While the word \u2018shrinkage\u2019 or \u2018shortage\u2019 has been in use for more than a 100 years to describe retail \u2018losses\u2019, it does not enjoy a universally agreed upon definition in terms of what is included and excluded when it is used, nor how the value of losses should be calculated. Often used to describe the difference between anticipated and actual levels of retail inventory, where the root causes of losses are typically unknown, it has become a catch all term used by the industry to describe a wide variety of retail-related losses, some of which relate as much to lost margin as they do lost stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This lack of a universally agreed definition has led to existing industry surveys on shrinkage generating data which can be highly problematic to benchmark against, especially when it is unclear what types of loss have been included or excluded by respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, retailing is now able to generate a broader range of data points across the entire value chain \u2013 gone are the days when differences in anticipated and actual store stock levels were the only data game in town \u2013 new sources of data are now available to better understand how a broader range of losses are impacting upon retail businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This research\u00a0puts forward a new definition of \u2018Total Retail Loss\u2019 together with a typology made up of 32 categories of loss that span the entire retail environment, from shop theft in physical retail stores to frauds in corporate headquarters. It offers a unique way of thinking about how a much broader range of losses impact upon retail businesses, differentiating between the \u2018costs\u2019 of being a retailer and the \u2018losses\u2019 that negatively impact business profitability. In addition, the study developed\u00a0detailed definitions of each of the categories of loss with a view to improving the accuracy of future benchmarking exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For loss prevention specialists, it provides a unique opportunity to build upon and reinforce the critical role they can play in becoming agents of change within their retail businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the word \u2018shrinkage\u2019 or \u2018shortage\u2019 has been in use for more than a 100 years to describe retail \u2018losses\u2019, it does not enjoy a universally agreed upon definition in terms of what is included and excluded when it is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecr-shrink-group.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}