Back in 2022, the message was clear — retail crime was on the rise: “There’s no two ways about it,” said Gautham Vadakkepatt, Director of the Center for Retail Transformation at the George Mason University School of Business in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “I’ve talked to several retailers and it’s a major issue that all the big retailers are dealing with.”
Possible culprits (beyond the thieves themselves) were the supply chain challenges the industry was still dealing with at the time, inflation driving up the cost of goods and even the lingering use of masks following the COVID-19 pandemic.
