Philip Ingram MBE assesses the biggest security challenges faced by retailers and how they will evolve over the coming years.
One of the hero groups of the pandemic, often ignored, frequently abused but essential to keep us going, has been retail staff. Retail has been hit hard by the pandemic with many of the high street big brands closing for good.
However, crime in the retail sector, although it eased somewhat during lockdown periods where access was restricted, has adapted and in its latest release in 2021, the British Retail Crime (BRC) survey provided evidence that the retail sector is estimated to lose more than £1.3 billion a year to crime, an increase of £600m since 2017, with 75% of this loss due to theft by customers. Retailers are known to be experiencing up to 1,200 instances of theft each day across their estates.
According to the Mitie Retail Crime Report 2021/22: “The threat to retailers, from criminality, is multi-faceted both in terms of the types of crimes committed and the criminals committing them.”
It goes on to say: “A typical crime profile that a retailer has to manage includes Organised Criminal Groups (OCGs) committing fraud on large scales and Organised Retail Criminals committing robberies and burglaries, prolific criminals stealing low value products in high volume to feed drug habits, opportunist criminals stealing in order to feed their families and insiders exploiting their access to retailers’ systems and processes to commit crime.” The report estimates the financial impact from losses and prevention measures costing the industry £2.5 billion each year.
However, it also rightly highlights that: “Retail employees are often the last line of defence for a retailer from the concerted efforts of criminals and suffer personal harm by simply being at work.” The retailer isn’t the only victim of crime as often it is those ‘front of house,’ who get abused, threatened, assaulted and are often the forgotten victims of retail crime.
Common challenges
Catching up with Barrie Millett, the Director of Assurance, Security and Business Services with Mitie, whose security presence in the retail sector is growing, he put some detail around the company’s report.
“Some of the biggest challenges in the retail security market are around the anonymity provided to offenders due to the wearing of masks in stores, making identification of offenders and subsequent convictions difficult. This makes the exploitation of contactless shopping facilities by not scanning all products correctly a growing issue. Combined with that we are seeing increasing levels of violence towards colleagues and security officers by offenders. As well as aiding anonymity, the requirement to wear masks has led to an increase in anti-social behaviour towards staff and other customers,” he said.
When it comes to then dealing with offenders, Millett said: “We suffer from stretched Police resources to attend and arrest offenders when detained by security officers and then getting, using and sharing real-time intelligence for prevention and detection of crime causes issues with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Digital Evidence Management Systems (DEMS) in use within Policing.”
When it comes to staff safety, the risks are increasing. The BRC survey for 2021 recorded 454 incidents per day, up from the 424 per day identified in the 2020 survey. Barrie Millett explained that the safety of colleagues and customers is paramount in the activities of retailers. Large retailers are investing in:
However, as retailers become more successful in identifying and dealing with offenders in stores this brings its own problems, “often offenders when confronted use violence to escape being apprehended by retail staff or security staff,” he added.
What does the future hold?
The future of retail crime, like any other security risk, continues to develop and adapt. The BRC and Home Office with major retailers have Working Groups focusing on specific activities that improve the safety of retail and retail security staff. However, there are several other issues that will impact the future. Barrie Millett said: “The blurring of lines between role and responsibilities of private security firms and law enforcement with developing evidence for criminal prosecutions will continue. As will enhanced reliance on technology to identify potential threats e.g. facial recognition or cash free payment methods.”
Retail is changing, in a recent report by Alvarez & Marsal and Retail Economics, it estimated that 17.2 million British consumers, about 25% of the country’s total population are changing to online shopping and that is likely to stay. This brings new avenues for criminals to exploit and Barrie Millet highlighted that we could see a shift to cyber/online crime and targeted attacks on delivery drivers when delivering produce ordered online (using fraudulent details).
Of course, organised criminals will continue to target the logistic tail to frontline retail focusing on warehouses and deliveries especially when high value goods are being transported.
The Mitie report gives some key takeaways that summarises the state of retail security today:
It looks as though the security risks for retailers and retail staff are going to continue to grow throughout 2021 and beyond.
This article was originally published in the August edition of Security Journal UK. To get your FREE digital copy, visit: https://digital.securityjournaluk.com