Does King County have the most retail theft? Nordstrom believes so

Is King County the worst region for retail theft in the entire nation? It is, according to Erik Nordstrom, the CEO of the American luxury department store chain Nordstrom.

During a summit on retail crime, Nordstrom, based in Seattle, claimed the stores located in King County are responsible for approximately 10% of its companywide losses due to theft, despite being just 3% of the luxury department store retailer’s entire global footprint, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal.

“We’re born and raised here and huge homers when it comes to anything local,” Nordstrom said at the summit. “Unfortunately, King County is our worst area for this. It’s a big financial headwind.”

More on retail theft: Retail Crime Unit makes first prosecution in $50k retail theft case

Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison both attended the summit.

Last year, Eric Nordstrom said the losses Nordstrom was suffering were reaching “historical highs.” Retail theft has been one of the most common crimes throughout the U.S. over the past five years, with rates of shoplifting increasing by 24% during the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s mid-year crime report. The report found retail theft was occurring at a 10% higher rate than pre-pandemic levels.

Washington leads all states in terms of volume of retail theft, according to data from the FBI and Crime Data Explorer obtained by Storeganise, finding the state has 3,510 cases of commercial theft for every 100,000 businesses. New Mexico and Nevada were the next closest states.

The counter to this rapid increase? Increasing spending for anti-theft resources by 65%.

“Having trained security guards, there is more that they can do, but we don’t want bullets flying around,” Nordstrom said. “If the bad guys are willing to push it past a level that the retailer or the security guard is willing to go, that’s tough. It’s hard to know what to do with that.”

But the rise in these instances turning violent is also increasing. Less common with clothing retailers compared to cannabis shops, are smash-and-grab robberies — where a storefront window is smashed in with an object, such as a brick or a rock, so robbers can go in and grab whatever they can, fleeing before police respond to the scene — have run rampant throughout the region.

More on smash-and-grab robberies: Smash-and-grab burglars crash into 14 vehicles during Green Lake heist

Even apprehending a shoplifting suspect comes with hurdles, as the suspected individual can only be held for a matter of hours in certain situations. If police don’t respond in time, the security team and the store have to let them go.

“I think brazen is the right word, and with that is acts of violence — the amount of shoplifters who are weaponized,” Nordstrom said, according to The Puget Sound Business Journal. “It could be a gun, knife, pepper spray a lot of times, but also just using their fists.”

According to The New York Times, the family behind the 123-year-old department store is offering $3.8 billion to take Nordstrom private after reporting strong second-quarter earnings. Company shares are up around 25% this year, but overall, shares are down around 27% over the past five years.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.