Is the Porch Piracy Problem Being Properly Addressed?

Porch piracy continues to be a serious concern for both U.S. consumers and retailers, according to the latest report issued by Omnisend. Combining its original research with FBI crime data, the report found that Americans have suffered a lost of ~$12.8 billion as a result of about 228 million stolen parcels last year alone.

With most losses being taken aboard by ecomm businesses, and nearly two-thirds (62%) of victims receiving a refund or replacement, the cost to retailers came out to an estimated $7.9 billion in 2025. Beyond the 62% who were offered the above two forms of restitution for their stolen packages, a further 16% were given a discount or store credit. The national average in terms of losses was a little over $100 per household.

“When you have 228 million stolen packages with retailers quietly absorbing $7.9 billion of that loss, it stops being a consumer inconvenience and starts being an industry-wide cost of doing business,” Marty Bauer, ecommerce expert at Omnisend, said.

“The retailers who will win long-term will be those who are building delivery and returns infrastructure around the reality that roughly a third of their customers will face this at some point,” he added.

Other data points cropping up in the report included:

• Nearly one quarter of shoppers received zero compensation from retailers for stolen packages: About 24% of consumers indicated that retailers had completely refused any and all responsibility tied to the theft of their order. “The brands that come out ahead are the ones that make resolution easy. Clear refund policies and flexible delivery options are not just a nice-to-have. For a growing share of consumers, they determine where the next order goes,” Bauer stated.
• Of these shoppers, nearly half do not alter their buying habits: Despite being victims of porch piracy, almost half (48%) reported that they hadn’t altered their buying behavior at all. However, of those who do so, 23% order online less frequently, 18% constrained future buys to retailers with easy refund policies, and 12% moved toward locker delivery or in-store pickup.
• Geography matters when it comes to porch piracy: Maryland and Colorado were the No. 1 and No. 2 states in terms of frequency of households suffering a porch pirate attack last year (50% and 41%, respectively), while Illinois (9%) and Mississippi (9%) claimed the bottom two spots on the chart. And while on a national basis, households averaged 1.8 incidents of package theft in 2025, Arizona saw a rate of 3.7 and Kentucky 2.9, while Oklahoma (0.1) and Minnesota (0.4) were quieter.

Certain US Regions More Susceptible to Porch Piracy, and Thieves Aren’t Picky

On the subject of geographic location factoring into the frequency of package theft, Bauer claimed that certain regions saw households consider the act a simple part of doing business, while in others, it was nearly nonexistent. In either case, in his estimation, it was simply a part of today’s reality as far as ecommerce operations are concerned.

It may also come as no surprise that almost half of all parcel theft occurs during the holiday season, in November through December — or that porch pirates aren’t particularly discerning when it comes to which goods get nabbed, as “thieves take whatever is left at the door.” As a result, the breakdown on lost items reads like a laundry list of typical online buys — clothing, shoes, and jewelry at 37%; electronics at 18%, home and kitchen goods at 17%, and toys and games also at 17%.