Some recent statistics on retail theft are below this is from http://www.retailwire.com/ which is mainly geared to upper retail management. You can access articles by doing a short registration. Comments are allowed but things submitted by Jill and Joe Sixpack don't make it to site publication.
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Retail Crime Fighters
By Al McClain
How worried are retailers about crime? Retail shrinkage accounted for $34 billion in 2007, according to the preliminary results of the National Retail Security Survey presented at the recent NRF Loss Prevention Conference. But in an indication of industry concern, the press was banned from four workshops at the show covering online investigations, cyber intrusion response, homeland security and shopping center shootings.
The good news is that shrink as a percentage of sales was actually down to 1.42 percent, the lowest percentage since the study started in 1991 and compares favorably to 2006 (1.57 percent).
Categories with lower than average shrink rates include jewelry, consumer electronics, office supplies, household furnishings, shoes and media/games. Categories with higher than average shrink rates include publications, auto supplies, cards/gifts, men's and women's apparel, and home improvement.
According to retail respondents to the survey, employee theft causes 44.5 percent of all shrink, followed by shoplifting (34.5 percent), administrative (14 percent) and vendor fraud (four percent). Fifty-one percent of respondents said organized retail crime (ORC) is increasing while only three percent believing it is decreasing.
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