At first, I didn’t know what has happening. I was popping into a Tesco Express in Glasgow to pick up some bits and pieces and strolled through the automatic doors – or tried to. The doors stayed shut and an alarm went off. I stood there for a second before someone in the shop pressed a button and the door opened. I asked one of the staff why it was locked and they told me: “to keep people out”.

Something similar happened at a hardware store a few days later, again in Glasgow. It’s one of my favourite shops because in the window they have the ends of four large garden forks shaped into candles (if you know, you know). It’s a brilliant little store, but something similar was going on at the door. It was locked and there was a sign saying ‘press bell’. I did and they let me in and the explanation was the same as at Tesco’s: they now have to keep some people out.

These are not isolated incidents either. When the Tesco Express I visited doesn’t have its doors locked, they have a security guard on duty, and it’s the same at other stores all over the city and in other cities: Tesco, Co-op, Asda, security guards at the door have now become a common sight. I even encountered one the other day at a British Heart Foundation charity shop for goodness sake: there at the door was a burly guy with a hi-vis vest and a no-nonsense face and presumably the British Heart Foundation and others are doing it because they feel they have no choice.

The statistics back them up. Shop-lifting has always been an issue – so much so that retail businesses have a term for it, “shrinkage”, and build it into their figures – but something else has been going on in recent years. Between 2023–24 and 2024–25, recorded shoplifting in Scotland increased by 16% to 44,730 incidents. Shoplifting rates have also increased for the last four consecutive years and are now at the highest level since records began in 1971. Luke McGarty of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation says in the worst cases staff are forced to put up with multiple........

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