Retail is a tough game. Few people will disagree with that statement. Thin margins, long hours, relentless competition and lately, in South Africa especially, a new layer of complexity. What used to be a fairly straightforward mix of pricing strategy and customer experience is now tangled with issues of safety, violence, and survival. The last couple of years have reshaped the industry. Today, running a retail store is as much about managing risk as it is about selling stock.
At Liebenberg & Associates, we've looked at incidents across the country at major chains, small franchise operators, and independent high-risk stores. One thing is clear: the threat isn’t just crime itself. It’s underestimating how professional, calculated, and fast-moving criminal networks have become.
This isn’t an article about installing cameras or hiring a security guard. If you're reading this, you're probably already doing that. We're want to talk about the vulnerabilities that hide in plain sight. About how even well-equipped systems can fail. About the uncomfortable gap between having tools and actually using them well.
Retail crime in South Africa today is not just about the occasional shoplifter or random smash-and-grab. It is an organised, coordinated economy that includes insider collusion, targeted violence, sabotage, and calculated intimidation. Criminal groups don’t just steal mindlessly. They study. They plan. They take advantage of fragmented operations, insufficient protocols, and the moments when retail teams are stretched too thin to notice what’s happening right in front of them.
We’ve all heard about cases where up to ten armed attackers entered a store with military-like precision, timed to coincide with cash reconciliation. We’ve also seen looting operations specifically coordinated around power cuts, where loadshedding became the cover for disabling gates, alarm systems, and lighting. We’ve further witnessed how mass looting can unfold in real time through social media group chats, often in response to broader protest movements, but quickly becoming a free-for-all.
In many stores the security looks good on paper. There are cameras, panic buttons, procedures, and checklists. But few stores are looking at the live feeds. Panic buttons often haven’t been tested in months. Staff conduct exit searches inconsistently or avoid them entirely to steer clear of uncomfortable confrontations. Access logs are ignored or manipulated. Managers suspect something’s off but seem to feel too unsure or too politically exposed to act on it. The tools are there, but they’re disconnected from daily operations or placed in the hands of people already drowning in other responsibilities. It’s not so much human error as what it is a system that was never built to succeed.
When we get called in, we find that the real losses didn’t start with a dramatic robbery. They started slowly, quietly, and internally. Shrinkage is often the result of a dozen small breakdowns rather than one major breach. Cash register manipulations. Inventory miscounts that are staged to look like supplier shortfalls. Fake returns processed by cashiers working with accomplices. Staff discounts used creatively and dishonestly. Expired goods swapped out and resold elsewhere. These aren’t isolated events. They’re patterns that are missed because the systems weren’t built to detect them early. And often, leadership accepts it as “the cost of doing business,” rather than seeing it as symptoms of a deeper problem.
Security must be approached differently if it will earn its’ keep, seen as a core business function, just as essential as stock control or customer service. Retailers need to focus on integrating security into daily operations, making it as frictionless as possible and human-driven where practical.
It must also be remembered that every store is different. The risks in a city centre chain store are obviously not the same as those in a rural dealer or warehouse-style cash-and-carry. That’s why it is necessary to build dynamic risk profiles that are informed by real-world data: where your store is, what the crime patterns are in that area, how the local community interacts with it, how often staff turns over, and what’s happened there before. These profiles go a long way to move from reacting to crime to anticipating it.
We cannot talk about retail security without mentioning surveillance. Every retailer knows that cameras only work if someone is paying attention. These systems need to do more than record. They must intelligently track behaviour, identify unusual activity, and alert people in real time when something seems off. If a cashier misses multiple scans in a row, you need to know about it immediately, not at the end of the week when a stock discrepancy shows up. More importantly it is important to realise that surveillance isn’t just about catching someone in the act. It’s about making sure that no one thinks they can get away with it in the first place!
Procedures are another sticky point. Plenty of stores have SOPs. But how often are those procedures followed under pressure? We have shadowed staff, simulated incidents, and tested everything, from whether someone can get into a storeroom without authorisation, to whether alarm systems actually triggered the right responses when activated. We have looked at how cash is moved, how it’s reconciled, and whether exit checks were applied fairly and consistently. If a retail team doesn’t trust the process, it won’t hold up when it matters most.
Talking about the staff. Executives often think of employees as the weakest link in the security chain, but we disagree. Employees are the first line of defence… if they’re properly vetted, well-managed, and empowered to speak up. Towards that end we help clients build hiring processes that identify risk before it walks through the door. We also promote job rotation to avoid giving too much power to one person in a sensitive role. We further install anonymous reporting channels that staff can trust. And we conduct behavioural audits, not just tracking what people do, but how they do it, and what changes over time.
Store layout also plays a huge role. At times it is necessary to redesign high-risk stores so that they will be harder to exploit. That might mean getting rid of blind spots between shelves, using mirrors or glass to improve visibility, or changing how customers move through the space to naturally reduce the chance of theft. Even the design of a cash office can be a matter of life or death - secure entries, tamper-resistant walls, and discreet exit routes can make all the difference during a crisis. Good design doesn’t just help customers shop. It helps everyone inside feel more in control, and makes criminals feel less comfortable.
Finally, we must mention violence. What happened in 2021 was a wake-up call. We saw stores being overrun, staff hiding in backrooms and infrastructure destroyed. The threat of political unrest, extortion, and community-driven disruption is real, and unfortunately ongoing. Retailers’ security preparation must include rapid response planning, lockdown drills, community engagement, and region-specific risk assessments. Protecting a retail business is about much more than guarding the till - it’s very much also about protecting people and long-term viability.
You can reach us at info@liebenbergassociates.com to discuss your retail security needs.