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Retail crime is at a 10 year high.


New research by the British Retail Consortium shows that, last year, retail crime cost the industry over £600 million, which is up 18% on the previous year and the highest since their records began.

Whilst the overall cost to the industry is up substantially, the number of offences has fallen but the average cost per offence has risen to £241, with the pattern showing that thieves are targeting higher value items.

The biggest concern for the BRC was the volume of offences by gangs targeting volume and expensive items, with retailers reporting that as much as 40% of all theft is carried out by groups of individuals working together, targeting mainly electrical items including power tools, high end designer wear and cosmetics.


The reports headline findings were

- Customer theft (rather than staff) accounted for 81% of all incidents
- In total 135,814 incidents of fraud (81% of this by card fraud)
- It is believed that the number of incidents where the retailer incurred loss is around the 3 million mark but only 700,000 incidents were reported
- Almost 60,000 cases of violence or abuse were recorded.

The impact of fraud on these figures is huge, costing the industry £223 million with the majority (70%) of cases being committed on line, of these most involved the theft and use of personal financial information, with a focus on obtaining this information via spam emails, social media and computer hacking.



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