As ‘Smash and Grab’ Spate Continues, Retail CEOs Turn to Congress for Help

Aside from it being their busy season, what do the CEOs of AutoZone, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Target and over a dozen other mega-retail leaders have in common?  

In a word, theft. 

But more specifically, a growing concern and frustration with the recent rise of brazen, organized, “smash and grab” mass robbery attacks on their stores — and now, a shared desire for Congress to step in and do something about it.

Shoplifting, or shrink as it is referred to in the industry, has always been a problem for retailers, but the ongoing spate of organized, high-profile and often televised thefts is on a different level — to the point where 21 CEOs from some of the nation’s biggest retailers have asked for help from the federal government. 

“While we constantly invest in people, policies and innovative technology to deter theft, criminals are capitalizing on the anonymity of the internet and the failure of certain marketplaces to verify their sellers,” stated the open letter delivered this week to the House and Senate leadership from the Retail Industry Leaders Association. 

“This trend has made retail businesses a target for increasing theft, hurt legitimate businesses who are forced to compete against unscrupulous sellers, and greatly increased consumer exposure to unsafe and dangerous counterfeit products,” the group added, while calling for quick passage of legislation to address the problem.

That fix comes in the form of the INFORM Act, (the Integrity, Notification and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers Act), a bipartisan bill filed in both chambers that aims to modernize consumer protection laws — and in turn, to protect consumers, communities and retailers from the re-selling ripple effects of stolen goods.  

In short, the CEOs said that the elimination of the end market — the black market where stolen goods are readily being bought and sold — will disincentivize the mass theft that is being done to supply it.  

After all, no one knows better than retail CEOs that if you disrupt supply and distribution, you kill the business.

While admitting that there is no simple answer to stopping organized retail crime or the sale of counterfeits, the retail chiefs stressed that transparency is key to crushing this growing problem.

“If a customer buys a product from a local retail storefront or eCommerce site and it is broken or otherwise defective, the consumer knows exactly who to contact. There is accountability,” the industry leaders said, but noted that “in the current environment, criminal networks and unscrupulous businesses have exploited a system that protects their anonymity to sell unsafe, stolen or counterfeit products with little legal recourse.”

Without naming names, they blamed the “lack of transparency” on “particular third-party marketplaces” for the wave of criminal activity being able to grow and fester.

The plea for federal help comes at a time when several CEOs, including Best Buy’s Corie Barry, have been blunt about the impact this situation has had on their customers and the morale of their already constrained workforces, as well as their bottom lines.

“This is a real issue that hurts and scares real people,” Barry, a 22-year Best Buy veteran who has held the CEO role since June 2019, said during the company’s Q3 earnings call in late November.

Read the full story: ‘Smash and Grab’ Theft Trend Scares Shoppers and Workers, Threatens Mall Traffic

Barry, alongside nearly two dozen industry peers, said the time has come to amend and update the law to ensure that “consumers, retail employees and businesses are not targets of organized retail crime and dangerous counterfeit products,” once the criminals who are selling stolen, fake and dangerous products are exposed.