In recent months I have spoken with retailers and policing leaders about a problem that has become impossible to ignore: retail crime in the UK has moved well beyond what anyone could reasonably describe as low-level or petty.
Retailers do not believe that reporting crime leads to outcomes. Without that belief, the entire system begins to break down.
What stands out most in these conversations is not only the scale of the problem, but the consistency of one message: the biggest barrier to progress is not resources, technology or legislation. It is trust.
Retailers do not believe that reporting crime leads to outcomes. Without that belief, the entire system – from intelligence gathering to resource deployment and offender management – begins to break down.
This article argues that proactive communication between retailers and policing is the single most important lever for rebuilding that trust. Not communication as an afterthought or a customer-service exercise, but as a deliberate, sustained practice that changes how both sides experience the partnership.
The trust deficit at the heart of retail crime
The British Retail Consortium recently found that 90% of retailers surveyed had little or no confidence that reporting crime to police would lead to action. That figure should stop us in our tracks. It tells us that the vast majority of the retail sector has effectively disengaged from a system designed to protect them.
In England and Wales, police recorded nearly 517,000 shop theft offences in the year to December 2024, the highest level since current recording practices began.
The consequences are profound. In England and Wales, police recorded nearly 517,000 shop theft offences in the year to December 2024, the highest level since current recording practices began. Yet industry data suggests the true picture is far larger, with over 20 million customer theft incidents in a single year and the total cost of retail crime exceeding £4.2 billion. The gap between recorded crime and lived experience is vast and it is filled largely by silence.
That silence is not apathy. It is a rational response to a system that has, over time, failed to demonstrate that reporting matters. Fewer reports mean less intelligence. Less intelligence means policing becomes reactive and when outcomes are limited or invisible, confidence falls further. This is the cycle we need to break.
From vicious cycle to virtuous cycle
The good news is that the same dynamics that erode trust can, when reversed, rebuild it. Operational experience across policing consistently shows the same pattern: proactive communication increases satisfaction; higher satisfaction leads to increased reporting; increased reporting improves intelligence and outcomes; and improved outcomes reinforce trust and legitimacy.
This is not theoretical. It is observable wherever the model has been applied. The challenge is making it the norm rather than the exception and doing so at a scale that matches the problem.
Retail crime provides a particularly powerful opportunity to activate this cycle, precisely because it sits at the boundary between communities, commerce, and policing. Every high street in the country is a shared space, and the confidence of the people who work and trade there is a direct measure of how well public safety is working.
Why the current model falls short
It is important to be clear: the challenge here is not a criticism of frontline officers or retail staff. Both are working within systems that were never designed for the nature of today’s retail crime.
Modern retail crime is repeat based, driven by prolific offenders who move rapidly between locations and force areas. It is pattern-led rather than incident led and increasingly linked to organised criminality.
Modern retail crime is repeat based, driven by prolific offenders who move rapidly between locations and force areas. It is pattern-led rather than incident led and increasingly linked to organised criminality. Yet reporting, investigation, and communication mechanisms remain largely incident-centric and fragmented. Retailers submit reports through channels that feel disconnected from outcomes. Police teams receive information late, inconsistently, or without supporting evidence and critically, updates flow one way – if they flow at all.
For policing leaders, this makes data-driven prioritisation harder. For retailers, it reinforces the perception that engagement brings little value and for those of us working across the United Kingdom, where crime patterns routinely cross force boundaries, the fragmentation is felt acutely. An offender active in London, Oxford, and Crawley may appear as three isolated incidents rather than a single pattern unless the intelligence picture is connected.
The human cost behind the numbers
Behind every statistic is a person. Independent surveys of retail workers consistently show that verbal abuse has become routine, threats are commonplace and physical assaults are no longer exceptional. In convenience retail alone, crime-related costs have been estimated at £316 million, with more than £265 million spent purely on prevention – a ‘crime tax’ borne by businesses and the communities they serve.
When people feel unsafe at work and unsupported by the system meant to protect them, the damage extends beyond the immediate incident. It erodes confidence in public institutions more broadly. That erosion is difficult and expensive to reverse, which is precisely why getting communication right matters so much.
Proactive communication as the foundation of partnership
The most important shift required is not technological – it is relational. When retailers are treated as partners in public safety rather than passive reporters of crime, behaviour changes on both sides.
We see this when reporting is simple, digital, and consistent. When evidence can be provided early and securely. When retailers receive proactive updates rather than silence. When alerts and prevention advice are shared in real time. And when communication flows in both directions, with clear expectations on each side.
This transforms reporting from a transactional act into ongoing engagement. Retailers no longer feel they are reporting into a void. They can see how their information contributes to wider outcomes. Whether that is identifying a prolific offender, informing patrol activity or supporting a broader investigation.
Crucially, it changes perception and perception, in this context, is everything. A retailer who believes their report will be acted upon is a retailer who reports. A retailer who receives timely updates is a retailer who provides richer intelligence next time. The virtuous cycle begins with communication.
Enabling the model: Connected platforms and shared Intelligence
If belief is the barrier to reporting, then confidence must be rebuilt through experience, not rhetoric. This is where purpose-built platforms play a role.
From a policing perspective, it means information arriving earlier and in a consistent format, with repeat victims and prolific offenders becoming visible sooner.
Platforms developed in partnership with policing, such as the Salesforce Safer Community Platform for Retail, are designed to support exactly this model. Its purpose is straightforward: to make it easier for retailers to report crime, easier for police to receive high-quality intelligence, and easier for both sides to see progress and stay connected.
From a retailer’s perspective, that means digital reporting that takes minutes rather than the friction of a 101 call, the ability to submit evidence early and, most importantly, proactive updates that replace silence. From a policing perspective, it means information arriving earlier and in a consistent format, with repeat victims and prolific offenders becoming visible sooner. Patterns emerge across locations and retailers, not just within individual incidents.
But the real value is not in the features. It is in the shift from one-way reporting to two-way engagement. Retailers receiving targeted alerts about known offenders, reassurance about patrol activity and prevention advice are retailers who feel part of a system that works. That feeling is what drives sustained reporting and, ultimately, better outcomes.
The policing dividend
For policing, the benefits of this approach extend well beyond improved satisfaction. When retail crime data is captured consistently and enriched early, prolific offenders are identified sooner, cross-border patterns become visible, and resources can be deployed based on insight rather than volume. This supports the shift from reactive attendance to preventative, intelligence-led policing – the direction already set out in national strategies and retail crime action plans.
Where proactive communication is in place, contact volumes fall and confidence rises. The system works better for everyone.
It also reduces what policing calls ‘failure demand’: the repeated calls and follow-ups driven not by new information but by a lack of clarity. Where proactive communication is in place, contact volumes fall and confidence rises. The system works better for everyone.
Recent legislative proposals, including the Crime and Policing Bill, reflect a clear shift in how retail crime is framed. No longer as a minor or isolated issue, but as one that directly affects worker safety, public confidence, and community wellbeing. Whatever the final shape of legislation, the direction is clear: retail crime now sits firmly within the public-safety agenda.
A shared responsibility for safer high streets
Retail crime will not be solved by retailers spending more on security alone. It will not be solved by policing working harder within fragmented systems, and it will not be solved by policy developed in isolation from operational reality.
It will be solved through partnership. Partnership that is sustained by communication, not just technology. The platforms and processes matter but only insofar as they enable the conversations, the updates, the shared intelligence and the mutual accountability that rebuild trust over time.
From my perspective, working across policing and justice, I see every day how much potential exists when retailers and policing are genuinely connected. The crime patterns are there to be identified. The intelligence is there to be shared. The offenders are there to be disrupted. What has been missing is the confidence, on both sides, that the system will deliver.
Building that confidence is not a one-off project. It is a sustained commitment to proactive communication, to transparency and to treating retail crime as what it truly is: a shared public-safety challenge that demands a shared response.
When the system is connected around the people it serves, prevention becomes possible.
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