The National Retail Federation had said that nearly half of the industry’s $94.5 billion in missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft. It was likely closer to 5 percent, experts say.
My understanding is that shrink includes all losses. So it’s retail and employee theft yes, but it also includes things that get written off like spoiled and outdated food, broken merchandise, vendor fraud, ticketing and PoS errors (like putting the wrong price into the computer), over h ordering items and having to sell them for less than anticipated to clear them out.
So “shrink” is all the things that happen to stock that make it worth less than expected. But you’re not going to blame yourself or your vendors, so blame the customer instead!
where did you get that from? I read the whole article and didn’t see any claims of employee theft. The issue is that they were looking at total 2015 shrinkage numbers across the industry and misrepresenting those numbers as a percentage of thefts (37-50%)
We all know that retail workers are underpaid. And it’s pretty widely known that the biggest source of shrinkage is employees. Thought this was just common knowledge
Now examine the $94.5 billion number, is that even a real number?
The stat I always heard is the vast majority of shrink is from employees.
My understanding is that shrink includes all losses. So it’s retail and employee theft yes, but it also includes things that get written off like spoiled and outdated food, broken merchandise, vendor fraud, ticketing and PoS errors (like putting the wrong price into the computer), over h ordering items and having to sell them for less than anticipated to clear them out.
So “shrink” is all the things that happen to stock that make it worth less than expected. But you’re not going to blame yourself or your vendors, so blame the customer instead!
It’s likely real, and yes, it’s from employees trying to make ends meet: the main theft happening in stores is wage theft by the employers.
where did you get that from? I read the whole article and didn’t see any claims of employee theft. The issue is that they were looking at total 2015 shrinkage numbers across the industry and misrepresenting those numbers as a percentage of thefts (37-50%)
Wage theft is perennially much larger than shoplifting.
I was referring to OP claim the shrinkage was actually employees stealing to “make ends meet”.
We all know that retail workers are underpaid. And it’s pretty widely known that the biggest source of shrinkage is employees. Thought this was just common knowledge