Prime Day deliveries might attract package thieves

Amazon’s Prime Day gives an opportunity for shoppers to flex their deal-spotting muscles ahead of Black Friday— and try out ways to deter thieves.

Although the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas see far more parcel deliveries — and therefore, more brazen from-thestoop thefts — Prime Day’s limited 48-hour window creates a concentrated opening for “porch pirates” to make their move, said Brody Buhler, managing director of Accenture’s post and parcel industry group.

It’s hard to pin down how many cardboard boxes are pilfered from plain sight around the invented summer buying spree because customers can report thefts to one of three places: the local police department, the retailer or the package deliverer — and those reports aren’t tallied centrally. But according to research from video-doorbell company Ring, 19% of U.S. households had a package stolen at some point in 2017, and the average value was $140 per package. Nextdoor, a social-networking app for neighborhoods, says user comments about package theft spiked 85% between July 18 and 20 last year, the main delivery period for Prime Day packages.

“Criminals know about Prime Day — everyone has access to the internet these days,” said James Crecco, a police captain in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The police department there partnered with Amazon in December to run a sting operation and track down package thieves after hearing from a swelling number of victims. Within just seven minutes of placing the first package, officers made an arrest and ultimately caught 23 thieves in 11 days. The department has been thinking about implementing a similar plan in the days after Prime Day, although Crecco said it was waiting to see whether Amazon would partner again.

The rise in thefts from porches has led New Jersey and a number of states, including California, Michigan and South Carolina, to propose bills that would impose stricter penalties on package thieves. In Texas, state representatives formed a mail-theft task force in 2017 and have since passed legislation that makes certain degrees of package theft a felony.

When packages disappear, most major mail carriers agree to be liable for about $100, leaving the retailer to refund the remaining dollar amount or send a new item. Accenture finds that 70% of consumers won’t return to an online store after a bad delivery experience, which has retailers putting more pressure on logistics companies to give customers what they want, including tracking and delivery flexibility to ensure that their wares arrive unscathed.