The holiday shopping season isn't all billion dollar weekends—it is also prime shoplifting season. So what do sticky-fingered filchers covet? According to the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention ("because shoplifting steals from all of us") the most coveted item year round is...choice cuts of "luxury meat." But the Center for Retail Research told us it was cheese!
Other items that storeowners might want to hold onto if they want to keep their "shrinkage rate" down? In order of desirability:
- High-end liquors (who doesn't like a little Jameson?),
- electric tools ("According to research conducted by Nottingham University in the U.K., the most common items men steal are electric toothbrushes and power tools."),
- fancy gadgets like iPhones (duh),
- razor blades,
- Axe deodorants and body washes ("We have some of the best-smelling shoplifters on the planet," the director of field operations for Merchant Analytic Solutions told AdAge),
- designer apparel,
- hot toys (hold on tight to that Let's Rock Elmo!),
- expensive fragrances ("4 percent of the losses in stores in which they're sold"),
- expensive shoes.
Put all of those things together and you've got a pretty good portrait of what they used to call the nouveau riche.
