Almost a quarter of the UK’s population has been shopping in the past 12 months, the survey indicates

Almost a quarter of the UK population has been a witness for shopping in the last 12 months, a poll suggests.

The figure is the equivalent of over 16 million people who see such an event, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) -opinium survey.

He also found that 23 % of customers witnessed the physical or verbal abuse of the store staff, including racial or sexual abuse, physical aggression or threats.

Customers in Nottingham saw the most shopping, with 32 %of people who attended an incident, followed by London at 29 %, Southampton (28 %) and Leeds (26 %).

Plymouth and Belfast presented the lowest incident rate at 12 %and 13 %respectively.

The survey follows a record level of retail crime in the UK last year, including 20 million incidents of theft and violence and abuses up to over 2,000 reports per day.

Separately, the trade union of USDAW produced their own poll that suggests that 77 % of the retail personnel suffered abuses, 53 % were threatened and 10 % assaulted.

The retail crime cost 4.2 billion pounds last year, including 2.2 billion £ 2.2 billion and another 1.8 billion pounds spent for crime prevention measures, such as CCTV, security personnel, anti-type devices and rooms worn by the body, BRC said.

The draft law on crimes and police propose a separate offense of aggressing a retailer with a maximum penalty of six months and also proposes to eliminate the low value of 200 pounds for sale, which means that the maximum sentence for the theft of the store will be seven years, regardless of value.

Helen Dickinson, the executive director of the BRC, said: “Seeing incidents of theft or abuse has become a too common part of shopping experience for many people.

“While an incident can end in a few seconds, it can have consequences throughout their lives on those who experience it, causing them to think twice about visiting their local streets.

“The criminals are increasingly bold and aggressive and a decisive action is needed to put an end to it. The draft law on crime and police is a crucial step in providing additional protection to retail workers.

“However, in its current proposed form, it does not allow all retailers to be the same protection as those who work in Scotland, where delivery drivers are also protected.

“The draft law must protect everyone in customer-oriented roles.”

The crime report of the Association of Convenient Store (ACS) 2025, published earlier this week, revealed that local stores in the UK have registered an estimated record of 6.2 million incidents of stores, up 5.6 million in the previous year.

In the last year there have been over 59,000 incidents estimated by violence in the convenient sector and 1.2 million incidents of verbal abuse.

The survey found that 59 percent of traders considered that incidents involving organized crimes have increased in the last year.