Retail crime is continuing to rise at an alarming rate. Statistics from the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) latest Annual Retail Crime Survey show that theft has increased significantly in recent years (BRC, 2025). As optometry practices are often located on the high street among retail premises, they are also susceptible to theft. 

There were over 20 million incidents of theft in 2024 compared to 16 million in 2023. Violence and abuse also rose over 50% in 2024, with more than 2,000 incidents every day. This is a 340% increase from 2020, when there were 455 incidents a day (BRC, 2025).

As well as the risk to staff and shoppers, there is the financial impact of retail crime. The total cost of retail crime, including prevention, is now £4.2bn, of which £2.2bn is a direct result of customer theft (BRC, 2025).

“Retailers are telling us that people are being a lot more brazen and walking into shops with sacks and swiping from shelves,” says Lara Conradie, Communications Adviser at the BRC. “This is partly due to the cost-of-living crisis and the economy being the way it is, but there has also been a concerning rise in organised crime. Gangs are stealing high-value goods en masse. Also, theft is a major trigger for violence and abuse.”

Lara adds that some retailers have stopped reporting incidents to the police because they fail to respond. “The BRC is lobbying for the police to be more responsive to retail crime,” she says. “We believe that people are behaving badly in stores as they don’t think there are any consequences for their actions. It’s become a vicious cycle. Our advice to retailers is to make sure they are reporting absolutely everything that happens to the police, so all data is logged.”