Shrinkage, shoplifting and the cost of retail crime in Europe: a cross‐sectional analysis of major retailers in 16 European countries

Abstract

A self‐report questionnaire was used to discover key shrinkage, theft and loss prevention data from 476 major European retailers (23 per cent of West Europe's retail turnover) in 16 countries for the financial year 2001‐2002. The response rate was 33 per cent. Shrinkage rates were found to vary considerably between countries with a weighted average of 1.45 per cent (1.42 per cent in 2000/2001), equivalent to €30,310 million (or $27,582 million). A total of 18.3 per cent of shrinkage was perceived to be caused by “internal error” rather than crime and this estimate is deducted from shrinkage to derive the crime figure. Retail crime cost retailers €30,407 million ($27,670 million). In contrast to US data, customer theft was seen as the most important crime cost, followed by employee theft, security costs and supplier theft. Stores apprehended more than 1.2 million thieves in 2001/2002, but passed only 25.7 per cent to the police.

Do medical marijuana centers behave like locally undesirable land uses? Implications for the geography of health and environmental justice

“…Indeed, Colorado residents did vote to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes and more recently (2012) It is important to point out that while medical marijuana centers do not appear to be opened disproportionately in disadvantaged neighborhoods they are more likely to be opened in areas that have higher crime rates. This could be the case because crime tends to follow retail (Bamfield, 2004;Brown, 1982). Thus, neighborhoods that have large strip malls and other forms of retail establishment are almost certainly likely to have more crime.…”

The use of violence in cargo theft – a supply chain disruption case

“…Inventory loss due to criminal behavior in retail stores is estimated to be more than 24 billion Euros annually (Bamfield 2004). According to BRC (2009) violent attacks against retails stores in the UK cost (losses plus prevention) 2.4 billion pounds annually.…”

Inventory shrinkage in a chain retailer: a case study

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“…Joshua Barnfield (2004) provided another classification based on causes. The external and the internal causes of theft.…”

“…External causes include customer theft, organised crime rings (theft for profit), vendor dishonesty or/and administrative errors. While internal causes include employee theft, administrative errors and/or system failure (Barnfield, 2004). However, the most common causes of shrink according to significance in terms of $amount are: employee theft, customer theft, administrative errors (paperwork errors), and vendor dishonesty.…”