To Catch a Thief

She didn't look like a thief.

Now that the holidays in full swing and retailers are preoccupied with profits, shoplifters are taking full advantage of poorly trained seasonal workers and a sales team that is spread too thin. While managers and sales associates are busy following shoppers based on cultural biases, money is walking right under their noses and out the door.


With most stores barely turning a profit these days, it is no wonder that they are training their sales teams to profile shopper based on their behavior. Any sales person worth their salt is taught to be on the look-out for people carrying bags from stores not in their mall, people who continue to send you on wild goose chases all over the store, and people wearing large coats that seem to gain weight as they walk through the store, amongst other things. In sales meetings you are told that shoplifters can be anyone from stroller moms to teenage girls and that crime knows no color, however time in and time out you are told to watch the young African American and Hispanic shoppers who are less than well dressed, suggesting a certain socio-economic status, while other shoppers are allowed to move freely through the store.

Most lost prevention specialists will tell you that there are two kinds of shoplifters, non-professionals who steal simply because the opportunity presented itself and professionals who steal for a living. They will also tell you that despite what anyone believes, there is no certain look that shoplifters adhere to. Most shoplifters are adults who can pay for the items that they are stealing, often buy and steal merchandise in the same visit, and are very rarely caught. Armed with this information, one can only assume that the current policy embraced by store managers is allowing these experienced shoplifters to fall through the cracks, mainly because they are too busy turning their backs to follow the wrong shoppers. They also often react improperly to store alarms that are usually tripped by paying customers due to human error- experienced shoplifters hardly ever make a sound when exiting a store because they remove sensors from garments long before making their exit.

This Holiday season as you pick up your last minute gifts, take five minutes to notice who is watching whom and why. Very rarely will you see a sales associate monitor a stroller mom, a group of Starbucks carrying young women, or the well dressed gentleman who you just saw slip something into his bag because they are too busy watching the people who look like shoplifters. Much like a child will never get kidnapped by someone who looks like a bad guy, stores will never catch a thief who doesn’t look like one.