How has the relative ease of selling stolen goods via the Internet caused retail theft to increase?
The purchasing of discounted stolen merchandise via online marketplaces creates demand. This motivates people to steal to fill the demand, [and] I believe that this demand is creating a very large number of new thieves who use the Internet marketplace to sell the merchandise they steal. These new thieves are shifting the balance of professional shoplifters versus casual/opportunistic shoplifters, in the process creating more people who steal as professionals to make money illegitimately. How does this impact the retail economy? If we use $100 million of theft by professional shoplifters as an example, the victimized retailers had $100 million in shortage and a corresponding $100 million of lost sales. Since the retailers did not make any sales, there was no sales tax collected. This impacts local, state and federal funding. But it doesnt stop there. The Internet marketplace customers bought the $100 million worth of merchandise. Because they purchased what they needed, these customers
