According to The Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, which represents over 11 000 member companies in the retail, wholesale and manufacture of consumer goods, the financial losses suffered relating to the robberies in April amounted to R391 993 - a significant decrease of 89% when compared to the R3.53 million in April 2009. This indicates an average of R28 000 loss per robbery in April 2009.
Burglary incidents, however, increased 37% during April this year to 37 from 27 last year. Financially this resulted in losses amounting to R1.9 million from 1.1 million last year, an average of R50 954 loss per burglary.
Gauteng was the high-risk province with nine robbery incidents amounting to a loss of R213 532. Gauteng had 14 robbery occurrences in April resulting in a financial loss of R675 499.
The Western Cape followed closely with 11 incidents, while the Eastern and Northern Cape experienced three incidents each.
Losses resulting from cash-in-transit amounted to R231 000 for the month of April.
Michael Broughton, Director of the Consumer Goods Council's Crime Prevention Programme, said there was a lot of publicity given to armed robberies last August with the notion that retail crime statistics were on an upward trend.
"Our view at the time was that it was a spike rather than an upward trend, and this has been borne out by the year end statistics," Broughton said.
In spite of the rise in crime during June, July and August 2009, retail crime statistics have remained steady since December and are continuing to decrease gradually.
When comparing the months March and April 2010, there were nine robberies in March at shopping centres with a financial loss of R897 744 and 10 in April with a loss of only R317 416.
Robberies which were targeted at stand alone shops in March were seven with a financial loss of R138 638 and only four in April with a loss of R74 532.
"We have focused on a range of measures to make our members' stores less attractive to robbers.
"This has paid dividends in that not only have the number of incidents decreased, but the average financial loss per incident has dropped dramatically - in some instances five or six robbers got away with less than R1 000," Broughton said.
He added that South African Police Services has formed a partnership with the Consumer Goods Council and its members to tackle crime related issues within the retail industry and develop strategies to reduce crime levels going forward.
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