All the ways we can lose our way.
Total Retail Loss, or alternatively Retail Shrinkage, describes and defines the siphoning of inventory through a variety of actions, such as employee theft, customer shoplifting, damaged or spoiled consumables, fraud, and administrative errors to name a few of the most prominent reasons as opposed to being part of a legal transaction. It is the difference between system inventory, which is a total of the items entered into a database, and the actual physical inventory, total of items on the shelf for sale. When retailers can, with a certain degree of confidence identify and quantify the sources of loss, those sources are categorized as “Known”. Somewhat surprisingly however, some sources of loss cannot be definitively identified, and are thus categorized as “Unknown”.
The National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association estimates that the hit to retail in the US alone was a staggering $94.5 billion in 2021, up from $90.8 billion in 2020. One source of Retail Shrinkage has been the emergence of Organized Retail Crime (ORC). This has been highlighted recently with in-store surveillance devices recording instances of brazen and spectacular “Smash & Grab” thefts (see photo) hitting notably Big-Box stores such as Target & Home Depot.

Smash & Grab

‍“Smash & Grab consists of organized gangs of anywhere from 3-20 masked individuals descending on a store, quickly exercising a plan of attack targeting specifically identified merchandise while stunned customers and staff look on, then either running, or walking with filled carts, out the door.

‍Nothing New

This isn’t an altogether new phenomenon, but suddenly in 2021, again according to the NRF, retailers on average saw a 26.5% increase in ORC events from 2020. Whereas Total retail loss consistently hovers around 1.5% yearly, that profound of a leap in ORC incidents was eye-opening. Then on August 12, 2023, a gang of at least 30 masked thieves descended on the Canoga Park, CA Nordstrom’s in a spectacular raid which reportedly netted over $300K in merchandise. This brazen and violent heist prompted the Mayor of LA, Karen Bass to form a police taskforce to address ORC. 
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Dangerous For Customers and Employees

Beyond the loss of goods, which as we’ve seen, can reach over 6-figures, there was the obvious hit to the customers’ shopping experience and overall safety. These Smash & Grab attacks have on more-and-more occasions resulted in violence, injury, and in at least two cases within the last year, employees deaths.
Recently, it was reported in the Washington Post

Goodbye to the Sneaky Shoplifter?

This is certainly a departure from the lone shoplifter pilfering a few items that they can sneak out with. The increased use of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) systems such as mini hard tags and barcode Sensormatic ultramax labels combined with electronic surveillance gates has made this form of shoplifting more challenging, but none of these devices have much deterrence on organized “Smash & Grab” attacks.
Somewhat surprisingly, barbecue grills, and barbecue accessories do not appear on any lists we researched of the most popular items to be shoplifted. This, even though charcoal is often merchandised at the front end, behind the cashiers, or even outside of the entrances. For an importer / distributer’s products like those A+A Price lines of 100% Natural Biomass, and Odorless Hydrocarbon Firestarters, the threat of shrink is further mitigated by the fact that they can retail for as little as 6¢ per unit. Somehow thieves making off with firelighters seems more laughable than nefarious.

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