Facts about retail loss prevention that will blow your mind
According to recent research, 68% of all retail shrink is preventable – this includes shoplifting, pilferage, merchandise theft, fraud, excessive discounting, paperwork mistakes, and more
According to the same study only 21% of retail fraud is identified by the company after it has occurred – the resulting gap must be made-up through more effective retail loss prevention training for managers and employees. Additional investments in systems and reporting can also help.
In the super market industry alone, between 3.8-5.4%% of all transactions involve some form of shrink-related activity – yet less than 30% of these issues are where the cashier is directly stealing. That means that retailers can close the gap through proper loss prevention training for retail employees.
Almost two thirds of shrink is results from store operating procedures or visual imaging conditions that that promote retail shrink or profit loss – yet many retail loss prevention professionals are not encouraged to look at and rectify these issues
In fact, studies and surveys show that most retail loss prevention employees almost 75% of their time on administrative work and investigations while only 27% of their time is actually spent on “loss prevention”
LP managers spend almost 50% of their time on investigating incidents – yet these cases only account for 17% of the shrink that occurs in the stores.
When viewing these facts it quickly becomes apparent that placing a focus on retail loss prevention training is critical for every retailer.
Retail Training Services has recently partnered with the Loss Prevention Academy to offer their highly detailed on-line retail courses that are focused on helping store employees, branch managers, district managers and loss prevention professionals to not only catch shrink while it is happening, but to also prevent it before it happens. For more information, contact RTS or click on the link below.
Source: National Retail Research Group: