Organized retail crime troubled a major Southern California city more than any other across America last year, a survey showed.
In its yearly National Retail Security Survey, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said retailers pointed to Los Angeles as "most affected" by the issue, coming out on top of 10 other metro areas. The city also received that spot for four back-to-back years prior to 2022.
Aerial view of the business district in Downtown Los Angeles in background from Lincoln Heights neighborhood. (iStock / iStock)
Theft or fraud "conducted with the intent to convert illegally obtained merchandise, cash, cargo or cash equivalent into financial gain, typically through their online or offline sales" counted as organized retail crime, according to the NRF.
There has been a dedicated organized retail crime task force of local and federal law enforcement set up for the Los Angeles area since mid-August.
Here were the cities dubbed No. 2 and 3 in the NRF survey:
-San Francisco/Oakland, California
-Houston, Texas
Additionally, the top-five contained New York City with the No. 4 placement and Seattle with the No. 5 placement, the NRF said.
The Manhattan skyline is seen at sunrise from the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building on April 3, 2021, in New York City. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Other American cities that appeared further down the 11-city list included:
-Atlanta
-Sacramento, California
-Chicago
-Denver
-Miami
-Albuquerque, New Mexico
The NRF said organized retail crime and other theft served as a primary driver of the massive amount of "shrink" that retailers saw last year, with non-employee stealing making up 36%. The term "shrink" typically means theft and other forms of inventory losses.
Locked up merchandise to prevent theft in Target store in Queens, New York. (Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Last year, the losses that retailers saw from all shrink hit $112.1 billion, according to the NRF.
Separately, in late October, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said S&P 500 companies have called out retail crime overall significantly more this year so far compared to last year. Those references, observed in earnings calls and other documents, have gone up 43% year-over-year, according to the organization’s report.
It had found a month earlier that the share of small retailers hit with theft over the prior 12-month period came in at 56%.