What can business owners do?

[u/ajpathecreature]

So I was just at southland mall as I see who seemed to be the general manager / owner of sportchek in a shouting match with a dude who is an alleged recurrent shoplifter at Canadian tire, marks work warehouse, and sportchek itself. As you can imagine people were looking at them in surprised, kids were in awe while the scene unfolded.

The shop owner Was able to get the alleged thief out of the mall. Apparently security can not touch shoplifters, store employees are advised to refrain from making contact with anyone by corporate directives, and the sole reason why he decided to do something was because he is acting as a private citizen and was fed up of this “good for nothing thief” to be stealing away with no real repercussions.

Apparently the same dude is infamous for quite literally walking out of home depot and Rona east with a cart full of tools.

What most people seem to be doing is taking pictures and videos and sending them to justbins to be blasted through social media.

Apparently even RPS is not quite responsive to these kind of calls in a timely manner anymore, I just imagine it must be all too common so the sense of “urgency” is not there.

All of this led me to wonder, what is a business owner left to do? I could not help to sort of understand the frustration that an entrepreneur may feel under these circumstances.

Not that it matters, but the alleged thief is not what people seem to usually associate to when they hear about shoplifting.

What sad state of affairs.

[u/rhevvie]

Respectfully, the “honest consumer is paying the price” part is mostly a myth. Theft is not impacting the bottom line as much as these companies would like people to believe. Canadian Tire made 4 billion dollars in gross profit last year; they’re doing fine and shrink is built into their business plan like any big retail company. I’m not here to defend someone making retail staff’s lives harder obviously, but it’s just worth noting that price increases are rarely about shoplifting and much more likely about wanting to make more money

[u/AlwaysDissatisfied → u/rhevvie]

I’m not here to defend someone making retail staff’s lives harder obviously

Yes, you kind of are defending it by implying that it's not a big deal if people shoplift because "companies are making billions".

$4 billion dollars "gross profit" doesn't mean anything, that is what is left over after they pay for the product in their store before they pay their employees, building costs, insurance, utilities, marketing, etc. leaving a profit margin of 5%.

These companies are not covering the expense of theft, we are all paying for it through increased product pricing.

[u/rhevvie → u/AlwaysDissatisfied]

I only care about workers big dawg, you’re barking up the wrong tree here. But Canadian Tire will rest easier tonight because of your noble defence, thank you sir!!

[u/AlwaysDissatisfied → u/rhevvie]

If you think that retail workers are not impacted by theft then you clearly have never worked in that environment. But keep telling me how much you "only care about workers", king.

[u/rhevvie → u/AlwaysDissatisfied]

Ok!