figuring that the regular presence of police cars in the car parks will deter shoplifters. John Lewis has reported good results from “love bombing” their customers – being so attentive when shoppers arrive that it puts off the would be shoplifter. In my opinion it is when things seem hardest that we as an industry are at our best. That was true in Covid and it is true now. Collaboration between retailers, retailers and suppliers, and retailers and the police means a pooling of resources and knowledge. Thinking differently and collaboratively will inevitably lead to new approaches, some of which will be very successful and others perhaps not so
And in that spirit of thinking outside of the box, I must give pride of place to the Californian retailer who, recognising that police will not prosecute a theft of anything valued at less than $950, raised all of his prices to $951. Everything, including humble Hershey bars were raised to that price meaning that any theft demanded the police’s attention. And paying customers use coupons at the front of the store that bring the prices back down to normal when making payment.
Actually, the story is fake. The original is from a satirical publication called “The Glorious American.” But nonetheless, I like the innovative thinking!
“In my opinion it is when things seem hardest that we as an industry are at our best. That was true in Covid and it is true now. ”