What Luxury Thieves Can’t Steal
Shoplifting crime, where thieves, often in large numbers enter a luxury store and brazenly grab expensive items and run, have swept the nation. Face masks, the norm, after a two-year pandemic, gives robbers cover. Thefts are in daylight, and mostly by young people. They want valuable goods to sell online, and to have as their own.
Grab and run is shocking because it illustrates the willingness to cross lines, once unheard of. There has always been store theft and vandalism. Thieves, in the past, did not want to be noticed. Today, overpowering the store with others, emboldens criminals. These spontaneous acts, social media driven, give new meaning to organized crime.
Ultimately this will stop. As a teen, in the seventies, I saw a rash of shoplifting crimes by young people. Some stores stopped allowing shoppers under a certain age. Today’s crimes are far more aggressive, but so are the tools to fight it. Criminals temporarily get away but many shopping districts have cameras every few feet. Thieves can more easily be traced on video, by their digital devices, and products are embedded with serial numbers. And criminals, once caught, are not a loyal bunch. They’re inclined to squeal on co-conspirators.
There is no rationale for this. These bandits are not stealing bread to eat or squatting in houses because they have nowhere to live. Some arrive in Mercedes Benz SUVs. They just see numbers – the number of others joining in, the value of goods, and numbers they might get selling them. The broken nature of this thinking is startling. I think it is another sign of class warfare, combat culture, and frankly declining mental health. There is an overwhelming lack of judgement. Not a good career choice. Their penalty will show up in time – and may lead to serving time in prison. To gain status, they may get the wrong kind. The status they want, will elude them.
Luxury status is bestowed not only by the object but why and how you get the object. Luxury enthusiasts get it many ways; birthright, gift, reward, a savvy purchase – all which have their own kind of status. What someone gets from identifying an item they’d like to own, then acquiring it through discipline, and perhaps having the ability to pay full price is deeper. The object brings you a different joy. It’s an earned status. Stealing it might bring you an external sense of glamour, but you know it isn’t earned in any way. Ultimately, you’re empty. You are not entitled to it, no matter your rationale – and you know it.
The luxury industry is working on strategies to stop grab and run. The good news is the future of luxury is assured because what matters to luxury clients is different. The role of the brand, the merchant, and sales professional is not to merely sell external goods, but aligning with hidden psychological values. The luxury buyer knows the allure of luxury is internal not just external and cannot be stolen.
