It is quite disturbing to stroll inside a closed Target in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. The windows are covered with paper. Still pinned to the door is a handwritten message from a frequent customer expressing gratitude to the staff. The shelves inside were painstakingly cleared, stripped aisle by aisle in the orderly manner that shop liquidations take, rather than being emptied in a frantic rush. The company’s news release did not completely address whether shoplifters or a spreadsheet caused this specific store to close. This tale is really about that ambiguity, which was mirrored in nine Target closures in 2023 and a continuous murmur of similar decisions at other retailers.
Target’s story was coherent and unambiguous. Theft has gotten out of hand. The first five months of 2023 saw a 120% increase in violent occurrences over the previous year. Workers were being intimidated. The corporation frequently referred to the state of affairs as “unsustainable.” Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, openly warned that prices would increase and stores would close if theft did not decline. Criminals and, implicitly, localities with lax enforcement were held directly accountable by the framing. It was a politically plausible story that garnered a lot of public sympathy and media attention.
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Target Closures (2023) | Nine stores closed citing “theft and organized retail crime” — majority located in major urban markets |
| Theft Incident Increase | Target reported a 120% rise in violent theft incidents in the first five months of 2023 compared to the prior year |
| CNBC Investigation Finding | Most closed Target stores had lower reported crime rates than nearby Target locations that remained open |
| Industry Theft Cost Growth | Retail theft costs rose 16% between 2021 and 2022, outpacing comparable sales growth across major chains |
| Walmart Position (2025) | No plans for mass closures; strategy focused on store remodeling, advanced security technology, and digital growth |
| Broader Retail Context | Thousands of physical store closures annually driven by e-commerce growth and declining foot traffic, not theft alone |
| Walmart CEO Statement | Doug McMillon warned publicly that persistent theft would result in price increases and store closures if unaddressed |
| Further Reference | Retail industry data and store closure tracking at National Retail Federation |
After that, CNBC went to examine the crime statistics. Investigators’ findings after looking at the nine stores’ claimed incident rates Contrary to what the official story had implied, Target closed while surrounding locations stayed open. In fact, compared to similar Target locations in the same cities that continued to operate, the majority of the closed shops had lower reported crime rates. The fact that theft was a problem and was obviously on the rise in the retail sector was not conclusively refuted by that conclusion.
However, it brought up an unsettling question: if theft was the main factor, why were establishments with higher theft rates remaining open while others with lower theft rates were closing? The majority of analysts came to the conclusion that underperformance—low foot traffic, high operating costs, and sites that had never fully worked economically—was the primary cause of the closures, with thievery serving as a convenient and widely accepted justification.
The story is actually confusing since it’s feasible that both of these things are true at the same time. Real margins were impacted by the 16% increase in retail theft charges between 2021 and 2022. The recognized issue of organized retail crime, which involves coordinated groups methodically clearing shelves and reselling product, goes beyond regular stealing and is much more difficult to combat with conventional loss control techniques.
Employee safety is not a fabricated concern. Workers in stores that operate in high-incidence areas deal with challenging and occasionally hazardous situations. That isn’t invented. However, it appears that the theft story is being used selectively in ways that are more in line with profitability analysis than with crime statistics based on the pattern of which stores close and which do not.
Walmart offers a useful contrast. Instead of bailing out of sites, the company chose to invest in technology, upgrade security infrastructure, renovate stores, and grow its digital and pickup business in response to the same thieving scenario. No plans for widespread closures were made public till 2025.
According to the method, a store can find alternative ways to enhance location-level economics while accepting theft as a cost of doing business if they have enough resources and strategic flexibility. It also begs the question of whether Target’s closures were due more to the theft that publicly justified the decision than to a lack of willingness to make the necessary investments to improve failing stores.
All of this is part of a larger structural narrative that is often obscured by the thievery vs. greed controversy. For fifteen years, e-commerce has been surpassing physical retail. Since before the epidemic, foot traffic at enclosed malls and standalone big-box stores has been gradually decreasing, and the pandemic hastened behavioral shifts that have not entirely reversed.
Every year, thousands of establishments close for reasons completely unrelated to crime, such as demographic changes, lease economics, and the shift in consumer behavior toward screens. A story that places the blame on outside factors rather than internal business model pressures is appealing from a commercial and reputational standpoint in that setting. It’s difficult to ignore how easily the heist narrative closes the explanation gap that “this location was never going to work long-term” would otherwise force businesses to openly recognize.
The communities that can least afford it are the ones paying the highest price for all of this. It is rare for a comparable business to take its place when a Target or Walmart closes in a lower-class metropolitan neighborhood. The disparity in access to household products and groceries usually endures. The workers lost employment that were stable but not well paid. A portion of the commercial infrastructure in the neighborhood is lost. The repercussions fall unevenly and disproportionately on those whose alternatives were already the most constrained, regardless of the true balance of causes—theft, poor performance, or a calculated retreat from physical retail.
