Honey, I shrank the shop

If retail therapy is about lifting a buyer’s mood, Indian stores are probably not the place to shop for it.
An innocuous stroll in any department store could have you trailed closely by tactless salespersons, subjected to suspicious stares as you amble from one territory to another and traumatised by CCTVs popping out between hangers. These are just some aspects of the Great Indian Retail Revolution that make you want to chuck the Jimmy Choos and head for the roadside chappal stall.
But paradoxically, the very retailers who display so much paranoia about potential shoplifters seem as indifferent in their reactions to the recent Global Retail Theft Barometer—which crowned India the world’s shoplifting capital for the fifth time in a row—as they are to their own losses. Sanjay Prabhu, who heads a boutique mall consultancy called Beyond Squarefeet, attributes the report’s findings and retailers’ attitude to the nascence of organised retail in India. “Retailers are still figuring out effective ways to thwart shoplifting,” he says. “Organised retail entered India only a decade ago; we are still in the trial-and-error stage.” Others have more or less similar views—while Simon Hooper, COO of HyperCity, says there is no need for further surveillance even though shoplifting cases are constantly being reported, CEO of Vijay Sales Nilesh Gupta believes that pilferage is “unavoidable”.
Gupta’s electronics chain, which suffers a shrinkage rate of 0.5 per cent, largely in the mobiles and cameras categories, has begun tracking these items by connecting them to pods that start beeping if pulled out. “Earlier, we would showcase them in jewellery boxes,” he says. “We have these beeping pods and more employees on the floor to look out for suspicious behavior but losses are inevitable during festivals and weekends. It is impossible to keep an eye on every single person who enters a crowded shop.”
Mental health practitioner Harish Shetty has an interesting take on the link between the retailers’ attitude and India’s dubious distinction. “India is essentially a culture that nurtures trust,” he says. “Since Indian retailers rarely report shoplifters, this abets shoplifting and India’s shrinkage ratio goes up. Western countries, on the other hand, have a culture of guile. They are hospitable but wary. We trust our guests, neighbours and customers, treat them with respect and don’t expect them to steal. Perhaps that is why our recorded losses are greater. It doesn’t mean that there are fewer shoplifters elsewhere.”
This equation of trust, however, could well be on the wane if the burgeoning sales of retail security surveillance are anything to go by. Ramesh Iyer, CEO of security solutions firm Topsgrup, which supplies surveillance and security to Shopper’s Stop, Pantaloons and Central, says that with increasing losses, retailers who earlier deemed security an unnecessary luxury are being forced to rethink. “Surveillance allows for on-the-line monitoring, a norm in most Western countries, through which culprits can be incriminated immediately,” he says. “While real-time monitoring is yet to pick up in India, surveillance cameras are used as deterrents to ward off potential shoplifters.”
While Indian retailers have begun taking steps to curb shoplifting, they are still hesitant about reporting or penalising offenders. Most cases are wrapped up internally, ending in a strict warning, and in extreme cases a ban on entry. “Retailers are wary because the reputation of the property is at stake,” says Prabhu, who has headed several malls including InOrbit, Infinti and Phoenix Market City over 15 years. “Often, an employee who is found to be involved will be given a warning, observed closely and then fired if he does not stop. There is also the risk of losing good employees. It is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”
For Sivaraman Balakrishnan, marketing manager at Crossword bookstore, shoplifting is not a serious concern for the bookstore, “as it is below 1.5 per cent of the sales” and has therefore not prompted any research or demographic analysis. “Since we’re in the business of books, we’re lucky because Indians revere books and have a religious and emotional attachment to them,” he says. “In that sense, these factors are forbidding for potential shoplifters.”
But sometimes, neither sacred items nor cameras are forbidding enough to keep an itchy pilferer at bay. Recently, a Colaba grocery store had a woman in her mid-40s who appeared to be from a “very well-off family” tucking gourmet cheese in her saree blouse. “We had a female attendant check her when we heard a beep,” says the store’s manager. “We confiscated the item and politely asked her to leave. She has not come here since.”