Retail crime has sky rocketed in New Zealand according to a survey released by Retail NZ.

“Crime is a significant and pervasive issue affecting almost all retailers in 2023.”

The report said $2.6 billion cost of retail crime flows through from retailers to customers to the New Zealand economy.

Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young said “the aggression, violence and general crime in our shops is getting worse each day, as increasingly brazen and organised criminals are putting the public and retail employees in imminent danger.”

“We can no longer stand by and watch a small section in our society destroy the livelihoods of the families who literally put their lives on the line to build their retail business.”

92% of retailers who responded to the survey had experienced some form of retail crime in the past 12 months.

Just 8% of retailers were not knowingly affected by retail crime.

“This is a significant increase on when we last undertook this survey in 2017; at that time 81% of retailers had experienced some form of crime over the past 12 months.”

Shoplifting is the most prevalent form of retail crime with 82% of retailers affected over the past 12 months.

Threatening behaviour towards staff or other customers is also very common with around 61% of retailers impacted.

“Retailers are more often dealing with threatening, violent or just unpleasant customers, trying to steal or damage their property,” explains Young, who adds that organised crime groups stealing to order, drug addicts and youngsters looking for notoriety on social media are the main drivers behind the spike in retail crime.

“What makes it worse is that most of them think they can get away with it, treat retail workers like second-class citizens and have no understanding how their actions impact the staff and the business.”

Young said that retailers identified the social-economic gap as a major factor, along with the lack of police protection, the clogged-up court system and inadequate deterrents for offenders.

“There is a role for retailers, Retail NZ and the Government to curb this rising tide of crime and call on the political parties elected to adequately resource police, unclog the court systems and create better deterrents, like the trespass laws used in the UK.”

Retail NZ hopes the next Government will also develop more effective mechanisms to respond to younger children committing crimes, creating instant fines for petty offences and specific offences against retail workers.

Young said the onus will also be on the retail sector to help themselves and the Government is one of three partners in the battle against crime.

“Retailers are fighting for their livelihood, in many cases literally, so we plead with the Government to step up and give them the support to protect the retail sector. 

“If we continue to stand by, the pain and the costs will keep increasing and that cost will flow onto the customers and ultimately the New Zealand economy.”

In terms of violent crime, 37% experienced a robbery and 23% of retailers experienced physical assault of staff or customers.

“Shoplifting is at epidemic levels now. Police are understaffed and do not prioritise retail crime. There is little in the way of deterrent as the crime is considered minor now” a City Centre clothing retailer said.

Ram raids are included under the broader umbrella of robbery. A ram raid is defined as entry or attempted entry into a commercial premise with a vehicle. Police data on reported ram raids, for the twelve months to August 2023 saw 760 ram raids reported to Police, a more than sixfold increase on six years ago.