We are a nation of shoplifters, too

Someone once called India a country of shopkeepers.

It may be time to make it a country of shoplifters.

The Global Retail Theft Barometer 2009 Survey, which is a survey of the retail businesses in 41 countries, says India has earned the dubious distinction of coming out on top when it comes to “shrinkage”.

Shrinkage is industry language for losses caused by shoplifting by both customers and staff, and theft in transit. At 3.2%, India has a shrinkage rate that is the highest in 9 countries surveyed in Asia Pacific, and cost companies roughly Rs12,080 crore ($2.6 billion), or Rs33 crore a day.

Nearly half of this, or 45.2%, was due to shoplifting by customers while employee theft accounted for 23.3%. The rest of the loss has been attributed to internal error or process failures by the survey. Jay Gupta, managing director of the discount-format chain The Loot, says the standard practice of shoplifters is to carry scissors to the shop and cut off the electronic tag on stuff they like, and walk away with the, ahem, loot. The electronic alarm doesn’t beep and it’s over in a jiffy. Gupta says, on average, there is a loss of 2-3 pieces every week at The Loot’s 140 outlets.  “Some outlets may not lose anything but some other will lose 10 pieces. It averages out to 2-3 pieces a week,” Gupta said.
Industry experts said of the total shrinkage, three-fourth is due to internal theft —- staff stealing.

In India, 33% of retailers experienced a rise in shoplifting during the slowdown of the recent past, the study, prepared by Centre for Retail Research, Nottingham, England, and funded by Checkpoint Systems Inc, said. It looked at 4,200 large retail corporations.
India is followed by Morocco (1.79% of sales lost in shrinkage), Mexico (1.75%) and South Africa (1.72%). And the lowest shrinkage? Taiwan at 0.89%, followed by Hong Kong (0.92%) and Australia (0.99%). Shoppers Stop, one of the biggest retailers in the country, said it has managed to keep shrinkage below 0.5%. Govind Shrikhande, CEO, said the company has a supply chain software platform which connects the back-end, front-end and the supply part, and continuously monitors stock movements.