Hi, I'm Ritney Saunders and welcome to Big Business, the place where business is far from boring. And today I'm recording on gaddigul Land. Now, I somehow managed to build an empire from the garage underneath my house, and I'm here to share it all with you, from the winds,
the mistakes, the challenging times, and the funny moments in between. So, whether you're in business already, perhaps you're not in the game at all, Maybe you're looking for some inspiration, or you just simply want to hear the tea, this is a podcast for you. Coming up on today's episode, I am spilling the tea. I'm talking about people stealing from my fucking shops.
Sorry for swearing straight away.
Sorry, I'm here, hi in the building.
We are talking about people stealing from fate stores, but also just about thieves in.
General and people just stealing from businesses.
Oh, this is such a gray area and I've got a lot of thoughts to share. So without further ado, let's just get straight down to business. Can people stop stealing from stores, especially smaller businesses.
You always hear.
About people stealing, especially from big corporations.
You know how they say.
Oh fuck them, like they've got enough money anyway. Let's steal from the big supermarkets and whatever. But as a business owner, I just want to say, being stolen from really fucking hurts.
Look, if we're talking about big supermarkets, I'm gonna not comment on that, but yeah.
But when it comes to the littler guys, come on, stop self made, what are you doing?
I agree with that.
Being stolen from when you own a physical business. Now, I've got five retail stores and I also have a cafe in Newcastle, all of which have been stolen from and fucking broken into and smashed. Not all of them, but our cafe has been broken into and our store has been broken into one of them. So I've experienced it in both of my businesses, at Outdo and Fate, and it's not nice.
Now.
When I first opened my first physical retail store back in twenty nineteen, I don't want to say that it was like one of the biggest concerns for me when I first opened Fate Newcastle. You've heard me say this a million times on the podcast, but I had no idea what I was doing. When I first opened Fate Newcastle in twenty nineteen. It was in the little showroom downstairs. We had our office upstairs and our warehouse just out
the back. I was there every single day. But I do remember having those conversations with aj and with my staff at the time, saying, what.
Are you going to do if people steal? Like, what are we going to do?
And do you want to know one of the most fucked up things about at Xander. There's nothing you can do.
There must be some things you can do, yeah, okay, Like if they're going to decide to steal short, they're going to.
Decide whether people like if people are going to steal, they're going to steal no matter what. There's nothing that you can physically do, okay. And again I'm kind of scared of doing this episode because I'm worried people are just going to go start fucking stealing from my shops.
Don't fucking do that, please.
But let's say Today'sander, you walked in to Fate and you just in the middle of the day, walked up to a rack, grabbed a pair of jeans, and started walking out the store. There is nothing that my staff can physically do to stop you.
Is that legally or is that a company like at a shoe.
I have a feeling it's legally. I've never like, I wouldn't even know who to contact. But from as far as I'm aware, and from like the research that I've done, like, we can't go up to someone and grab them and say give that back.
Can you lock the doors? I don't know, but I looked that up while you can talk.
I wouldn't want to put my staff in a situation where they lock the door with a thief in the store, or I would be extremely worried about then what would happen. But basically, if you own a store and someone comes in and grabs shit and walks out, you can't chase them down the street.
You can't grab them.
I definitely wouldn't lock the door because I don't want to put my staff in any type of situation where something worse could happen or where someone could get physical. But at the end of the day, if people are
going to steal, they are going to steal. And if you are going to make the decision to open a physical retail store or any kind of store where people can walk in and take stuff like however they like, it's just like one of the risks that you take and it's almost just a part of your business.
What have you found, Xander?
In Australia, if someone is stealing from a retail store, what are the legalities involved in this? Can you physically keep them in the store while you call the police?
God, I wouldn't want to do that if they, like when violent.
But let's just you know, maybe they're not violent.
Maybe like oh.
In Australia, shoplifting is considered theft under criminal law, and store owners or staff do have certain legal rights, but they must act within the law to avoid liability. What the law says, if someone is caught stealing from a retail store, the store owner or staff can make a citizens arrest.
What I did not think this was legal?
They reason if they reasonably Oh my god, guys, I'm so sorry. I have these bloody and visilins in my mouth.
In viz.
God talk today in Vizan, it says they reasonably believe a crime like theft has been committed and it's necessary to prevent the person from escaping or committing further offenses. Citizens arrest, be careful. It says, you can detain someone until police arrive, but use only reasonable force. Anything obsessive could lead to charges like.
A gray area of false prison.
Yes, do not chase or restrain someone in a dangerous or aggressive way, eg. Tackling locking doors. This could backfire legally, exactly, call the police immediately. What you can't do. You can't search the person unless they give permission. You can't detain someone just on a hunch. There must be reasonable belief a crime was committed. You cannot use violence best practice, observe and record security footage, YadA, YadA, YadA. Call the police.
Politely asked a person to wait until the police arrive, but don't block exits or physically restrain unless absolutely necessary and safe. So really, I'm right, they could just walk out.
Yes, And we have had that happen.
We have had people in broad daylight walk into the store, grabshit and walk out in front of our staff, and then our staff contact us immediately to let us know that it happened, and we watch it back on the cameras. But honestly, there's nothing anyone can do. And I think it would be a different scenario. Let's say if I was the one on the shop floor, if that fucking happened in front of me, like I would definitely be tempted to fucking chase after them or whatever, but I
know that you're not allowed. There is too many things that can go wrong if you choose to lock someone in or if you chase someone down the street. So many things can go wrong, and it's really unfortunate that people can just so easily steal.
You can actually if hypothetically you lock someone I'm reading all this now as you're talking. Still, if you lock someone in there and then that person actually hurt your staff, you could actually be liable for the staff being hurt. I'm pretty sure.
Yeah, I would not ever lock someone in.
I think it takes a certain type of person to steal, and I wouldn't want to be fucking alone in the room or in my shop with someone locked in there who was willing enough to just steal from a I'm not a small business, but you know, like a business like mine.
Yeah, but you're not Jean's West shutting down ninety stores.
But people don't give a fuck when it comes to stealing, Like if someone's got the motive of stealing, they don't give a fuck about who the.
Business is, how hard the person's worked.
And that's one of the really disheartening things about being stolen from and it really does feel personal, But those people don't give a fuck.
And another way of viewing this is you have no idea what circumstances that person is stealing under.
That's very true as well.
I always think like people are so quick to condemn people who steal, but you have no idea the financial position they're in. You have no idea if they're a young person being forced and they're being provided for, yeah, or yeah, they're being forced to by someone else.
So many factors at the end of the day, like as a business owner and a business, someone else's personal standpoint in life, financial or whatever doesn't really have anything to do with me or us as a business. If you're still from my business, you're stealing from my business. But I do understand, like everything comes down to circumstance.
But I don't know. I don't have.
Any positive feelings about people who steal, no matter their circumstances.
Again, like, but.
This is just from me and my business, you know, Like if you're walking into fat and you're stealing my clothes, I'm like, fucking come on.
But then it's a whole other ballpark.
If someone is stealing food because maybe they don't have any food on the table at home. And I'm not want to comment on that whatsoever, and I don't want what I'm saying to be taken in any type of way, But in the times that we have been stolen from it is really upsetting. But at the end of the day, what matters the most is my staff and their safety above anything else.
Like I don't want to.
Encourage theft on this podcast, but like, take the fucking genes. As long as my staff are safe, that's what matters to me.
Has there been like how many times can you count on your hand that this has occurred and you known about it?
Like four times?
Yeah, But that's what I'm aware of, you know, I'm sure it happens a lot more. And I think when you're opening a physical store with physical stuff in it that people can steal, it's just like a part of it that you just have to come to accept.
Have your staff in those moments said something.
We've never had staff say anything to people stealing on the spot, maybe because they didn't notice at the time or it happened so quickly, but I would never expect my staff to say something.
No, but has it always been known to the fact?
Yeah? Notice always after the fact, and.
How do you how do you find that out? Is someone looking back on the cameras.
Or or they noticed it at the last minute when they see someone walking out the door and they've got like clothes in their hands kind of thing, or if something's gone missing that they knew was definitely there, then we like watch it back kind of thing. And the sad thing is like someone stealing from a business like mine, Like the police don't give a shit about that kind of stuff. No, like when our paramount of store got broken into, Like I've heard nothing from.
That, Yeah, because how do you identity? Like you can see them on the camera, but how do you track them down?
Well, they had our iPad that they stole, and the iPad find my iPhone was at the house of the person. But the police said to me, oh, we know that area and we know that block of units, like there's a lot of problems that happen there. But like I wouldn't know what door it is, so like whatever, like, and the iPad is just fucking there. I still need I need to look it up and see if it's still there. Like that there's nothing that they can do. And even still like people could steal from a business
and like they'll just get a slap on the wrist. Yeah, it'd be like give the stuff back and a slap on the wrist, Like it's actually fucked.
Now. You see a lot of like clothing stores and like places like actually I don't even know they do it anymore, but like places like came out a target and that they used to always have the security tags like pinned on. Do a lot of places still do that? And do you do that?
No? I don't do that.
We figure and again, like I still have moments where I think should we security tag all of our things? We figure, if someone's going to steal, they don't give a shit if it's got that little plastic thing on.
It because they could run anyway once it goes off.
Yeah.
Yeah, And also there's probably devices that you can buy on Amazon that easily clip those things off. Like if someone's gonna steal, they're gonna steal no matter what. So security tagging every single thing we have done the maths on like just how much work that takes of physically putting it on every single one, and then also how many times have you been to a store and bought something and got home and it still has the fucking tag on it and the staff forgot to take it off.
And we've weighed up the disappointment of that happening, because when you're talking at the counter, like you can just forget or whatever and put the item in the bag with the security.
To me, I've had to like pry it off with all the strength in the world. Yeah, with every gadget at.
Home, and the amount of times that would probably accidentally happen, and then customers would be disappointed, maybe they would come to us with a scathing email or leave us a bad review because they had an event that night and they had to wear it, but then they couldn't wear it. Like, We've weighed this up so many times, and then I've thought, oh, we could even just have it on certain items, you know, like maybe our more premium items or our more expensive items.
But people are going to steal regardless of that. Like someone with the mentality of I'm going to go shop lift today, they don't give a fuck, Like they're going to steal no matter what. Just because it has a little plastic tag on it doesn't mean, oh, I'm not
going to steal that because they don't care. I think what we can do as business owners is obviously equip our staff make them aware that stealing does happen every single day in businesses all around the world and all around Australia, and it's all about your staff just being super attentive. But even then, if someone comes in and our staff is following them around, if people want, they can just grab something in front of our staff and
run for the door. It doesn't make a difference. But I guess you can, to a certain extent, try to make a thief feel a little bit more uncomfortable, to say, like, I'm watching you, and I can see what you're doing, and you can hope that that will deter them, and you can set up your store so that everything is
kind of in view. I think one of the reasons why we probably see so much more shoplifting in massive stores like Kmart and big w and Coals and Woolies is because there's so many places to hide, you know, behind little racks and everything the store is so big, Whereas I think one of the advantages with having our stores, which are more boutique, he is like there's no way you can really hide in our stores, Like if you're walking around the store, the staff can see you kind
of thing. So I think that would definitely eliminate some theft because people think, oh, I can't shove this in my bag because everyone's looking at me, you know. But that's all you can really do is just be aware that theft does happen. It's just a shitty, sucky part of business that you cannot avoid and it's dumb. But like you would hope that you would put faith in humanity that people wouldn't steal, which you can't. Really they put faith in humanity people still, no matter what, isn't.
It crazy that like only like one hundred and something years ago, if you stole a loaf of bread, that'd like deport you. Really, Yeah, that's how we got convicts here. You stole a laf of bread, that send you to Australia to work, yeah, in the colonies. And now you steal a piece of clothing, like, well we just have to let them go.
Yeah, like it's a crime, but it's not.
Yeah, like you would have to probably to actually get in trouble, like really fuck up someone's whole store.
Smash shit and then be identical.
Even man, they've already done that to your store once, you know what I mean.
Like, it's a really shitty and tough part of business. It's one of those things that you just kind of have to cop on the chin and just have your staff be super attentive and aware of everything that's going on in the store. But at the end of the day, it is a really gray area and there's not much
that we can do from our point of view. I wish we could have some sort of system that detects when someone steals and metal bars go up and it locks our staff in one little section and the thief in another section, like on the Sims when you would lock someone in the room door and then the police would come and then they would get in trouble. But that's not how the world works, and unfortunately the police are dealing with situations a lot larger than someone's stealing
fucking genes from fate. It is something to be super mindful of for all of you business owners out there. If you do want to go into owning any kind of physical space that theft may happen, what security measures could you recommend to putting in place, because thievery doesn't just happen.
Thievery that's a word I know, well, I like it.
Thievery doesn't just happen in the daytime when the stow's running, as you know, it happens when the staw's closed.
Yeah, So the most that you can do there is like make sure that you have like a strong, secure door and locks and dead bolts and all that kind of stuff, a good security system. The system that we use in our home and all of our businesses is hik hick Vision or hike Vision. They're the cameras that we have. They're like the best ones that you can buy. They're the highest quality an alarm system. And locking all of your like valuable valuables away in the safe, including
like your cash register and stuff like that. Obviously, you can't put all your stock away at the end of the day, so that's always going to be out in the open. But yeah, just locking everything up as securely as you can. But again, like if someone has the motive of smashing in a glass window, they're gonna fucking
do that, and it's really disappointing. But that's honestly just life and the way the world works, and I get asked this question all the time, like how do you deal with people stealing, and like it's just one of those things that you quite literally and sadly have to cop on the chin. And no matter how many security measures you take and all the things that you put in place, if someone has the motive to steal, they're going to a thief is a thief, and like, fucking shame on them.
Don't steal from businesses.
It is really hard at the end of the day, Like you said earlier, Xander that like everyone has a different situation. We don't know the circumstance in which someone is stealing, like they could be forced to be stealing in I don't know, and I am mindful of that, and I do feel kind of bad that people do have to steal. And it's a whole different topic to
steal clothes compared to stealing food. And like you hear people all the time like, fuck it, let's steal from the big supermarkets, you know, like they make so much money out of us. And I can't comment on that because I don't own a supermarket, but I think I am the voice to speak on behalf of all smaller business owners out there. I know I'm not a small business technically anymore, but I still like am a solo owned business in Australia. Don't steal from these small businesses.
Like I know, things are fucking ex expensive and you might really want something or I don't know, but like a lot of hard work and sweat, blood, tears, everything in between goes into owning businesses, as you would know, and like owning stores, and it's just so expensive and like you put your heart and soul into it, So it really does hit personally and hard when someone steals from you, and it feels like, you know, fuck, like I've done all this work and someone just walk in
and fucking steal from me. Like it does hurt, but it is unfortunately just a part of life and it's a risk that we take when we choose to have a physical retail store.
Watch your tip of the week for this episode, don't steal lock them in.
I wish that we could, honestly, I'm just picturing the Sims when I would make a house and remove all the doors.
Like a like a plastic dome comes down.
I wish that could be.
Could you do that on the Sims, Like when the robber came in, you could pause, and you.
Used to be able to but then when like I think you could in Sims one. I always used to do that, but then I think, like Seems two and three stop from you.
Yeah, I think because I was still young, I actually used to cry because I don't know what it was. It was just like scary, and I was.
Like, do you remember the Siems like the music when the burglar war comes like it was scary. Yeah, But I wish that we could do that because I would love to fucking if someone's stealing from me, I would love to trap them and give them a piece of my mind from me personally as the store owner.
If someone was stealing in front of me, I don't want to sit out of them, but you can't do that.
But personally, I would love to chase them down the street and fucking deckham because that's my fucking stuff that you're stealing, the same way if someone was stealing from your house, you'd want to chase them down the street.
Oh, I'd be bloody if they give.
Me back my cat.
You know I'm not the cat.
Yeah, imagine someone's stealing your cat.
That's how I feel when someone steals my gene, but you can't because you can get in trouble.
And I could end up in jail because I bash someone for robbing my store. I don't really want to do that. But yeah, be safe out there people.
At the end of the day, what matters the most is the safety of your staff one hundred percent. And I would rather my staff be safe than be worrying about a pair of jeans I love. I'll just keep referencing jeans like it's just a really hot item at fate. And to any thieves out there, like, I'm sure people that steal aren't fucking listening to this podcast.
They probably are, I hope they probably are.
I hope not.
But don't steal from business, please please don't. Anyway, that's all for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you for not stealing from me or any other business I don't want. I was really worried during this episode that people are going to go steal.
Yeah. She kept like, you won't know this because I've edited it. She kept pausing, being like, I really worried about twenty this episode, and I was like.
I don't want people to be like, well, she said that we can just steal, so fuck it, here we go.
Nobody didn't say that next minute there's gonna be a rampage of people stealing because they said they hurt on big business that you.
Can just dial.
Well, they'll have to deal with me and me.
Chasing you down the street anyway. That's all until my next episode. And remember to chase after your dreams. As if though I'm chasing you down the street, say and give me back by Jeans and Xander's Cats