How Coles got caught in the global retail theft epidemic

In May, US giant Target shocked the market by declaring theft would wipe $US500 million ($780 million) off its annual gross profit. Last week its chief executive, Brian Cornell, reiterated the retailer is up against “an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organised retail crime”.

Walmart, Costco and Home Depot are facing similar problems; the US National Retail Federation last year estimated the total problem at $US100 billion a year.

Weckert says it makes sense that Australia, where inflation jumped later than the US, has been a bit later to the trend. She said figures from the Australian Retailers Association put the size of the problem here at 2 per cent to 3 per ent of total retail sales.

Spikes in theft are common at times of economic weakness, but the difference abroad has been a rise in organised crime, in part because gangs have worked out that police priorities and resources have changed, pushing shoplifting way down the list.

Weckert says organised crime is rising in Australia, too, with more stores reporting being targeted by groups of thieves. She says Coles continues to work closely with the police, but “probably every police force around the world is challenged from a resource perspective”.

Like overseas retailers, Coles is scrambling to fight back, with increased physical security (guards) and better technology, including artificial intelligence that can identify problem areas, and smart gates that shut when someone tries to walk out of a store with a product they haven’t paid for.