An anti-crime campaign launched by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is aimed at "filling a gap that the government isn't filling", a spokesperson says.
The Every Crime Every Time campaign seeks to encourage businesses to report any crime they fall victim to, no matter how small they feel it is.
"We're basically filling a gap that the Government isn't filling, for the fact that national crime surveys don't factor in or take into account commercial crime," said a spokesperson for FPB.
She added that while a lot of crime that the owners of SMEs fell victim to was "low-level" it could still be very intimidating for an individual running a business.
The FPB also said that some firms felt that the police did not take commercial crime seriously with police officers not visiting the scene even when thousands of pounds worth of goods had been stolen.
Research by the FPB revealed that only one in eight commercial crimes are reported despite the fact that such crimes make up one-fifth of all recorded crime.
