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Mumbai, Oct 7: Retailing in India is growing and so is retail theft. A combination of employee theft, shoplifting, vendor frauds and administrative error, which retail companies term ‘inventory shrinkage’ cost Indian retailers over Rs 570 crore every year.
Indian retailers, however, are still better off than their foreign counterparts who lose as much as 0.5% of their revenues in thefts against only 0.3% in India.
This is despite the fact that all large retailers use security technologies such as anti-shoplifting systems, closed-circuit televisions and point of sale systems to minimise theft.
Globally, retail organisations make the loss figures public to the employees in an attempt to bring them down. But in India, the theft losses are kept a closely guarded secret.
Retailers Association of India (RAI) CEO Gibson Vedamani warns, “It’s just not retailers who should be concerned about retail theft. Ultimately, it is the consumers who are hurt the most because they will have to pay a higher price for goods.”
Shoppers Stop CEO BS Nagesh says, “We focus on reduced shrinkage and introduction of perpetual inventory count system management. There is also a loss prevention team to track this down.” Shoppers Stop’s inventory shrinkage has declined from 0.61% from last year to 0.54% in 2005.
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