WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE END OF THE SELF-SERVICE DEPARTMENT STORE?

It's the predictable breakdown of bourgeois norms, yes, but it goes beyond the shoplifters themselves.

To New Yorkers at least, it may feel as if everything is behind showcases already. We know all too well the humiliating ritual of hailing a sales associate to retrieve a topical hair-regrowth treatment, lube, or ice cream from behind locked Plexiglas. The loss-prevention method reached high comedy when someone tweeted a photo of a tin of Spam protected by a translucent security box. Even the Reverend Al Sharpton has had enough, pleading with Mayor Adams on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last year, “Eric, they’re locking up my toothpaste!”

Whether the crisis is real or the continuation of a long-standing trend remains up for debate. Every generation goes through a shoplifting panic, and comprehensive data on this frequently unreported crime is nearly impossible to come by. But [diamond district pawnbroker Roni] Rubinov’s crew offers a window into how the shoplifting industry has evolved over the past decade in ways that have made it more visible and more pervasive. Scratch the surface of an operation like his and you’ll find a criminal enterprise in which nearly everyone, from the world’s biggest corporations to the most oblivious online bargain hunters, plays a part.

That is, the demand for sholplifting services is a derived demand.  Some things you can't make up, but keep reading.

If you’re a New Yorker, you might have bought a cup of coffee from a midtown cart that brews exclusively stolen beans or have eaten an Italian sub from a bodega that uses pilfered salami. If you shop online, the likelihood that you’ve purchased stolen merchandise is even higher. Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and others have made it easier than ever to anonymously set up shops like Rubinov’s Treasure-Deals-USA. Fences have never had it so good.

To the extent that there has been a nationwide spike in shoplifting, it correlates to the growth of online retail. As one cop told the Journal, Amazon “may be the largest unregulated pawnshop on the face of the planet.” The problem likely got worse during the pandemic, as more people relied on online shopping and the number of sellers using online marketplaces grew.

It's not confined to New York, if the article is reliable.  Perhaps it has come to the new middleman being one of these "boosters" marking up from a very low price for resale online.