Shrinkage on the decrease

Inventory losses in the European retail trade have gone down for the second time running. This emerges from the latest Theft Barometer published by the Centre of Retail Research of Nottingham, England, and Checkpoint Systems of Heppenheim, Germany, for the period between June 2003 and June 2004. Inventory discrepancies amounted to € 30.783 bn overall, or 1.34 per cent of sales. The rate was 1.37 per cent one year previously. The authors of the study put a figure of € 25.793 bn on loss through theft, which amounts to 84 per cent of inventory losses. When combined with the € 7.2 bn that retailers spent on article surveillance, the costs resulting from criminal activity add up to € 32.999 bn. Dishonest members of staff alone cause losses to the tune of € nine bn. At € 537.85, the average value of goods stolen by this group of offenders is far higher than that attributable to light-fingered customers, who walk out with goods worth only € 78.56 on average.