Reply to Theft Targets are shutting down

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "Theft Targets are shutting down"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Target is closing nine stores. In 2017 they closed 12 stores, so this isn’t out of the ordinary. Target Corporation’s quarterly earnings reports have been great this year. They’ve overcome the excess inventory problems of 2022 and are posting profits such that dividends have increased significantly. Whatever impact theft is is supposedly having, business is still booming.

Target Corporation estimates that inventory shrink could total $1.2 billion this year, an increase of $500 million from last year. It is important to note that “shrink” isn’t all or even mostly theft. It’s loss due to any cause—spoilage, damaged shipments, supplier fraud, sloppy inventory tracking within stores, employee theft, etc. Neither target nor any other retailer squawking about theft has publicly released any data on percentage inventory losses or due to theft or gross value of goods they believe to have been stolen.

Other good context to know is that Target has hundreds of stores in California—proportionally more by population than in other populous states like Texas, New York, and Florida. In fact, there is a location in the Mission just 1.4 miles away from the closing Folsom St. store. In terms of potential customer and sales loss, it’s a lower risk to close a store within an easy commute of another store.

Crying “theft” can help give a reason for less desirable financial performance indicators that doesn’t indict company management. (For example, RiteAid’s debt is too great, and it’s about to get hit with financial penalties from opioid lawsuits.) It can also get desired responses from the public and politicians. As one example, local cops may help look out for shop lifters, saving a store private security expense.

Anyway, the retail theft panic is a manufactured one. That news outlets keep covering it uncritically is journalistic malpractice. I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but Michael Hobbes is covering the topic on the latest episode of the If Books Could Kill podcast.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics