Introduction >

The European Retail Theft Barometer is a unique attempt to measure retail crime across the 16 countries of Western Europe. The study is carried out by The Centre for Retail Research, Nottingham, and independently funded by Checkpoint Systems. The results are based on retailers responsible for 21% of European retail trade. /

Key Results of the 2002/3 European Retail Theft Barometer from the Centre for Retail Research
Some good news for once!

  • Average shrinkage (stock loss from crime or wastage) suffered by stores throughout Western Europe fell from 1.45% to 1.37% of turnover. Even so, this loss was equivalent to €27 258 million or €75.28 per head of the population
  • Countries with the worst shrinkage results such as the UK tended to acheive much higher reductions in shrinkage last year.
  • Retailers perceived customer thieves to be responsible for 48% of shrinkage, employees for 28% and suppliers for 7%. Internal error, process failures and pricing mistakes were thought to cause 17% of shrinkage, leaving 83% of shrinkage as crime-related.
  • 68% of respondents used electronic article surveillance in all or some of their stores and more than two thirds felt that EAS source tagging by merchandise product manufacturers would be 'helpful' or 'very helpful'. However 60% of retailers that had attempted source tagging programmes found merchandise manufacturers unhelpful.

UK FIGURES
Costs of retail Crime in the UK 2002/3
Shrinkage 1.69% COMPARED WITH 1.77% last year
Cost of crime per head £83.20 per annum
Customer theft £1956 m
Staff theft £1664 m
Suppliers £ 184 m
Internal error £ 807 m
The above figures are sterling
Source: European Retail Theft Barometer III, 2003

The Costs of Retail Crime
The costs of retail crime are the value of property stolen plus the costs of security.

  • The costs of retail crime in Europe in 2002-3 were €29 023 million. Retail crime costs every man, woman and child in Europe an average of €75.28 per head per year.

EUROPEAN LEVELS OF SHRINKAGE

Shrinkage
(as % of turnover) / 12 months
2002/3 % / 12 months
2001-2 % / % change
Austria /
0.98 /
0.97 /
1.0%
Belgium/Luxembourg / 1.32 / 1.36 / -2.9%
Denmark / 1.35 / 1.32 / 2.3%
Finland / 1.44 / 1.48 / -2.7%
France / 1.41 / 1.49 / -5.4%
Germany / 1.16 / 1.19 / -2.5%
Greece / 1.43 / 1.53 / -6.5%
Ireland / 1.35 / 1.34 / 0.7%
Italy / 1.36 / 1.41 / -3.5%
The Netherlands / 1.32 / 1.48 / -10.8%
Norway / 1.42 / 1.59 / -10.7%
Portugal / 1.44 / 1.42 / 1.4%
Spain / 1.38 / 1.47 / -6.1%
Sweden / 1.37 / 1.37 / 0.0%
Switzerland / 0.89 / 0.85 / 4.7%
United Kingdom / 1.69 / 1.77 / -4.5%
Totals /
1.37 /
1.45 /
-5.5%
Shrinkage
by Business Type / Shrinkage
2002-3 / Shrinkage
2001-2 / Change
Food /
1.04% /
1.09% /
-4.6%
-Supermarkets & Hypermarkets / 0.91% / 0.96% / -5.2%
- Food Specialists / 1.53% / 1.54% / -0.6%
General Stores / 0.75% / 0.77% / -2.6%
Department Stores / 1.53% / 1.59% / -3.8%
Clothing & Textiles / 1.72% / 1.69% / 1.8%
Electrical/Video/Music / 1.10% / 1.06% / 3.8%
Hardware/DIY/Furniture / 1.56% / 1.75% / -10.9%
Shoes and Leather / 0.60% / 0.64% / -6.3%
Other non-food / 1.99% / 1.98% / 0.5%
Overall / 1.37% / 1.45% / -5.5%
shrinkage is expressed as a percentage of turnover

The Effectiveness of the Criminal Justice System in Combating Retail Crime

The Study asked retailers throughout Europe for their views on the work of the criminal justice system. A large majority of retailers believed that the level of fines upon customer thieves was inadequate, that the proportion of shop thieves sent to prison was too low, and that the Criminal Justice System made it too easy for people to re-offender with little sanction. These opinions were shared by retailers across Europe, irrespective of the type of legal system used in their country.

A sample table is reproduced here.

Sample Table
How willing are the Police to respond to reported Shoplifting cases ?
Customer /
Employee
Willing / 6% / 8%
About right / 21% / 14%
Unwilling / 55% / 47%
Very unwilling / 15% / 23%
Total / 100% / 100%
LIST OF PRODUCTS AND ITEMS MOST LIKELY TO BE STOLEN
Bed linen/textiles
CDs
Cellular phone cards
Children's clothes
Chocolate
Contraceptives
Cosmetics
Costume jewellery and earrings
Designer accessories
Designer handbags
Duracell Batteries
DVDs
Electrical Power tools, well-known makes such as Bosch
Electrical skin care and toothbrushes, eg Braun
Female lingerie
Gillette Mach 3
Kodak Films
Leather belts
Leather jackets and other leather garments
Leather wallets
Locks and security devices
L'Oreal perfume
Major designer brands clothing
Mobile/cellular phones
Olay Skincare
Other fine fragrances/perfume
Ready-made curtains
Skincare
Sony Playstation, computer games
Spare parts for electrical items and power drill bits
Spirits, mainly Whisky, Vodka, Bacardi, etc
Sportswear
Sunglasses
Tea and coffee
Trainers, sports footwear
Videos
Vitamins
Wrist watches
Germany & Britain Analysis based on 2001 / Britain / Germany
Total losses from shrinkage /
€6265M /
€5514M
Shrinkage as a percentage of turnover / 1.76% / 1.21%
Shrinkage last year / 1.81% / 1.29%
Total crime losses from shops / €4761M / €4411M
Total security costs paid by shops / €1129M / €1459M
Total cost of crime (security+crime losses) / €5890M / €5870M
Cost of shop crime per head / €99.74 / €71.66
Number of thieves apprehended / 0.568M / 0.166M
Sources of shrinkage
Customers / 41.6% / 48.0%
Employees / 32.1% / 22.5%
Suppliers / 2.3% / 9.5%
Error,Waste, Processes / 24.0% / 20.0%
[Source: European Retail Theft Barometer, Centre for Retail Research]

This is the third report (June 2003). It is based on results from 436 major European retailers from 16 countries with a combined turnover of €441 054 million, 28 819 retail stores, and around 21% of the European retail trade. The survey was carried out using the same methodology, identical questionnaires, random sampling of participants using a single database, over the same period, and in five different languages.

In the last five years, the retailers of most countries in Europe have been responsible for surveys of crime or shrinkage. Whilst they provide important information for businesses, the Government, police and academics, they are not comparable because they use different methods, samples and time-periods. This survey is the first one in Europe covering the whole retail sector in many different countries - from Finland to Portugal and from Ireland to Greece - whose entire purpose is to make comparisons between the results of different countries.

Terms and definitions

As is now conventional in UK business/economics usage, a "billion" is 1000 million (a milliard) with nine noughts.
The 'comma' and the 'fullstop' when used in numbering systems have opposite meanings in English usage and that of other European languages. In English, '1,000' is one thousand whilst in French the same number, 'mille', would be written as '1.000'. Shrinkage rates of '1.42%' should be transcribed as '1,42%' in other languages.
'Shrinkage' can be defined as loss of stock caused by a combination of crime, administrative error, and wastage.
The results are provided here as Euros (€). In December 2002, €1million were equivalent to £0.637million (sterling) or $1.001million (US) and in June 2003 £0.725 million or $1.185 million.