Toward the end of January, a few hundred protesters gathered in front of San Francisco bank entrances in the city's financial district as part of a daylong, nationwide Occupy Wall Street exercise demanding that banks end evictions and foreclosures. Eleven people were arrested after a group refused to move from their human chain blocking an entrance to Wells Fargo corporate headquarters. Traffic was rerouted around the area, and commerce was disrupted as protesters spilled into the streets. In Greece the populace has rioted on multiple occasions since 2010 causing deaths, store lootings, and wanton destruction in the wake of government-forced…

Global Shrinkage Rises 6.6% The Centre for Retail Research recently published its 5th annual Global Retail Theft Barometer (GRTB) for the twelve-month period ending June 2011. Total global shrinkage cost respondent retailers $119.1 billion, an average of 1.45 percent of retail sales. The results are 6.6 percent higher than last year's 1.36 percent, adjusted for the inclusion of first-time participant South Korea and currency exchange rate changes. Shrinkage rose in all geographic regions. A fifth geographic data subset, Middle East/Africa, has been added this year.   Global Shrinkage for 2011 Europe and North America remain the largest components. A three-year…

By now everyone has seen the Konica Minolta commercial in which the young workers standing around the Bizhub are complaining about how difficult copying and faxing was in the "old days." The clip ends when one of the people spots "the elder...he who speaks of floppy disks" who, in turn, tells the workers that they're "soft." Soon, retailers are going to be able to tell a similar story about high-tech telephones, such as Apple's iPhone and Motorola's digital assistants, in the soon-to-be "mobile" POS transaction process. Elders, like me, will point back in time to old-school methods, such as computer…

The FBI released its final crime statistics for 2010 in September. The estimated number of violent crimes dropped about 6 percent as compared to 2009 estimates, to just under 1.25 million. This is the fourth consecutive annual decrease. Each of the four violent crime types decreased year-over-year: Robberies dropped by 10 percent, Followed by forcible rapes down by 5 percent, Murder and non-negligent manslaughter down 4.2 percent, and Aggravated assault down 4.1 percent. Property crimes decreased by about 2.7 percent year-over-year to just over 9 million incidents, the eighth consecutive decline. Victims of property crimes, except for arson, lost an…

While internal and external thieves stole over $7 billion in 2010 from just twenty-three large retailers, the annual Hayes survey reported that total apprehensions and recoveries dropped for the first time in ten years. Mark R. Doyle, president of Jack L. Hayes International, the survey's author, added that "it appears the economy, fewer store employees, and less loss prevention staffing all played a role in these results." Highlights from the report include the following items: Over 1 million total apprehensions for shoplifters and dishonest employees, but the total was 3.8 percent less than 2009. About 960,000 shoplifters were caught, which…

Five years ago in this space, I reported on a revolutionary new application for RFID—eliminating liquor theft and sweethearting via over-pours or unauthorized free drinks in bars and restaurants. According to a recent article in RFID Journal, a variation of this technology is being used to facilitate "self-service" draft beer in a couple of Latino restaurants in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks to ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC Gen 2 RFID hardware, patrons are able to obtain an RFID-enabled card or wristband that allows them to help themselves to their drafts of choice. The card is linked to the patron's credit card, and…

Sometime in late 2009 a woman called asking if I knew anything about shoplifting. She was doing research for a book, and after we talked I pointed her toward some of the "lions of the industry." The end result is Rachel Shteir's recently published book entitled The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting (The Penguin Press), which is an exceedingly well-researched, interesting, quick-paced overview of shoplifting's cultural positioning over 4,500 years of recorded history. The first quarter of the book quickly recounts the history of society's attitudes toward theft, beginning with the "ancient" view that stealing from the rich should…

In another strong sign that item-level RFID is gaining traction in retail, RFID Journal reported recently that American Apparel will add another fifty stores to its fifty-store pilot program launched last year. About half of the new installations will be in international locations. American Apparel source-applies hangtags embedded with passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC Gen 2 inlays to all items consigned to RFID-enabled stores. According to Stacey Shulman, American Apparel's vice president of technology, "The ROI on RFID-enabled stores is no more than six months. Stores that are using the RFID system have proven to reduce shrink, improve stock levels, and…

The Jewelers' Security Alliance (JSA) recently published its 2010 Annual Crime Report covering crimes against the jewelry industry in the U.S. The total number of crimes reported to the JSA decreased by about 4.5 percent over 2009, from 1,557 to 1,487 incidents. Losses from the 2010 incidents totaled $80.8 million, a significant drop of 17.3 percent over 2009. The report includes two major categories of incidents—on- and off-premises. On-premises incidents increased by 3.6 percent in 2010, but dollar losses in that category decreased by about 15.5 percent. On-premises incidents accounted for 92.4 percent of the 2010 total. They include robbery,…

One of the highlights of the National Retail Federation (NRF) Loss Prevention Conference and Expo held June 13 – 15 in Dallas was the recognition of numerous LP professionals and law enforcement officers as well as retail volunteers. Melissa Mitchell, director of loss prevention for LifeWay Christian Stores and chair of the NRF awards and recognition committee, presented the awards following an emotional video featuring loss prevention volunteers in action. See the box on the next page for a list of the companies recognized for their volunteer efforts.   Ring of Excellence This year's inductee into the NRF Ring of…