Interesting Facts

David Archer is thought to be Britain's most prolific shoplifter. (He has a string of 342 criminal offences, and has now been jailed for 18 months, just a month after he was released from prison on remand. It is claimed that he has 338 previous convictions, 261 shoplifting and theft convictions 13 Asbo breaches over a 48-year criminal career, and has spent 28 years in prison and 39 out of the last 40 Christmases behind bars. It's tragic.)

According to research from the EHI Retail Institute, shoplifting costs Germany more than 5 million euros a day. (They worked out that shoplifters in Germany stole goods worth a total of 1.9 billion euros ($2.77 billion) in 2010. Statistically speaking, that's 50 euros per household. And that's not all! Almost the same amount again was collectively lost to thieving employees, cleaning and delivery staff and sloppy book-keeping, in fact crooked employees, who between them, account for 22.4 percent of retail losses. All told, shops across the country missed out on 3.7 billion euros worth of revenue. As I read this I thought, I'm glad I don't actually sell anything, and then I remembered, some websites steal my content, so I guess no industry is immune from dishonesty.) Source

powered by ODEO According to Tesco supermarket razorblades are stolen more than other products. (In a report in the Guardian it seems that Tescos take a digital photo of you each time you pick up a Gillette razorblade from the store's shelf - it only takes one to prompt the camera - and again when you present the pack at the checkout. Tesco says that the photos are "temporarily stored", but does not specify for how long. However, Smart Labels Analyst magazine explains that this system enables the store to "blacklist certain shoppers and keep an eye on them". In his interview with the magazine, Alan Robinson recounts an occasion when his Cambridge store was able to show the police a photograph of a shoplifter in the act of removing two packets of razors from the shelf: "The police were completely flabbergasted, having never seen anything like it in their lives.")

In the UK more than 3.5 million people have admitted shoplifting in the past five years. (Now remember shoplifting means stealing from shops, not weight training with them.)