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>Now the outspoken lawyer has fresh ammunition for his effort to repeal the law: The National Retail Federation earlier this month retracted its April assertion that nearly half of the $94.5 billion in merchandise that went missing in 2021 was stolen by retail rings. The true percentage was only a small fraction of that amount, about 5%.

It's still an _absolutely insane_ amount.




The $5B must be viewed in the context of roughly $5T in revenue: https://nrf.com/research-insights/state-retail

So we're talking .1% of retail revenue. Not that I'm fond of thieves, let alone organized ones, but it does not seem an existential threat to me at this level.

As a comparison, eliminating cashiers in favor of automated checkout solutions is estimated to a loss of about 1% of revenue: https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/technology/self-chec...


Many companies are removing self checkout because of this so I'm not sure that's a great example.


I'm not sure I've ever seen a self checkout removed, even in downtown Seattle locations where everything's been locked up and security is patrolling every floor. I've seen increased surveillance and scare tactics at self checkouts but I think costco is just about the only major store left that hasn't pushed people into using almost exclusively self checkout.


It's recent. Walmart is removing them in my area.


Still a great outcome if that’s the case.


That sounds like it's reporting gross revenue. Claiming that the $5B is unimportant because it's a small percentage of revenue, when it's actually gross revenue, is misleading.


Given the dubiousness of their original number, I am taking all of that with a grain of salt.

This page[0] lists the 2022 shrinkage for a few companies, and said Target was at $753M. Target is a huge national brand. Are there really ~100x more companies of Target's size experiencing equal shrinkage annually? How does the math work to get to $95B?

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/08/this-is-how-much-money-retai...


You underestimate the sheer number of small retail stores. Every town, no matter how small, has many.


Really? $4.7B is $14.11 per capita. Fourteen dollars and eleven cents.




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