Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) chief executive James Lowman said the official statistics were only part of the story.
Separate figures from the ACS crime report found convenience stores recorded more than 6.2 million incidents of shoplifting in the past year, he said.
“Retailers tell us that they won’t report crime if they have no faith in it being investigated,” he said.
Mr Lowman said the figures showed that retail crime needs to be taken seriously “throughout the justice system”.
“Only then will we be able to start bringing the numbers down and stop widespread reoffending by criminals that are acting with confidence that they will not be apprehended,” he said.
Earlier this year the government unveiled the Crime and Policing Bill which the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said would address an “epidemic of street theft”, including shoplifting.
Under the bill the current £200 threshold for shoplifting, which means thefts under that value are treated as summary-only offences and not prioritised by police.
Mr Ironside said removing that threshold would “send a clear signal that all shoplifting is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Responding to the new ONS figures, external, Ms Cooper said the government was working to rebuild local policing.
She said more than 500 town centres would be getting extra patrols and there would be 3,000 more neighbourhood officers and police community support officers by next spring.