Retailers are being warned that theft incidents could rise by as much as 2.5 times the level seen in 2025, with Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, according to the latest analysis from SAI, a leading active intelligence solution for stores.
Consumer spending around the event is expected to reach £705 million this year – a +6% rise compared to 2025. Adoption by shoppers is also increasing, with 46% of UK shoppers planning to celebrate, rising to 78% among families.
Shoplifting forecast to surge
Data from the SAI One Platform, which analyses insight from more than 1,000 UK retail locations and inputs from over 30,000 cameras every day, showed that in 2025, when Halloween fell on Friday 31 October, shoplifting rose by +67% on the daily average. This year, with Halloween on a Saturday – consistently one of the highest-risk days of the week for retail crime – shoplifting is forecast to rise 150% year-on-year.
Partial payment, where a customer only pays for part of their basket while intentionally leaving other items unpaid, is expected to make up the majority of shoplifting attempts on Halloween (58%). This is followed by grab-and-go theft (33%) and item switching, where a shopper deliberately selects a lower-priced product at self-checkout in place of a higher-value item (8%).
Retailers urged to act
“Often regarded as the gateway to the Golden Quarter, Halloween provides retailers with an early opportunity to kick off their peak trading campaigns,” said Clare Hoole, head of UK at SAI. “But with that potential reward comes risk – and the darker side of Halloween is becoming a growing challenge for retailers wanting to capitalise on seasonal spending.”
“Surges in footfall, combined with colleagues focused on servicing busier stores, can create more opportunities for theft, while more sophisticated offending behaviours, such as partial payment, become harder to detect. Real-time visibility and intelligence that enable retailers to intervene before losses occur will be critical to protecting margins and delivering a successful spooky season trading period.”
Golden Quarter outlook
Looking ahead to the rest of the Golden Quarter, SAI’s analysis forecasts that Super Saturday (19 December), the last Saturday before Christmas and often one of the busiest in-store trading days of the festive season, will be the biggest day for retail crime, with shoplifting expected to surge +66% year-on-year.
