Last November, a group of roughly 20 people rushed into a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek, California, grabbing armfuls of merchandise and sprinting to waiting cars. The video went viral. Within weeks, similar incidents hit retailers across the country. “Smash-and-grab” entered the national vocabulary.
A year later, Tennessee retailers are heading into the 2022 holiday season with those images burned into their planning documents. The National Retail Federation estimates that organized retail crime cost the industry $94.5 billion in 2021, up from $90.8 billion the year prior. Tennessee is not immune. In fact, the state’s geographic position along major interstate corridors (I-40, I-65, I-24) makes it a natural transit route for stolen goods moving between regions.
For security firms, the holiday season has always meant temporary staffing increases. This year, the asks are bigger, the contracts are longer, and the money is real. Retailers who once considered security a necessary expense now treat it as a revenue protection strategy. The shift changes how firms operate and who they need to hire.
Memphis Malls Prepare for the Worst
Wolfchase Galleria, the largest enclosed mall in the Memphis metro area, began ramping up security staffing in mid-October. The mall’s management company, Brookfield Properties, typically adds 15-20 security officers for the holiday period. This year, that number reportedly jumped to 30-35, according to officers working at the property.
The increase reflects both theft concerns and an elevated threat environment. Wolfchase has dealt with fights, shootings in or near the parking lot, and at least one armed robbery inside the mall over the past two years. Shoppers who once visited freely now check social media for incident reports before making the trip. Foot traffic has declined, and retailers inside the mall blame the perception of danger as much as actual incidents.
Oak Court Mall in East Memphis presents a different profile. Smaller and more upscale than Wolfchase, Oak Court has historically had fewer security incidents. Its clientele skews older and wealthier. Still, the mall added security officers for the 2022 holiday season and installed additional cameras in parking areas. Two retailers inside the mall told me they’ve added their own loss prevention staff on top of what the mall provides.
Carrefour at Kirby Woods, Laurelwood Shopping Center, and Saddle Creek (all open-air retail centers in the Memphis suburbs) face a different challenge. Open-air designs mean no controlled entry points. Anyone can walk into any store from any direction. Security at these properties relies on mobile patrols, visible officer presence, and camera coverage rather than the bottleneck screening possible at enclosed malls.
Nashville’s Broadway Problem
Nashville’s Lower Broadway is the city’s economic engine and its biggest security headache. The strip of honky-tonks, bars, and restaurants between First Avenue and Fifth Avenue generates enormous tourism revenue. It also generates fights, public intoxication, property crime, and periodic violence that threatens the area’s reputation.
During the holiday season, Broadway’s foot traffic increases by an estimated 25-30% above its already packed baseline. Bachelorette parties, holiday tourists, and New Year’s Eve crowds pack the street. Bar owners, restaurant operators, and hotel managers all increase security spending.
Several Broadway establishments employ their own door security, typically large men who check IDs and manage crowds. The quality varies enormously. Some venues use licensed, trained security officers from reputable firms. Others hire unlicensed bouncers through informal channels. Metro Nashville PD has cited multiple Broadway establishments for using unlicensed security personnel over the past two years.
The Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation has quietly encouraged downtown businesses to professionalize their security operations. The argument is brand protection: one viral video of a brawl on Broadway can undo millions in tourism marketing. Whether that encouragement translates into actual spending depends on individual business owners, many of whom are already absorbing rising rent, labor costs, and inflation.
Organized Retail Crime: The Supply Chain of Theft
Organized retail crime (ORC) is not shoplifting. Shoplifting is an individual stealing for personal use. ORC involves coordinated theft by groups that steal merchandise for resale. The stolen goods enter secondary markets through online platforms, flea markets, and sometimes legitimate-appearing storefronts that fence stolen inventory.
Tennessee’s position along I-40 (connecting Memphis to Nashville to Knoxville) and I-65 (connecting Nashville to Alabama and Kentucky) makes the state a natural corridor for ORC operations. Goods stolen in Memphis can be in Nashville within three hours or in Atlanta within six. The ease of transport means that Tennessee retailers face theft pressure from both local criminals and organized rings passing through.
Memphis has been particularly hard hit. Target, Walgreens, and Dollar General have all reported elevated shrinkage at Memphis-area locations. Target closed its Raleigh store in January 2022, citing “theft and organized retail crime” as contributing factors (though the company also pointed to broader business considerations). Whether ORC was the primary driver or a convenient justification for closing an underperforming store is debatable. The signal it sent to other retailers was unmistakable.
Hamilton Place Mall in Chattanooga, the largest shopping center in Southeast Tennessee, invested in security upgrades ahead of the 2022 holiday season. The mall added license plate reader cameras at parking lot entrances, a technology that allows security to flag vehicles associated with prior incidents. The system doesn’t prevent theft. It creates a record that law enforcement can use after the fact. Chattanooga PD has stationed officers at Hamilton Place during peak shopping hours on weekends, a resource commitment that reflects both the mall’s economic importance and the frequency of incidents there.
The Guard Hiring Crunch
Every security firm I spoke with for this article described the same problem: they can’t find enough guards for holiday retail contracts.
The numbers are simple and grim. Tennessee’s unemployment rate sat at 3.3% in September 2022. Amazon’s Memphis-area fulfillment centers are hiring at $17-19 per hour. FedEx’s Memphis hub pays similar rates. Fast food chains have pushed starting wages to $14-15 per hour. A security firm trying to staff a holiday retail post at $13-14 per hour is competing for the same workers and losing.
Some firms have raised wages for seasonal positions. $16-18 per hour for unarmed retail security is now common for holiday work. Armed officers at high-risk sites command $22-28 per hour. The wage increases help with recruitment. They also eat into margins that were already thin.
The quality question looms over all of this. When firms are desperate to fill posts, hiring standards slip. Background checks get expedited. Training gets compressed. Officers who wouldn’t have been hired in a normal labor market get uniforms and assignments because the alternative is telling a client that their store won’t have security coverage on Black Friday.
TDCI requires that all security officers hold valid registration, complete pre-assignment training, and undergo background checks. Enforcement of these requirements is uneven. During peak hiring seasons, the gap between what the law requires and what actually happens widens. Firms that cut corners risk TDCI sanctions. Firms that don’t cut corners risk losing contracts to competitors who do.
Balancing Security Costs with Retail Margins
Retail operates on razor-thin margins. Grocery stores run at 1-3% net profit. Clothing retailers average 4-7%. When a retailer spends $5,000-$15,000 per month on security for a single location, that cost comes directly from an already narrow profit margin.
The math forces difficult decisions. A mid-size retailer with 10 Tennessee locations that adds one security officer per store during the holiday season (roughly $4,000 per store per month at $16/hour) is looking at $40,000 in additional monthly expense. That money could fund marketing, inventory, employee bonuses, or store improvements.
Retailers justify the expense through shrinkage reduction. If a store loses $8,000 per month in theft without security and $3,000 per month with security, the guard pays for himself. The calculation is straightforward on paper. In practice, measuring the deterrent effect of a security presence is imprecise. A guard standing at the entrance probably prevents some theft. How much is difficult to quantify.
Loss prevention directors I spoke with described a shift in how they present security budgets to corporate leadership. Five years ago, security was classified as an overhead expense to be minimized. Now it’s increasingly framed as revenue protection. The distinction matters for budget approval. “Overhead” gets cut during tight years. “Revenue protection” gets funded because the alternative is losing more money to theft than you’d spend on guards.
What Retailers Are Actually Doing
Walking through Tennessee’s major retail centers in late October gave me a ground-level view of holiday security preparation. The visible changes from prior years are real.
At a Walmart in Nashville, a uniformed security officer stood near the self-checkout area. This store didn’t have a dedicated security officer last year. The officer told me he’d been hired through a staffing agency specifically for the November-January period.
At a Target in Cordova, locked display cases now cover electronics, health and beauty products, and even some household items that were previously on open shelves. Locked merchandise reduces theft. It also reduces sales. Customers who can’t touch a product or who have to wait for an associate to unlock a case often walk away.
At Wolfchase Galleria, security officers carried radios and wore visible body cameras. Two years ago, mall security at Wolfchase was a single officer at an information desk. The escalation is striking.
The holiday season will test all of this. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and the weeks leading up to Christmas represent the highest-volume and highest-risk period for retail. Security firms have hired. Retailers have budgeted. The cameras are on. Whether it’s sufficient depends on how many people show up with the intention of stealing, and whether the guards making $16 an hour are willing to confront them when they do.
December will answer the question. Retail margins don’t leave room for a second guess.