Sellers Lose Billions to Theft, Study Finds

With just one week left before the official start of the year’s busiest shopping season, a study warned retailers that they lose billions each year to theft. In 1995, retailers lost $27 billion, or 1.9% of total sales, because of the combination of employee and customer theft, administrative error and vendor fraud, according to the 1996 National Retail Security Survey conducted by the University of Florida’s Security Research Project. A similar study conducted for the year 1994 showed a slightly lower percentage loss, 1.8% of total sales. The largest share of that loss, $10.4 billion, came from employee theft. Customers--shoplifters--were estimated to have stolen more than $9.7 billion.