Retail Loss Prevention: Beyond Shoplifting Apprehensions
Modern loss prevention is 30% presence and 70% pattern recognition — POS exception reporting, ORC intelligence-sharing, and internal-fraud detection.
The Three Categories of Shrink.
External theft (~35% of Canadian retail shrink), internal theft (~30%), process errors and vendor fraud (~35%). A retailer treating shrink as solely a shoplifting problem is missing the majority of the loss.
POS Exception Reporting.
Voided transactions, no-sale key strikes, refund frequency by cashier — these are the leading indicators of internal fraud. Reviewed weekly. Cross-referenced against video.
Organized Retail Crime (ORC).
Coordinated groups moving between stores and provinces. Case-building requires video evidence, licence-plate captures, and intelligence-sharing with RCMP integrated ORC units.
Interview and Interrogation Compliance.
Improper interviews get convictions overturned. Every apprehension must be filmed, witnessed by a second officer, and conducted with knowledge of the applicable provincial trespass law.
The Metric That Matters.
Total shrink as a percentage of net sales. Not apprehension count. An LP program producing 200 apprehensions but flat shrink is failing.
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