this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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No they don't. They already charge as much as they think they can make money from. The price/demand curve is pretty basic microeconomics.
The whole thing is, what price maximizes the total revenue, given the supply/demand curve? Then if that revenue is high enough to pay for the costs of earning that revenue (which includes shrinkage), then the product is profitable.
Then it makes it on to shelves if it is profitable enough compared to other products, or if it will draw enough people in to buy other products to be worth losing the opportunity cost from putting that on the shelf vs something else.
So shoplifting does increase the price something needs to be to be profitable, but it doesn't do anything to raise the price people are willing to spend on it. So it'll more likely lead to closed stores, discontinued products, or added security measures (assuming those measures are less expensive than simply replacing the stolen products).
And for grocery stores, the margins are thin enough that it's more basic than in most industries.