Stop the Retail Heist
SRG’s Team of Retail Experts Know the Best Loss Prevention Strategies to Mitigate Retail Theft Profit Damage
Retail theft has become an epidemic, a heist that threatens to steal products and profits from stores nationwide. Investor's Business Daily reported that the cost of retail theft soared to more than $112 billion in 2022– a 19 percent increase compared to 2021.
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Strategic Resource Group's retail experts understand the damage inflicted upon stores, as organized crime groups, flash mobs, and singular thieves all grab products in plain sight. SRG offers strategies and solutions that enable retailers to fight back against this heist and take control of their products, pricing structures, and, most importantly, their profits.
Table of Contents:
How Retail Theft Bites into Profits and Increases Costs for Consumers
Loss Prevention Policies and Procedures
Synopsis:
Retail theft contributes to billions of lost products and profits every year. As retailers face losses attributed to organized retail theft, back door theft, and front door theft, adopting loss prevention strategies and solutions is crucial to salvaging profits and protecting assets.
What is Organized Retail Theft?
Organized retail theft (ORT) is now one of the most prolific concerns for many retailers, threatening their shrink rates and profitability. ORT groups target one or more stores and enter each retailer with a plan of attack. ORT includes flash mobs designed to distract the public and store managers as the thieves carry out the crime.
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New solutions for mitigating ORT include partnerships with local police precincts and on-site K9 units. Many retailers also protect products with electronic locking devices, making them nearly impossible to swipe.
Shoplifting and Front Door Theft
Front door theft is often perceived as the standard example of 'shoplifting.' This type of retail theft refers to thieves that enter via the front door–thieves are common customers, who do not always plan out their heists.
Loss Prevention Tactics
Strategic Resource Group offers guidance on developing loss prevention tactics ideal for each retailer. Every business is impacted by retail theft differently, and some organized crime groups target specific stores for heists.
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SRG educates clients about the ideal strategies to manage their product inventory and mitigate the retail theft that has damaged their profitability. Consultants offer targeted solutions for each type of retail theft: organized retail theft (ORT), front door theft, and back door theft.
An Inside Job: Understanding Back Door Retail Employee Theft
Of the three types of retail theft, backdoor theft is regarded as the most jarring and offensive to retailers. The reason is that an employee or a trusted contractor typically carries out this type of theft. Mitigating back door theft involves solutions that allow management to watch spaces that are often unguarded; camera systems and other monitoring devices help minimize back door theft.
Retail Theft Bites into Profits and Increases Costs for Consumers
Retail theft increases retailers' shrinkage and pushes prices higher for consumers. Stolen products lead to inflationary prices caused by a twisted link between supply and demand. Consumers still demand the products, but theft lowers available supply. Prices increase to offset the profit loss for the retailer, but consumers feel a buying power punch.
Shrink–which denotes unsold products or profit losses impacted by unmoved products–is caused by various factors. Consumer disinterest, market demand, supplier or store errors, and theft impact the shrink rate.
Retail Dive compiled a pie graph showing how theft and other issues contribute to shrink (and plummeting profits), and the National Retail Federation calculated shrink as a $94.5 billion cost. Our graph shows how each factor represents dollars lost across the retail industry.
Shrink Factor
Financial Loss
External Theft (Front Door and ORC)
$34.02 Billion
Back Door Theft
Error, Process Issues, Etc.
Unknown
Other
$27.405 Billion
$25.515 Billion
$5.67 Billion
$945 Billion
Loss Prevention Policies and Procedures
SRG works closely with retail clients to determine the most practical and cost-efficient anti-theft solutions and strategies. Protecting property and profits always serves as the driving force behind every recommendation.
Solutions must make sense for the client. SRG provides expert advice and sound guidance for retailers who need cohesive solutions that enable them to stay ahead of thieves, decrease their shrink rate, protect their staff, and manage their profitability.
SRG’s Focus on Asset Protection
Organized crime groups have become more violent in their retail heists. SRG’s solutions to retail theft do not simply help retailers salvage their profit margins; mitigation strategies also protect every client’s assets.
For retailers, assets are products and people.
Our retail theft consultants provide solutions that keep employees safe and products protected. SRG ensures retail clients learn how to control and mitigate the threat, stop the heist, and move their business (and profitability) forward.
