HOME Depot is warning shoppers as a rise in theft forces stores to lock up even their smallest items.
It comes as several major retailers have had to crack down on organized retail theft, which has caused a major blow to company profits in recent years.
CEO Ted Decker said on CNBC’s Squawk Box that the trend had become a big problem in retail.
“This isn’t the random shoplifter anymore,” he said.
Within the past year, Home Depot lost two employees – Gary Rasor, 83, and Blake Mohs, 26 – who were killed in separate theft incidents.
Rasor died on December 1 after he was shoved to the concrete floor by a shoplifter who was wheeling out three pressure washers worth $800 from the store.
The senior employee asked the shoplifter to show him a receipt before he was pushed.
Then, in April of this year, security guard Blake Mohs was shot in the chest while trying to stop a thief at a California Home Depot.
A study from the National Retail Federation found that organized retail crime and theft are growing in both scope and complexity around the country.
Former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli described it as an “epidemic…spreading faster than Covid.”
Theft at the company has been growing as high as double digits year after year, said the VP of asset protection, Scott Glenn.
“More and more we’re seeing the risk being brought into the stores, and people being hurt or people even being killed in many cases because these folks, they just don’t care about the consequence,” he told ABC News.
The National Retail Federation defines organized retail crime as the large-scale theft of retail merchandise with the aim to resell stolen goods for profit.
According to the 2022 National Retail Security Survey, 70 percent of retailers believe retail crime has increased within the past five years and are fighting to reduce the threat in their stores.
Home Depot began locking up certain items, which Decker says might surprise customers.
“They’re not all big – they’re not all power tools and generators,” he said. “You can have a circuit breaker – [worth[] $50, $60, $80 – those are all high-theft items.”
He added that the store is hoping to avoid closing down certain locations like other retailers have done.
Decker said the company is more concerned about the safety of the employees and customers and has invested more in security guards, recording towers, and lighting in parking lots.
“It’s not a place in retail that many of us thought we would be,” he said.
Home Depot is also working with local, state, and federal governments to curb the reselling of stolen items online.
The INFORM Consumers Act has passed by Congress late last year, requiring online marketplaces to verify and share financial and identifying information from “high-volume third-party sellers” or those with more than 200 transactions and $5,000 in revenue in a 12-month period.
The Act will take effect on June 27 and hopes to increase the transparency of online transactions and stop criminals from using these marketplaces to sell stolen or counterfeit goods.
Decker said he’s “super happy” that the bill was passed as “it’s going to make those marketplaces vet their sellers.”
https://www.the-sun.com/news/8438432/home-depot-organized-retail-crime-locking-items/