Shrink—comprised of shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud, organized retail crime and administrative errors—cost the retail industry more than $112 billion globally last year, according to the 2012-2013 Global Retail Theft Barometer, and represented 1.4 percent of retail sales, on average.
The study, underwritten by an independent grant from Checkpoint Systems Inc., was undertaken in 2013 by Euromonitor International, and was based upon phone and written survey interviews conducted in 16 countries among retailers covering 160,000 stores representing $1.5 trillion in sales in 2012.