In a world recovering from a global pandemic, the retail industry is also getting back on its feet. As stores have reopened their doors, the industry has had to readjust to unique challenges. The retail risk environment is becoming more complex and costly than before.

Stores have had to take on more responsibility to deliver a consistent, quality customer service, while also protecting inventory and the health and safety of employees and customers. As a result, CCTV and other forms of video surveillance in stores have become even more important.

Crime, shrinkage and staff abuse

Shrinkage has always been one of the main issues for retailers. Post-pandemic, the average loss per incident of shoplifting and robbery has increased dramatically (1).

According to the BRC (British Retail Consortium), the total cost of crime to the retail industry in 2020/21 amounted to a whopping £1.5 billion. £785 million of which was in losses from crime and £715 million spent on prevention (2).

According to the ACS (Association of Convenience Stores representing over 33,500 local shops), convenience stores spent over £5k on crime prevention measures between April 2020 and March 2022. This included security staff, intruder alarms, and CCTV systems - sending a clear message that this is a growing priority (3).

Whilst the main source of UK retail loss and damage is customer theft, links to organised crime and fraud are also significant contributors. This could be in the form of credit cards, vouchers, and/or supplier and insider trading.

Despite this and that shrinkage is a growing issue for retailers, there seems to be a lack of urgency from law enforcement. The pandemic was really a catalyst for more legal and police action.

In 2019, a Ministry of Justice report showed how many retail shoplifting offences a criminal might have, before receiving a custodial sentence on the spot.

One offender received their first custodial sentence after 66 previous offences in 2016, 47 offences in 2017 and 62 in 2018.

Furthermore, 60% of respondents to a BRC survey believed the police's response to incidents of abuse and crime was “poor” or “very poor” between April 2020 and March 2021.

From a legal point of view, there have been attempts to remedy these crimes. This year, the UK government amended the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill so that assaults against those providing a public service (e.g. shop workers) are considered aggravated crimes. As this designation was previously up to the courts, this is a welcome step forward - but there is arguably still room for improvement.

On top of shrinkage, there is the growing concern for employee safety and staff abuse.

Violence and abuse towards retail workers more than tripled during the pandemic - a surge in incidents reached over 1300 in March 2021.

According to the ACS, 89% of local shop workers had experienced some form of abuse. This included 1.26 million incidents of verbal abuse, 40,000 of violence and over 10,000 involving a weapon.

This year, The BRC's 2022 Crime Survey found “violence and abuse” to be “the number one issue” for retailers.

100% of retailers have reported violence as a top-three issue, rising from 90% in previous years.

Furthermore, 61% of wholesale and retailers in England and Wales reported experiencing verbal abuse between April 2020 and March 2021. 22% reported threats or intimidation, and 13% reported physical attacks. All of those questioned believed this abuse was related to the pandemic (4).

Unsurprisingly, the priority of every retailer is to deal with these issues - particularly if they’ve experienced them or attempted to deal with them first hand.

Security cameras - whether they’re CCTV or body worn - are perhaps the strongest way to achieve this.

Using body worn cameras can help address these issues

In this climate, CCTV has become even more vital for retailers to track and document cases of shrinkage. Particularly when AI is incorporated into CCTV systems, this visual data can provide smarter analysis. In the same vein, body worn cameras (BWC) for retail staff is becoming a new normal.

Body worn cameras are not new and have been adopted across law enforcement, healthcare, and hospitality sectors. Today, retailers are using them more and more to provide better first hand accounts of staff abuse and retail crime.

Tesco began adopting them widely in 2021 and pledged security for all their staff across the UK by the end of October 2021 (5). They have proved an effective deterrent - Tesco reported that the number of serious violent incidents fell by over ⅕ since they rolled them out across their stores (6).

Waitrose also began trialling body-worn cameras for their staff across several branches in 2020, followed by other retailers like Co-op who rolled them out across over 50 stores in 2021 (7,8). Boots also announced in 2021 that they would trial body worn cameras across several of their Birmingham stores to assess their impact on staff safety (9).

“Like other retailers, we are concerned about the increasing problem of violence and abuse experienced by hundreds of thousands of retail workers, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

— Boots spokesperson

The tech company Reveal also shared that uptake of their body worn cameras had soared by 80% since the start of the pandemic - this being fuelled by the need to document and deter abuse towards retail staff (10).

As data protection laws become more clearly defined and enforced, there is a responsibility on retailers to handle their video data ethically and responsibly.

BWC footage, along with CCTV, can be critical in providing evidence of offences, especially for repeat offenders.

Retailers are also starting to use captured footage as a tool to aid learning about complaints and store operations. This gives staff the confidence to ensure their own safety when interacting with and challenging customers.

Automated redaction methods like Secure Redact can help retailers protect their staff, customers and inventory, while still staying compliant with data protection law.

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Retail shrinkage and staff abuse - is more video surveillance the answer?