Retail group pulls back on claim organized retail crime accounts for nearly half of inventory loss
The National Retail Federation has revised a report released in April that pulls back the claim that organized retail crime accounts for nearly half of overall industry shrink, which measures overall loss in inventory, including theft
NEW YORK — The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, has revised a report released in April that pulls back the claim that organized retail crime accounts for nearly half of overall industry shrink, which measures overall loss in inventory, including theft.
The revision of the group's organized retail crime report on Dec. 1 follows an analysis from Retail Dive that found mistakes in the data. Retail Dive is an online news site that covers retail trends.
The trade association released the original report in partnership with K2, a financial crimes risk management firm. The report erroneously stated that of the $94.51 billion in so-called industry shrink, nearly half was to organized retail crime.
David Johnston, the national retail group’s vice president of asset protection and retail operations, told The Associated Press in an interview on Thursday that the discrepancy was based on K2 referencing U.S. Senate testimony delivered in 2021 by Ben Dugan, who at the time was the president of a nonpartisan group called the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, or CLEAR. In testimony, Dugan said that organized retail crime accounted for $45 billion in annual losses for retailers and cited the coalition.
The K2 analyst then made an incorrect inference linking the 2022 NRF security survey’s results with the CLEAR figure. Johnston said he hasn't been able to confirm where CLEAR derived the $45 billion amount, but he said that a 2016 security survey by the retail
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