Following on from the story earlier this month about the rise of retail crime around World Cup games, the trend has continued, with retail theft increasing by 17% ahead of England’s final World Cup group stage win against Panama on Saturday (27 Jun).
The Three Lions’ on-pitch success in the US translated to in-store disruption at home, according to new figures from AI store solutions provider, SAI.
England’s late-night fixture against Panama also saw a surge in violent incidents and added operational burden on match day, up 5% and 8% respectively on the daily average, as football fever spilled over into stores.
Data from the SAI One Platform, which analyses insight from more than a thousand UK retail locations and inputs from over 20,000 cameras every day, showed shoplifting across all of England’s group stage match days rose by 10% on average. Instances of violence in stores also rose 8% across the three fixtures.
While the Three Lions’ first match clash with Croatia prompted a 6% rise in theft, its 2-0 win over Panama prompted the biggest rise of shoplifting across the three games (+17%), with offences peaked between 11am and 12 noon.
Large supermarket formats were the most affected, up 57% on 27 June, with the South East the top crime hotspot for theft (up 27%).
Chris Bell, head of marketing and insight at SAI, said: “Higher footfall, fan excitement and heightened emotions can all quickly escalate into store strain.
“While retailers will be welcoming the World Cup boost to sales, it’s very much a game of two halves and they’ll also recognise the need to manage the operational disruption that goes hand-in-hand with revenue opportunities.”
Despite crashing out of the World Cup and not progressing to the Knockout Stages, shoplifting on Scotland’s match days had also mirrored the same trend, although it was more marked compared to the England matches.
Theft rose by 18% on average across Scotland’s three group stage fixtures, with their second game against Morocco seeing the biggest uptick in shoplifting, up 24%.
There was also a notable correspondence between Scotland fixtures and the number of violent incidents, with instances peaking ahead of their game with Haiti, up 4%.
“Retailers will rightly be focused on maximising the sales opportunity, but they can’t afford to take their eye off the ball when it comes to store safety, theft and operational performance,” Bell added.
Sadly, SAI’s data predicts even higher figures if and when England progress in the tournament.
Should they make the quarter finals, shoplifting incidents could rise by an average of 26%, particularly among stores near fan zones and pub districts - and across convenience formats.
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