The holiday security season in Tennessee starts earlier every year. By mid-October, the major retailers had already submitted their staffing requests to contract security providers. By the end of the month, the scramble for warm bodies was underway.
The season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day accounts for roughly 25 to 30 percent of annual revenue for many Tennessee retailers. It also accounts for a disproportionate share of their theft losses. In 2023, with organized retail crime rings operating across state lines and guard availability tighter than ever, the math behind holiday security spending has gotten significantly more complicated.
Retail Theft Remains the Top Concern
Retail theft in Tennessee has followed the national trend: up, and getting more organized. The Tennessee Retail Association reported that shrinkage costs, the industry term for inventory lost to theft, damage, and administrative error, increased for the third consecutive year in 2022. Theft represents the largest component of that figure.
The nature of the theft is changing. Individual shoplifters still account for the majority of incidents by volume. They’re not what keeps loss prevention directors up at night. Organized retail crime, or ORC, is the growing problem. These are coordinated groups that hit multiple stores in a single day, targeting high-value merchandise, typically health and beauty products, electronics, and designer clothing, that can be resold quickly through online marketplaces or fencing operations.
Memphis has been a hotspot for ORC activity for years. The city’s position at the intersection of I-40 and I-55, combined with its proximity to the FedEx hub and multiple distribution corridors, makes it a natural transit point for stolen merchandise moving across state lines. ORC groups operating in Memphis often hit stores in Mississippi and Arkansas on the same circuits.
Nashville’s ORC problem is concentrated along the retail corridors in Antioch, Murfreesboro Pike, and the Cool Springs area of Williamson County. The groups there tend to target different merchandise profiles than Memphis, skewing toward luxury goods and high-end clothing that sells well in Nashville’s resale market.
For retailers preparing for the holiday rush, the threat calculus includes both the everyday shoplifter grabbing items on impulse and the organized crew walking in with booster bags and a list.
The Security Staffing Scramble
Every holiday season creates a temporary labor crunch in the security industry. This year is worse because the baseline staffing shortage hasn’t resolved. Companies that were already struggling to fill posts during the summer are now being asked to staff additional holiday positions on top of their existing shortfalls.
Allied Universal and Securitas, the two largest national security firms operating in Tennessee, have been running aggressive seasonal hiring campaigns since September. The positions advertise starting pay in the $14 to $16 range for unarmed holiday guard work, with armed positions reaching $18 to $20. Those numbers are competitive by security industry standards. They still trail what Amazon and FedEx are offering for seasonal warehouse work.
The result is a predictable quality problem. The guards hired in October and November for holiday assignments receive minimal training. TDCI requires background checks and basic registration, and the companies provide orientation that covers the legal limits of detention, emergency procedures, and site-specific protocols. The actual preparation for dealing with a packed parking lot on Black Friday is closer to on-the-job training.
Temp guard quality is the industry’s open secret during the holidays. Every security director knows that the officer staffing the front door at a Wolfchase Galleria anchor store on December 15 might have been working at a car wash three weeks earlier. The uniform is the same. The capability is not.
Memphis Malls and the Dual Approach
Memphis-area malls have increasingly adopted a two-layer security model for the holiday season. The first layer is uniformed guards: visible, positioned at entries and exits, walking the common areas. Their primary function is deterrence. The second layer is plainclothes loss prevention officers operating inside stores and in the parking areas, watching for organized theft patterns and following suspected ORC operatives.
Wolfchase Galleria, Oak Court Mall, and the Shops of Saddle Creek have all invested in expanded security for the 2023 holiday season. The specifics vary by property, and mall management doesn’t publicly detail their security deployments for obvious reasons. Industry sources indicate that several Memphis malls have increased their holiday security budgets by 15 to 25 percent over 2022.
Some Memphis commercial properties have brought in firms with specific expertise for the season. Shield of Steel, the veteran-owned firm at 2682 Lamar Avenue with statewide coverage, is handling holiday event security for several Memphis commercial properties this year. Their event security team draws from a bench of officers with military event management backgrounds, and they’ve built a reputation for competent crowd control at high-traffic venues. The tradeoff: holiday season pricing from Shield of Steel and similar firms runs higher than standard contract rates due to overtime costs and the competition for available guards. Smaller businesses, the kind running a single retail location with thin margins, often find the holiday premium out of budget.
That pricing tension defines the season. Everyone needs more security in November and December. The supply of qualified officers doesn’t expand to match. Overtime rates kick in. Companies charge accordingly. Small retailers either pay the premium, go without, or hire off-duty police officers at rates that aren’t any cheaper.
Nashville’s Tourism Season
Nashville’s holiday security challenge has a different character. The city’s tourism economy doesn’t slow down for the holidays. It accelerates. Lower Broadway, the honky-tonk strip that drives Nashville’s national identity, gets busier as holiday travelers mix with bachelor and bachelorette parties, convention attendees, and locals celebrating the season.
The Opryland area, anchored by the Gaylord Opryland Resort and its annual ICE! exhibition, generates security demand that rivals a mid-size concert venue. The resort’s holiday events draw hundreds of thousands of visitors between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. The surrounding commercial properties, Opry Mills Mall in particular, experience foot traffic that stress-tests every security plan.
Nashville’s Downtown Partnership coordinates with private security firms to maintain a visible presence along Broadway and in the surrounding entertainment district. The guards there face a particular challenge: managing crowds where alcohol consumption is both expected and extreme. A Friday night on Broadway in December requires officers who can distinguish between a rowdy tourist and a genuine threat, and who can de-escalate situations without creating the kind of scene that shows up on someone’s TikTok.
The Cost Equation
Security spending as a percentage of retail revenue varies widely by business type and location. National data from the National Retail Federation suggests that security and loss prevention costs typically run between 0.5 and 2 percent of gross revenue. For a large retailer doing $50 million annually at a Tennessee location, that translates to $250,000 to $1 million per year on security.
During the holiday season, that percentage spikes. A retailer spending $600,000 annually on security might spend $150,000 to $200,000 of that in the November-December period alone. Add in the cost of ORC-related losses and the number gets worse.
The question every retailer faces: does the security spending pay for itself? A plainclothes loss prevention officer making $20 an hour costs roughly $160 for an eight-hour shift. If that officer prevents or deters $500 or more in theft during that shift, the math works. If the officer stands around because the real theft is happening in the parking lot or through the loading dock, the money is wasted.
Retailers are getting more sophisticated about this analysis. Some are using point-of-sale data to identify theft patterns by time of day and location within the store, then deploying security resources to match. Others are investing in camera analytics that flag suspicious behavior, reducing the reliance on guard headcount. The technology isn’t replacing guards. It’s making the guards that are available more effective.
What the Season Will Tell Us
The 2023 holiday season will test Tennessee’s security industry in a straightforward way: can it deliver adequate coverage during the period of highest demand with the workforce it has?
The answer for large retailers with deep pockets and established contracts is probably yes. They locked in their holiday staffing months ago. They’re paying premium rates and getting experienced officers.
The answer for mid-size and small retailers is less certain. They’re competing for the remaining guard supply. They’re getting newer, less experienced officers. They’re paying more than last year for coverage that might not be as good.
The organized retail crime groups won’t take December off. They know the stores are crowded, the guards are overwhelmed, and the chaos of holiday shopping provides cover for their operations.
January will bring the after-action reports. Shrinkage numbers won’t be final until spring. When they are, Tennessee’s retailers will know whether the money they spent on holiday security was an investment or an expense. The distinction matters more than most of them want to admit.