If you live in a city and have looked into the phenomenon of urban "food deserts", you'd know that it is affected in significant part by the low per store margin of a grocery store being eaten by security and shoplifting costs. The OP may be somewhat hyperbolic, but he's not all wrong.
Yeah... you're pretty much proving my point with a fact that is not at all new to me
In areas where people are living on the extremes of society and in poverty (most people in food deserts are from low-income families) they're driven to go against a social norm (not stealing), and that act is enough to drive out stores because of razor thin margins, and they close.
That literally shows LP is not what's keeping stores open, it's the people choosing not to steal.
The only difference affecting shrinkage between the stores that close, and the stores that stay open is the people shopping in them. As soon as the people start to steal, the store can't literally can't afford matching increases in LP to counteract it, and closes.
If even a minor percentage more people decided to steal, many stores would literally not work.
