No. of Recommendations: 4
So you wouldn't expect shoplifting in an area to be what causes a food desert, because the things that are missing from food deserts are things that are less amenable to profitable shoplifting than the things that are still in the food desert. If the food desert still has plenty of places that are selling Tide, but is missing places that sell broccoli and zucchini, it's pretty unlikely that high rates of shoplifting Tide are what has caused this situation.
That's not how retail theft accounting works. They don't look at theft in the detergent section and say, "Let's not offer detergent because it's bringing the entire store down,". They amortize the theft across the rest of the items.
Once the losses add up to a point where the store is no longer able to be 'hidden' among the other stores, it gets shut down. Once it goes it takes the rest of the products with it.
Food deserts almost certainly aren't caused by shoplifting.
Stores close because they don't make money, period. They already operate on razor thin margins. If we go back to our Target example, to earn their ~$4Bn average they have to bring in $105Bn. That's a net margin of <4%. So something that knocks another 12% off their net income is a big deal to them.
