- Many retailers are emptying their shelves across the country, but not because of low stock. A concerning increase in thefts has pushed companies to put more products under lock and key, the Wall Street Journal reports.
- At one Best Buy store in the suburbs of Houston, where hundreds of items like Bose speakers and Fitbit activity trackers used to sit on the shelves, shoppers will instead find small blue signs that read, “This product kept in secured location.”
- Surging crime rates across the country are hitting retailers hard. The National Retail Federation’s 2022 Retail Security Survey found that retailers lost $94.5 billion overall in 2021 mainly due to external theft and organized retail crime.