New from me on Substack: Target says it is closing 9 stores due to crime but publicly available data casts doubt on their stated rationale and suggests a more complex answer. Check it out!
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I live not far from one of the stores closing. It's a smaller-footprint store which doesn't carry nearly as many products as a regular Target that I've not once seen busy in the years it's been open. You can always find a place to park right by the elevator in the garage, for example.
The one that they’re closing in SF was, iirc, one of the early “grocery” targets in the area
It’s within a couple blocks of both the Rainbow Grocery coop and a FoodsCo, so both ends of the SES are in fact covered for groceries in the neighborhood
Not too far from the Safeway on Market Street, either. Back when I lived in that area I went to Safeway and Rainbow Grocery and never thought of hiking under the overpass for Target groceries.
I didn’t even know the city had a target within the borders - we always just drove to one of the two Daly City targets. Guessing it might have gone in after our time there.
And because it is ABSOLUTELY in the middle of a fairly car-unfriendly city, the “go to target for 1 thing, walk out with an entire cart full of housewares and clothes” phenomenon wasn’t gonna happen. People without cars will use shipping, those with will drive further to the BIG targets in Daly City
Basically, the fact that they are closing one of the four stores inside SF’s 49 square miles, but not touching any of the 3 that are <10 minutes drive past the city/county line (two of which are literally across a freeway from each other) says this is about sales, not theft.
Their really small footprint urban stores seem to be more busy than their mid size locations in urban areas from my observations. The big stores with a big parking lot where it's more car accessible work fine, small stores people walk to work fine, mid size not so much.
The one that's closing is midsize. They tried to compress the normal-sized superstore into a footprint about a third of the size and... it just doesn't work. The pharmacy is fine but that's it. Too much stuff is missing to make it a worthwhile trip.
San Francisco is a particularly weird city for the sort of narratives that media likes to put out about changes in retail because it is so physically small that there are no “big stores with a big parking lot” that count as being “inside” SF.
Beating a dead horse at this point, but the store they’re closing in Oakland was terrible. Bad lay out, bad selection of products, and a terrible parking situation. Used to drive out of my way to go to the one in Emeryville instead. That doesn’t make for a good story, but it’s the truth.
I hear the same thing with pretty much all of them. Bad locations, smaller stores, fits the hypothesis that they made a bad bet at the current level of crime, not the implied argument that a surge in organized crime is forcing their hand.
Two of the Targets in PDX are former urban bowling alleys opened in the last 5 years. Terrible locations. My neighbors talked about our local one being some sort of tax shenanigans for corporate. Either that or the, "where to locate a store guy" has been fired. Probably a BIL.
"You can’t have pickpockets on Bourbon Street if there are no tourists around, so a ton of pickpockets incidents being reported can be taken as a sign of a rollicking good Mardi Gras."
That's a great example of communicating data with storytelling.
It's also an example of how a bad analogy can hide specious reasoning. It's intuitive that pickpocketing increases with the number of tourists around, but why would shoplifting work like that?
Because shoplifting only works if you have enough real customers there alongside to "blend in" with. If 50% of the people that walk into a store are shoplifters, then (aside from closing the store or some other measure), they would just assign security to follow everyone around.
So you're saying that if there aren't enough normal customers at a store that experiences a lot of shoplifting, they'd spend a disproportionate amount of money on security or maybe shut down the store?
Sounds right.
Yes, but if there aren't enough customers at a store that experiences no shoplifting they'd shut it down too. So the challenge becomes telling one from another from an outside perspective.
this dude got location-specific Target data in SF somehow when we had this whole discourse last time. I think he did it by individual incident reports, which are keyed to the nearest intersection?
What's the 3rd one again? Downtown was challenged by the usual downtown issues, but seemed to be trying to make it a go pre-pandemic. The Hollywood one: poorly lit, understocked, and had a dark underground parking lot with a hard-to-find entrance. I always drove past it to the airport mall location.
The one on 30th and Powell, another converted (barely) bowling alley.
It was the closest to me, but they never had anything useful, and the place was a disjointed dungeon they spent 30 cents a square foot to finish, at best.
That sounds a lot like the Hollywood one. It looked much nicer when it was a higher-end hardware store, but that business didn't make it either. It's just a crappy location.
That was an Orchard Supply, and before that, Timber Lanes, where my mom bowled in leagues in the 60’s and 70’s.
I spent quality time in the nursery there.
And it was awesome, with fountains and midcentury rustic splendor.
And the location is actually great; the only exit off the westbound Banfield from 82nd to Lloyd Center, with a ton of parking.
The Trader Joe’s across the street is always packed to the gills.
This is a lot like Orchard Supply, a cool hardware chain from California, which got bought out by Lowes and expanded aggressively, killing local hardware stores in the process, then bailed a couple years later, leaving empty stores and fired employees.
Prolly got a big tax write off, though.
Great info, thanks for looking into it! As a total aside, I'd like to urge you to consider moving off substack as they should not be supported (and I don't read things on there if I can help it). Just wanted to mention it: https://bsky.app/profile/anildash.com/post/3k3jxguxys22x
few things in complex systems are monocausal, so claiming crime *isn't* a factor in these shutdowns, from shallow analysis, just as misleading as fingering crime as main cause.
as you note: official counts can miss impact from unreported incidents, & severity. further, …
…
I suspect such underestimation has worsened in last few years wrt shoplifting, esp in relevant markets.
there was never a compelling reason to spend much staff time on a police report after just noticing inventory missing, or seeing a random perp dash out with unpaid items. so, …
…only some subset of the most-troubling, or best-evidenced, incidents were ver likely to be reported.
but since 2020, there's been a de facto police slowdown in the "bluest" cities – & often, also, their DAs have depriortized property-crime prosecution. so, …
…now it takes longer than before for an officer to show up – & they seem bothered & demoralized during any report, accurately communicating to citizens: this report is an perfunctory & ineffective formality. …
…
if no investigation or recovery is likely, & even perps caught red-handed face little effective follow-up penalties/confinement, then even a store proprietor with some some public-spirited interest in accurate crime measures will eventually stop going through the reporting motions. …
…
so your analysis is not being fair to business victims when it blames them for not having "taken every possible step to reduce criminal activity" – & further assuming (without evidence) that some policy means every incident is being reported. rather, …
Without access to individual store data, I'm not sure this data tells you anything. Of course, there can be many reasons why a store is closed, and there could be multiple contributing factors. Maybe there were other issues AND the amount of theft was one of those reasons that led to closing
It's just odd when people say that shoplifting can't possibly be an issue. Is every major chain locking down non perishable CPG products for fun? Are they coordinating in some sort of psyop to make it seem like crime is worse? Why would only certain stores have these anti theft measures?
So there's no store data, the vast majority of property crimes aren't reported but we can say that retail theft doesn't contribute to the decision to close a store? How does that work?
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It’s within a couple blocks of both the Rainbow Grocery coop and a FoodsCo, so both ends of the SES are in fact covered for groceries in the neighborhood
Like that target
And 53 Walgreens in 49 square miles
More than half have closed. So many bad locations not thought through.
If Tarjay is seeing a lot of shrinkage, the call is coming from inside the house.
That's a great example of communicating data with storytelling.
Sounds right.
Blame society for your bad decisions, amirite?
It was the closest to me, but they never had anything useful, and the place was a disjointed dungeon they spent 30 cents a square foot to finish, at best.
I spent quality time in the nursery there.
And it was awesome, with fountains and midcentury rustic splendor.
The Trader Joe’s across the street is always packed to the gills.
Prolly got a big tax write off, though.
as you note: official counts can miss impact from unreported incidents, & severity. further, …
I suspect such underestimation has worsened in last few years wrt shoplifting, esp in relevant markets.
there was never a compelling reason to spend much staff time on a police report after just noticing inventory missing, or seeing a random perp dash out with unpaid items. so, …
but since 2020, there's been a de facto police slowdown in the "bluest" cities – & often, also, their DAs have depriortized property-crime prosecution. so, …
if no investigation or recovery is likely, & even perps caught red-handed face little effective follow-up penalties/confinement, then even a store proprietor with some some public-spirited interest in accurate crime measures will eventually stop going through the reporting motions. …
so your analysis is not being fair to business victims when it blames them for not having "taken every possible step to reduce criminal activity" – & further assuming (without evidence) that some policy means every incident is being reported. rather, …