The situation: Retail crime remains a serious and growing challenge for UK retailers.

Shoplifters carried out 5.5 million reported incidents in the UK last year, costing retailers an estimated £408 million ($551.4 million), according to a new British Retail Consortium report covering September 1, 2024, to August 31, 2025. A growing share of those losses stems from organized criminal gangs targeting high-value, easy-to-resell items such as alcohol, cosmetics, meat, baby formula, and medicines.

Retailers are also grappling with violence. Abuse and assault against retail workers averaged 1,617 incidents per day. While that figure is down 20% from 2,019 a year earlier, it remains the second-highest level since the BRC began tracking the metric and roughly three times the 455 daily incidents recorded in the last pre-pandemic period of 2019–2020.

The good news: The government is moving to address the issue. The Crime and Policing Bill, now making its way through Parliament and expected to take effect this spring, would create a standalone offense for assaulting a retail worker and eliminate the £200 ($270) threshold for so-called low-level theft, which currently carries a maximum six-month custodial sentence.

Implications for retailers: The rise in retail crime is reshaping the in-store experience.

Measures retailers often use to combat theft—including locking up merchandise and increasing visible security—come at a cost. They can make stores feel less welcoming, adding friction that nudges shoppers toward online alternatives perceived as easier and faster. Once those habits shift, winning customers back can be difficult.

Beyond lost sales, elevated shrink also pressures margins. Higher security, labor, and insurance costs force retailers to either absorb those expenses or pass them along through higher prices, risking a feedback loop in which theft contributes to further price inflation.

Retailers will need to balance the need for protection with experience. Increasing staffing levels and encouraging more proactive employee engagement can act as a subtler deterrent to theft while preserving a positive shopping environment.

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