Best Buy’s simple strategy for beating shoplifting: More workers in stores

Many retailers and industry lobbying groups say shoplifting is at crisis-level proportions and that it’s even forcing some stores to close. But Best Buy says it has shoplifting under control.

The electronics retailer with nearly 1,000 stores says it is preventing shoplifting through higher staffing levels in stores, full-service cashier lanes, security staff at entrances and other strategies, CEO Corie Barry said Tuesday.

“In certain parts of the country in particular, there is a real issue around theft and organized crime. With that being said… we have not called out material impacts to our business as a result of shrink for at least the last two years,” Barry said on a call with reporters.

Best Buy has some inherent advantages over, say, CVS because heavy flat-screen TVs are harder to steal than razor blades. But electronics are still some of the most commonly stolen items in retail, according to the National Retail Federation.

Retailers report that shrink increased 19% in 2022 to $112 billion and has nearly doubled from pre-pandemic levels. They blame shoplifting and organized groups stealing merchandise from stores to resell online for the rise in shrink. (Shrink also includes employee theft, damaged products, administrative errors, online fraud and other factors.)

Best Buy has been able to stave off shrink and competition from Amazon with strong customer service support for would-be electronics buyers, analysts say, and that requires well-trained and well-staffed stores. More retailers should adopt these practices to deter shoplifting, crime prevention experts say.

Many retail chains in recent years have reduced staffing levels in stores, automated services and shifted more responsibilities onto customers to save money and boost profit margins. But thinly-staffed stores and more self-checkout lanes add risks, said John Eck, a criminologist at the University of Cincinatti.

“The more retailers go toward reducing their labor costs and putting more of the energy on shoppers, the higher the shoplifting,” Eck said.

While more staff in stores won’t stop shoplifting entirely, it could help, he said. “If you’re being watched, you’re generally more careful. Not too many things in criminology are better understood than that.”

Higher levels of staffing in stores have made a difference in Best Buy’s success against shoplifting, CEO Barry said.

“We tend to have more labor coverage in our stores because that interaction is a big part of our model,” Barry said. Best Buy has security staff at the front of stores to monitor customers entering and exiting and does not have many self-checkout machines. (Companies with self-checkout lanes and apps had a loss rate of about 4%, according to one study, more than double the industry average.)

“Whenever you walk in hopefully you’re going to see a friendly face in a yellow shirt who has access to cameras all over the store,” she said. “We usually just have once entrances to our stores, so not multiple entrances to cover. We don’t really have self-checkout.”

Lowe’s has also attributed its low theft rates to higher staffing levels in stores.

“Having spent my entire adult life in retail at every level, the one thing that I understand clearly is that the greatest deterrent for any type of theft activity is effective customer service,” Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison said earlier this year.