"Organized retail crime" costs retailers nearly $800,000 per $1 billion in sales.

[BobPSU92]

See the link below, which includes a video.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/22/inside-home-depots-efforts-to-stop-a-growing-theft-problem.html

I have not seen such brazen theft, but I am not surprised by it. Have you witnessed this in any retail stores? Did the perp(s) get away with the merchandise or were they caught by store security?

 

[interrobang]

Isn't $800k per billion pretty negligible?

 

[slykens]

I was at the Apple Store a few years ago and was about ten feet away from this happening. Girl and guy walked in, he had a sack on his back that closed by drawstring. They walked over to the ipods, he turned his back to them and she scooped them in. Probably got ten or fifteen then they took off. Store employees told them to stop but obviously didn’t work.

I’m surprised the percentage is so low - looks like less than a tenth of a percent of sales.

 

[LionDeNittany]

Isn't $800k per billion pretty negligible?

Well margins at retail after overhead are between 1 and 5 percent. So no.

LdN

 

[JR4PSU]

Well margins at retail after overhead are between 1 and 5 percent. So no.

LdN

If retail is 1%, then this loss is 8% of retail. If retail is 5%, then this loss is 1.6% of retail.

So total loss at the retail level is between 1.6% and 8%, depending on retail margin.

 

[KnightSlayer]

See the link below, which includes a video.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/22/inside-home-depots-efforts-to-stop-a-growing-theft-problem.html

I have not seen such brazen theft, but I am not surprised by it. Have you witnessed this in any retail stores? Did the perp(s) get away with the merchandise or were they caught by store security?

I'd bet most of it involves employees.

 

[Cletus11]

note that stolen products come right off of the profit, not revenue so it is a much larger chunk then just the numbers might imply.

wonder if some of the bigger stores like home depot don't start having a security guard at the door exit checking receipts. Seems like a simple way to stop a lot of it and they have a call button directly to the police if something happens like people running out the store or getting violent. And then you have video of them and should have video of a car leaving also. so would seem that it could be tracked down by police relatively quickly.

 

[fkkkjm]

Shrink rates vary drastically by retailer, store location, brand, category, segment and SKU. Most of the major chains have items and stores that are probably margin negative after shrink.

 

[PSUSignore]

I'd bet most of it involves employees.

It's more likely that the employees just don't care enough or have enough skin in the game to stop it. Put yourself in their shoes. If you're a checkout clerk making minimum wage why would you bother to risk possible personal injury to yourself (those stealing might be armed, or willing to fight) in order to save some money for the giant faceless corporation that you work for? Most wouldn't. The employee isn't hurt financially by the theft, they are already making the bare minimum. There's almost no upside for them to try to step in and put a stop to it.

 

[wbcincy]

Why not make it even more dramatic and say $800,000,000 for every trillion in sales.