In the current economic climate retailers across the UK have been concerned about the risk of increasing levels of thefts. It seems that these concerns were fully justified, as a recent survey estimates that thefts, fraud and administrative errors cost the British high street £ 4.9 billion in the last year according to figures recorded by The Global Retail Theft Barometer. The study, conducted by the Centre for Retail Research and published by Checkpoint Systems shows that the total amount lost by British retailers has increased by 6.2% in the last twelve months.
Whilst customer theft is estimated at 43.8% of total loss, theft by UK employees was also a major factor. In addition, internal error and loss from suppliers and vendors accounted for 16.2% and 3.9% of the total figure.
Neil Matthews of Checkpoint Systems, explained: “The fact that retail loss has increased so significantly should certainly not be taken lightly. It’s extremely worrying that the actions of some people can end up affecting innocent families financially, which is a cost the majority of people can ill-afford in this tough economic climate.”
On average, thieves are estimated to have stolen £79 per shopping spree, demonstrating that the typical theft was more likely to be branded merchandise that could be resold for a profit. This is reinforced by the fact that clothing and apparel, reported the highest losses at 1.86% of sales. Within this category, accessories, outerwear and tailored clothing came in at the top, accounting for 3.72%, 2.82% and 2.40% respectively, of total retail losses. Natural and speciality foods also reported high levels of loss as did cheese (3.90%) which experienced more than double the global amount lost of 1.29%. Meanwhile in other high-risk categories – health and beauty – loss of items such as mascara, eyeliner and eye shadow increased to 2.37%.
Neil Matthews continued: “High losses are experienced by a relatively small number of product lines, particularly those that have been recently launched, expensive, easily stolen and in great demand. Compared to the 2010 figures, loss amongst the high-risk food lines has shot up by more than the global average, evidence that they are increasingly being targeted by shoplifters.”
That said, the picture could have been a lot worse, had UK retailers not invested more than £1 billion on security and loss prevention in the last year. High-risk product lines such as meat are increasingly being tagged which reinforces the fact that security labels remain the most popular form of product protection. This is followed by hard tags and plastic security cases (keepers). Staff training has also played a vital role, with 95% of retailers already implementing programmes to ‘spot and deter’ theft and a further 90% planning on initiating additional programmes.
Security systems such as CCTV have recently seen major improvements in technology with the introduction on video analytics and High Definition cameras. Retailers who are interested in reducing thefts and improving their security should arrange for a free security assessment and make sure that they reduce their exposure to theft.