Volume 17, Number 1/2

An Integrated System Framework for Preventing Crime in Retail Supermarket

  Authors

Christopher Ikenna Onumonu ¹ and Kazeem Oluwakemi Oseni ², ¹ University of Wales Trinity Saint David, United Kingdom, ² University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom

  Abstract

Retail supermarkets have been investing billions of pounds to prevent and reduce crime in their stores, but the rate of crime keep increasing. Retail shrinkage monitoring as far back as 1995 showed that the retail stores were losing the equivalent of 0.3 per cent of their gross revenues which have taken up to 20 to 30 percent of their profit. Also recently, the British Retail Crime Report (2023) showed a significant increase from the 2019 report in retail crime and subsequent loss to retailers. In 2021/2022, the retail staff incidents of violence stood at 850 per day, and the cost of retail crime was £1.76b. There were eight million incidents of theft over the year and a total of £715 million was spent on crime prevention.

As crime keeps increasing, examining the three security solutions (Cyber, Physical and System) that are used in retail supermarkets becomes paramount. This article will look into if the lack of interconnectedness is the cause of continuous porosity in criminality in stores using Aldi and Sainsbury in the United Kingdom as a case study. A combination of mix method approach has been used in this study which allows a combination of quantitative data gathering through questionnaires and qualitative data through interviews. Accessing the current effectiveness of the three security solution (Cyber, System and Physical), it becomes important to identify the strategic gap between actual and potential performance so that steps can be taken to identify the shortfall in the Security solutions. The Ishikawa fishbone model is used as a theoretical tool to examine the cause and effect of retail crime. This will identify other causes that affect the effectiveness of security solutions. From the findings, a Hierarchical Taxonomy of Crime Prevention Framework in line with the Ishikawa fishbone theoretical tool was developed to help supermarkets reduce and prevent crimes. For many years supermarkets have been investing lots of money on security solutions but the rate of crimes keep increasing.

  Keywords

Physical, System, Cyber, Retail crimes and Supermarkets.