With physical stores frequently being stolen, are American online sellers going to suffer?

According to foreign media reports, "organized retail crime" has become a serious problem in the United States.

Some professional thieves steal large quantities of merchandise from physical retail stores and sell those items to consumers for a profit . A 2020 survey by the National Retail Federation ( NRF) found that organized retail theft has increased nearly 60% since 2015, and now includes nearly $720,000 in stolen merchandise for every $1 billion in retail sales .

Previously , these items would be sold through pawn shops or flea markets , but the rise of online shopping has changed that dramatically.

Brick-and-mortar retailers complain that thieves are increasingly peddling stolen products online. In a 2020 NRF survey , 59% of respondents said they had found stolen merchandise from their company for sale on the website — a 9% increase from 2018.

Jason Brewer, a spokesman for the Buy Safe America Coalition, a retail lobbying group , said the surge in e-commerce has led to a surge in criminals selling stolen goods online , and that no online platform is doing enough to combat crime.

Online platforms have objected to this claim, with an eBay spokesperson saying: “ We have zero tolerance for criminal activity on our platform. ” Similarly, Amazon declared, “Amazon does not allow third-party sellers to sell stolen goods in our stores.”

Brewer said online platforms need to eliminate seller anonymity to combat organized retail crime. Buy Safe America   The Coalition supports the INFORM Consumer Act, which would force online platforms to authenticate “high-volume third-party sellers.”

“If online platforms had to verify the information of sellers selling on their platforms and make that information available to the public, it would become much more difficult for people to sell stolen goods , ” Brewer said.

However, this argument has also been met with opposition. The Makers and Merchants Coalition, a trade group representing third-party online sellers, has opposed the INFORM Act. It argues that "it is unnecessary to require private citizens to disclose their personal information to the public when they sell products online ."

"The INFORM Act will hurt small sellers , " Katie Wright, a spokeswoman for the group , said in a statement. "The bill does not prevent theft from physical retail stores , but it does threaten the security and personal information of small online sellers who use online platforms to sell their products. "

American e-commerce

Retail theft

Online Sellers