The economy may be bleak, but according to a new survey conducted by the University of Florida, a thin silver lining has emerged for profit-minded retailers: Loss from shoplifting, employee theft, administrative error and vendor fraud is at a 17-year low.

Preliminary results from the National Retail Security Survey (NRSS) indicate "retailers lost more than $34.3 billion or 1.4 percent of overall sales [in 2007] compared to $40.5 billion and 1.57 percent of overall sales in 2006," according to a press release from ADT Security Services, the company that funded the survey.

Researchers say the downturn can be credited, at least in part, to retailers' increased use of anti-theft technologies, including in-store cameras and Internet-based video surveillance systems.

"The study shows there is good evidence that anti-theft technologies, properly implemented, are having a positive effect on reducing crime in the retail environment," said University of Florida criminologist Richard Hollinger, Ph.D., who directed the survey.

Still the picture painted by the survey is not entirely rosy: "More than half of the 124 retailers questioned to date believe that organized retail crime is increasing, and 19 percent say that they now have their own organized retail crime task forces," according to the release.

The problem of organized retail crime is still very real and something we need to take on as an industry," said Joe La Rocca, the National Retail Federation's vice president of loss prevention. "We need stronger laws to crack down on this type of crime and make it more difficult for criminals to resell stolen goods."

Have you seen a decrease — or an increase — in shoplifting or employee theft? Send your story to ebrief@safnow.org.

--Mary Westbrook
mwestbrook@safnow.org

  

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