Santa Fe New Mexican - CONNECT
BIG BUSINESS OF RETAILCRIME
Perhaps you’ve been to CVS or Albertsons and discovered the shelves completely cleaned out of Tide PODS or noticed your favorite laundry detergent locked in cases at Target. Or maybe you’ve seen the videos — most notably one of thieves casually walking into an Albuquerque Walgreens one afternoon last fall and brazenly filling up empty backpacks with armloads of liquor, all while a fellow shopper films them. Or maybe you’ve come across some of the data documenting the rise of retail crime: in 2021, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 54 percent of small retailers reported an increase in shoplifting. That year $68.89 billion in goods were stolen from retailers across the country, equal to 1.47 percent of all sales nationwide. (New Mexico came in near the median at 1.40 percent.) According to the National Retail Federation, in 2022 organized theft cost nationwide retailers an estimated $112.1 billion.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs reports that stores catch 5 to 10 percent of shoplifters, meaning the typical shoplifter — even the well-documented thieves who robbed the Albuquerque Walgreens — is arrested rarely.
“It’s horrible now,” laments Mike Chapman, owner of the Broken Spoke bicycle store on Cerrillos. “And I don’t know if what’s being done is enough.” Chapman’s store has been broken into multiple times, as have many other bike stores in town, despite installing bars on his windows and a new alarm system. “We’re probably just one claim away from being non-renewed for our insurance.”
Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office sergeant Donnie Hix lays out a dire future if this trend continues: if unabated, retail crime is “going to drive all the commerce online and the only thing you’re going to be able to buy in a store is maybe perishables. Stores are going to lock everything up and you’ll need a [store] liaison with you to shop. Ultimately, it’s going to crush commerce.”
Rob Black, president and CEO of the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce, set up the Organized Retail Crime Association (ORCA) two years ago to combat this problem. Bridget Dixson, president and CEO of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, and many Northern New Mexico business owners join regular task force meetings. Together they’ve pushed for laws to heighten penalties for retail crimes, but most days their work revolves around simply identifying the problem’s scope and fostering connections between businesses and law enforcement.
Detective Luke Wakefield, who heads up a retail crime unit of between four and six officers for the Santa Fe Police Department, says the problem has grown since the pandemic. The Council on Criminal Justice reports that across 24 major U.S. cities, shoplifting was 16 percent higher in the first half of 2023 than in 2019. Wakefield blames drug use and homelessness for this rise. However, online resale sites, offering anonymity and ease of access, may also contribute.
Grim statistics may reveal only a fraction of the problem, because businesses suffering from retail crime tend to underreport it. On paper, retail crime in Santa Fe appears to have gone down. According to Wakefield, last year the city had 677 reported retail thefts; the year before, there were 890. “But we didn’t drop,” Wakefield says. “People are just not reporting things.”
“When we survey the retailers, only about 40 percent of them are now reporting — because they don’t have to,” says Read Hayes, a criminologist at the University of Florida, one of the country’s leading authorities on retail crime. Some stores don’t even know they’ve been ripped off, adds Hayes. “Others don’t preserve evidence or can’t afford to let their employees take off work to go to a deposition or testify, or they’re just fearful of retribution.”
Employees are also in a difficult position. Intervening in a crime in progress can be dangerous. Two-thirds of business owners the National Retail Federation surveyed in 2023 said retail crime perpetrators were more violent and aggressive than the previous year. Additionally, if an employee tries to stop someone from stealing and either party gets hurt, either or both parties can sue. So an employee may opt to let a crime occur and not intervene or report it. Then the police can’t act. As Wakefield explains, “How can I do anything? How can I send resources to a store if I have no idea this is happening? If you don’t report it, it’s like it doesn’t happen, because we don’t know about it.”
“People are deluding themselves that it’s not as big an issue as it is,” says Black. “And Santa Fe tends to look at Albuquerque as kind of
like, ‘Well, that’s just Albuquerque and it’s always going to be like that there. It’s not going to touch us.’ And while certain stores down [in Albuquerque] get hit as hard as any in the country, on the whole Santa Fe’s not that different.”
ORCA’s online digital platform for retailers and law enforcement helps stakeholders share information in real time to prevent and prosecute organized retail crime. The platform has illuminated the need for harsher punishments as a deterrent, so the association advocated for HB 234. Taking effect June 2023, the law upgraded the state’s shoplifting penalties. Prosecutors can now aggregate the retail market value of merchandise stolen from multiple retailers over the course of 90 days. This gives prosecutors the option of charging criminals with a felony (determined by the value of merchandise stolen) rather than just a string of misdemeanors for each theft. “The new law’s been super-helpful,” Wakefield says.
“We’re not just fighting crime,” Dixson says. “We’re empowering our retailers to reclaim the security of Santa Fe.”
ORCA’s interventions are vital because of the problem’s potential repercussions. As Hayes explains, “If somebody comes in each day and takes $50 to $500 of merchandise, and your margins are anywhere below 5 percent, it’s devastating. It’s financially unviable to stay open.” For smaller businesses and independent retailers like Chapman, these losses can lead to closure.
Losses through theft may be compounded by customers shopping less with brick-and-mortar retailers. “When you see that level of criminality on a regular basis, it starts to undermine your faith in the rule of law,” says Black, who cites a recent chamber survey in
which 40 percent of New Mexicans statewide said they’d witnessed someone stealing. And if criminals go unpunished, often because so many people view shoplifting as a victimless, nonviolent offense, that too erodes confidence in in-person shopping. “Customers who experience these activities become more worried about going to a store physically and so resort to shopping online, undermining our local retailers. And that online money goes out of state,” says Black.
Law enforcement says the key lies in harsher punishments, following through on prosecutions, making it harder for thieves to resell stolen items, and, as Chapman has done, beefing up security. Wakefield suggests better video surveillance and using non-pixelated cameras. Black adds that stores are now using smart shelves (if someone takes off more than a certain number of items, an alert goes off); smart shopping carts, which can’t be taken off store property without setting off an alarm; and license plate readers.
However, these security measures may also take away from shopping as a fun experience. Customers may ultimately become accustomed to such strategies — the way we’ve come to accept TSA checks, concrete barriers, and other anti-terrorism measures — but retailers may or may not survive while shoppers adapt.
Hayes advocates incorporating integrated solutions. Later this spring, he and colleagues from his Florida Engineering Experiment Station will set up their first-ever lab, in Albuquerque. “You’re going to have dozens of retailers participating with law enforcement agencies, the Albuquerque Police Department, the sheriff’s office, the state. They are all very cooperative right now,” Hayes says.
The key, though, probably comes down to communication and transparency. “Better communication creates awareness,” Hix says. “We need these businesses to recognize theft and report it properly, because then the hot spots become more evident to us.”
Collaboration is key, stresses Dixson. “Participation from local retailers is imperative for the efficacy of the program, as their firsthand experiences and perspectives are invaluable in deliberating the multifaceted challenges posed by organized retail crime,” she says. “Their active involvement is pivotal in steering the trajectory of our collective endeavors toward countering these threats.”
Business leaders share a sense of optimism. “The continued effort, the focus, and level of collaboration that’s happening now between law enforcement and the business community, it’s really unprecedented,” Black says. “It’s still a major problem, but I have a lot of hope for where we’re headed. And by continuing to lean into collaboration, and partnership with law enforcement and retailers, we can get our hands around this.”
Before 2020, women made up only 29 percent of entrepreneurs. However, the pandemic shifted this trajectory. Gusto, a payroll and HR platform, found that 47 percent of firms started in 2020 were owned by women. That trend held steady over the next two years: 49 percent in 2021 and 47 percent in 2022.
According to a 2022 survey from AARP Research, 67 percent of women who’ve started businesses since January 2020 said the pandemic contributed to their decision. Some wanted the freedom and flexibility of being their own bosses. Others expressed dissatisfaction with traditional corporate roles or a desire to pursue a passion,
Roxanna Shapouri stepped away from almost two decades in Corporate America in early 2022. Her years at Fortune 500 financial services companies as a licensed stockbroker, financial planner, and investment adviser showed her that if a traditionally male-dominated industry was ever going to function differently, she’d have to be the one to make that happen. Since founding Enchanted Financial Planning, LLC, Shapouri make a difference in their communities, or overcome financial insecurity. Although a whopping 70 percent said they faced barriers in accessing start-up capital, they chose to self-finance their ventures.
These four women entrepreneurs, some long established and others relatively new, are blazing trails in Santa Fe in retail, health, and professional services. Whether they have been leading their companies for decades or only a few months, female entrepreneurs are increasingly using their education, skills, and unique perspectives to shape the business community in Santa Fe.
has embraced a colorful, eclectic, and authentic personal style — one her corporate managers frowned upon. She offers financial planning and advice on a sliding scale fee basis, regardless of income or amount to invest.
“I wasn’t happy with how business was done. The commissions, sales bro culture, and that my last position was a bad fit clarified my views,” she says. “Because of the pandemic, I was already used to working on my own. So it was that much easier to transition to doing that with my business. I love planning and the relationships with my clients. I don’t like checking boxes, the masculine culture, and the constant ‘What have you done for me lately?’ from my bosses. My mental health took a huge hit in my last position.”
After quitting what she calls a toxic culture, Shapouri spent a month thinking about what she really wanted to do. Mentors, such as volunteer business consultants from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), helped her wrap her head around business structures and business plans. After a push from family and overcoming a battle with imposter syndrome, she now helps people understand financial planning and set investment goals.
She says, “I reintroduced myself to the community by coming back to networking — 90 percent of my business comes from referrals. When the topic of finance, money, financial planning comes up, my name being first is a measure of my success.”
Dr. Kelly Waugaman points to a moment 11 years ago when she knew she had to change her path. As a staff doctor of audiology working part-time with little say in how she treated patients, having no control over working conditions or compensation, raising two small children, and dealing with an unsupportive (and now ex-) husband, she realized she wanted more.
“I billed $25,000 on one day for them and thought, ‘Why can’t I do that for myself?’ That was my aha moment. I borrowed $150 from my mentor to open a business checking account, found a bank willing to give me a line of credit, and hung out my own shingle,” she says.
A 2023 recipient of a Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce Business Achievement Award, Waugaman now runs Eldorado Audiology and Hearing Center. The thriving practice has hired a second doctor and her current husband as office manager. She says she didn’t get any respect early on, facing hurdles from banks and from hearing device manufacturers that wanted her to carry their products exclusively.
Recently accepted into the Global C-Suite Program at the Wharton School, Waugaman is fiercely independent, choosing the most appropriate technologies and techniques for her patients. She also gives back to the community through complimentary fittings of donated hearing aids.
“Patients leave with a smile and hug. That’s satisfying to me, because my main goal is to be patient-centered,” she says. “Having a business is exhausting, requires commitment, and is literally seven days week. And no one will ever care as much about the business as I do. But this is the best thing I ever did. It gave me the flexibility to care for my children, earn respect in my industry, and own my building.”
Fostering cooperation among staff is part of Harris-Ellis’s leadership approach. She encourages employees to build relationships with customers, which she says is 90 percent listening, not selling. Her boutique relies on locals more than tourists for success, and she notes, “Santa Fe is a small community for clothing, and I’ve learned to listen to my audience at all price points.”
In today’s entrepreneurial climate, she says, women are sensing more of their own value and their voices are being heard in different ways than they were 40 years ago. “In terms of integrity, intelligence, compassion, strength, and collaboration, women can’t be beat,” she says.
As for women interested in starting or buying a business, she says success lies in being organized, knowing your numbers, doing a deep dive into the existing marketplace, and finding a way to bring something needed to the community.