Key Findings from the Global Retail Theft Barometer 2010
The 2010 edition of the Global Barometer covers 42 countries, including the U.S., China, Australia, France, Germany, Brazil, UK, South Africa, Turkey, and India. New for 2010 is Russia, the first time retail crime data has been collected there. They had 1,103 respondents from the largest retail corporations with combined sales of US $874 billion. Checkpoint Systems, Inc. has supported this independent survey.
Key results
* Cover of 2010 GRTB Shrinkage down. One year after the sharp 2009 spike in shrinkage, shrinkage has fallen by -5.6% as retailers put almost 10% more funds into security and loss prevention. Total global shrinkage (stock loss from crime or waste expressed as a percentage of retail sales) cost retailers and the public US$ 107.3 billion, equivalent to 1.36% of their retail sales.
* Global cost of crime per family (household) was $185.59.
* Crime Increased. Shrinkage fell, although crime continued to rise across the world. 31% of retailers declared that shoplifting had increased compared to the previous year, when 41% had found that shoplifting attempts had increased. Note that this proportion is not the increase in net shoplifting but the percentage of store groups affected.
* Shoplifting Impacts. The main crime problem that retailers faced was shoplifting, accounting for 42.4% of shrinkage or $45.5 billion. Retailers were organised enough to prevent the increase in shoplifting from pushing up shrinkage.
But in the US, Canada, and Australia employee theft was estimated to be greater than shoplifting losses. In the U.S., shoplifting counted for 'only' 34.9% ($13.7 billion) of shrink and employee fraud 43.7% ($17.2 billion).
* Employee theft. Disloyal employees accounted for 35.3% of shrinkage or $37.8 billion.
* Internal error and administrative failure (e.g. pricing or accounting mistakes) was 16.9% ($18.1 billion), and supplier or vendor theft and fraud was 5.4% of shrinkage ($5.8 billion). Both these totals had improved over the previous year.
* Numbers of thieves. Retailers apprehended 6.2 million store thieves in 2010, more than the population of many countries with UN membership.
* Global loss prevention costs. An increase to $26.8 billion (0.34% of retail sales) compared to last year's fall of $1 billion. Capital costs including investment in new technology, EAS, CCTV and other security equipment were $8.3 billion.
The most-stolen items of retail merchandise within the 41 countries included branded and expensive products: cosmetics and skincare, alcohol, womenswear/ladies' apparel, perfume and fine fragrances, and designerwear. Other highly stolen lines included razor blades, DVDs/CDs, video games and video consoles, small electric items, and fashion accessories.
Source: www.retailresearch.org
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