Over the past year, the UK’s local shops have recorded an estimated 6.2 million incidents of shop theft, compared to 5.6 million in the previous year.
The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has released its 2025 Crime Report today (10), revealing another record level of theft committed against convenience store retailers.
Key figures from this year’s report include:
- Crime cost retailers an estimated £316m over the last year
- Retailers have spent over £265m on crime prevention and detection measures in their store over the last year
- Taken together, the cost of crime and investment in crime prevention amount to a 10p crime tax on every transaction in a convenience store
- There were over 59,000 estimated incidents of violence in the convenience sector over the last year, and 1.2million incidents of verbal abuse
- 59 per cent of retailers believe that incidents involving organised crime have increased over the last year
Behind every figure in the report is a retailer and their colleagues, working hard in a community to provide essential services but facing crime on a regular basis. Two retailers featured in this year’s report have been subject to robberies, abuse, theft and physical violence.
Amit Puntambekar, who runs a Nisa Local in Fenstanton, was attacked and injured when he attempted to challenge a thief and has been dealing with violent threats for months.
Speaking in the report, he said, “When your staff are threatened with a hammer, when someone threatens to kill you who lives near your shop and the police don’t take it seriously, what’s the point?”
Ian Lewis, who runs a SPAR store in Minster Lovell, had his store targeted by two ram raid attacks in recent months, the second of which between Christmas and New Year where thieves ripped out the stores’ cash machine.
Speaking in the report, he said, “My business was ram raided by criminals in a Land Rover and the cash machine ripped out. My parents live above the shop, I will never forget the voicemail that I got from my parents when this happened.”
The report comes as parliament considers the Crime and Policing Bill at Second Reading stage today (10). The Bill aims to introduce a separate offence for assaulting a shopworker, to scrap the £200 threshold for shop theft offences, and to increase police powers to deal with anti-social behaviour, among other measures to deal with prolific offenders effectively.
ACS has backed the Crime and Policing Bill as a long-overdue turning point on retail crime, and is urging everyone involved in the justice system, from local forces to Police and Crime Commissioners, to make tackling retail crime a priority this year.
Association of Convenience Stores chief executive James Lowman said, “The levels of theft, abuse and violence experienced by retailers over the last year makes for shocking reading, but it will not surprise our members who are living it on a daily basis.
"Criminals targeting local shops without fear of reproach cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we’re fully supportive of the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill.
"In our Crime Report, we have set out ways that retailers and the police have made a positive difference, putting in place strategies that work to keep retailers and their colleagues safer, and we need stronger legislation to back that up.
"This must be the moment we commit to ending the retail crime crisis, through Government, police and retailers working together.”
Tanwar Hussain
