CaratShoplifting falls 12.4%, and the fraud desk fills up
The National Retail Federation's 2026 study has shoplifting incidents down 12.4% and merchandise theft down 8.1%, while 69% of retailers report rising phone scams and 42% report gift-card fraud.
§1Theft down, losses up.
The theft numbers improved and the loss numbers did not, which is the whole of the 2026 retail crime picture in one sentence. The National Retail Federation's Impact of Retail Theft and Violence study, published in late July, found shoplifting incidents down 12.4% in 2025 and merchandise theft down 8.1% against 2024. Against that, 69% of retailers reported an increase in phone scams, 42% reported growth in gift-card theft and fraud, 40% reported organised retail crime driving shoplifting, 36% reported rising cargo and supply-chain theft, and half reported more repeat offenders. Jewellery, gold and watches rank among the categories generating the highest dollar losses to organised groups.
The jewellery-specific series says the same thing in harder numbers. The Jewelers' Security Alliance annual report, published in May, counted 1,233 crimes against United States jewellery firms in 2025, down 13% from 1,420. Total dollar losses rose to $144.7 million from $142.5 million. On-premises burglaries fell 14% to 262 and robberies were flat at 218. Fewer incidents, each one more expensive, is the same divergence the federation found across all of retail, and it is what happens when casual theft declines while organised theft does not.
§2Fewer incidents, each more expensive.
The violence line is the one that should change behaviour. Robberies involving guns, mace or vehicles rose to 27% of the total in 2025 from 17% in 2024. Incidents involving mace or pepper spray went from 3 to 14. Vehicles driven into stores during or shortly after trading hours went from none reported in 2024 to 13. Crimes at jewellers' own homes rose from 4 to 11. Two people in the industry died in 2025, against four the year before. Scott Guginsky of the alliance framed the priority in six words: "Jewelry can be replaced. Human lives can't."
Fewer incidents, each one more expensive
§3The exposure left the display case.
For an independent the practical exposure has migrated away from the display case. A phone scam, a fraudulent gift-card transaction or a diverted shipment does not require anyone to enter the shop, does not appear on the security camera, and is frequently written off as a bad debt rather than logged as a crime, which means the true figure sits above the reported one. The categories growing fastest are precisely the ones least likely to be counted, and a 12.4% fall in shoplifting is not evidence that the total is falling.
The declining headline is the dangerous part of this data set, because a jeweller reading only the first line will conclude the risk is receding at exactly the point the loss per incident is rising and the weapons are more common. Insurance schedules, opening procedures and shipment verification should be written against the second and third paragraphs of these reports, not the first. Two deaths is a better year than four and is not a good year. The correct reading of 2025 is that the trade got hit less often and hurt more each time.
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