retail
Customers steal more – billions of billions through shoplifting
Schnapps, razor blades, perfume: These products are in demand with shoplifts. The losses of the dealers have increased again – as early as the third year. The perpetrators often get away with impunity.
According to a study by the EHI research institute, shoplifting in Germany has increased again. In 2024, customers stolen goods worth around 2.95 billion euros. That was 4.6 percent more than in the previous year. The total damage increases the third time as a result of and reaches a maximum. However, the increase is less than 2023 when an increase of 15 percent was recorded.
“There are more and more people who can no longer or do not want to afford certain products -also in protest against prices,” says EHI expert and student author Frank Horst. “Seniors and families are also increasingly stealing.”
For the study, the EHI responded 98 companies with a total of 17,433 shops to their inventory differences. All important retail industries were involved. The companies appreciate how the losses are distributed to customers, employees and other causes.
More is stolen in drugstores
The losses in retail total total 4.95 billion euros – three percent more than 2023. More than half causes customers, around 890 million euros are eliminated. The rest of the damage is caused by suppliers, service staff or organizational errors such as incorrect price awards. Around a third of customerft is organized by commercial – committed by representatives or gangs.
Alcoholic beverages, branded clothing, sneakers, electrical appliances and tobacco products are particularly popular with thieves. Drugs are more affected. “There are many small expensive products that are often stolen: perfumes, cosmetics, baby food or razor blades,” says Horst.
Experts have seen one reason for the strong increase since 2022 in the fact that self -service health insurance companies are increasingly being used. Almost half of the dealers they use report more loss. “A lot more is stolen on SB cash registers,” says Horst, sometimes unintentionally due to operating errors.
While the damage is increasing, according to police crime statistics, the number of cases displayed drops. However, it only depicts a small part of reality because there is a high number of unreported cases. According to EHI, 98 percent of cases remain undetected. In terms of mathematical, this corresponds to around 24.5 million shoplifts per year by customers worth 120 euros each.
Many procedures are set
According to the EHI survey, three out of four dealers expect customerft to continue to increase. Lack of personnel and long opening times make surveillance more difficult, as study author Horst says. Accordingly, deeds are more and less discovered or displayed – also because the effort is often not worth it. Many procedures are discontinued due to minority.
The chief managing director of the German Trade Association, Stefan Genth, criticizes: “Many dealers are frustrated because advertisements rarely lead to a conviction and sanctioning of the perpetrators.” He demands that politics take a harder.
According to EHI, the willingness to use violence increases. Employees would be attacked more often. Each fourth company has increased the expenditure for security measures. The dealers spent around 1.6 billion euros on prevention in 2024, especially for training courses in the staff. “We rely on trained employees and technology such as video systems and consolidations of goods,” says Markus Trojansky, DM Managing Director for expansion.
dpa
Source: Stern
