> In the many years he has bragged about making that store's shrinkage the smallest in the state I have worked with a handful of amazing people like him. Taki

> In the many years he has bragged about making that store's shrinkage the smallest in the state I have worked with a handful of amazing people like him. Taking pride in such things is great and is what I am mourning in these (risky) posts. > he never once talked about shoplifting as a driver of that shrinkage. It was ALWAYS waste, or backroom theft, or poor stock handling and planning. Agreed. Employee theft was always by far the largest form of shrinkage while I was working retail. It likely very much still is or I'd be absolutely surprised. What is not discussed is the elephant in the room. You start letting retail theft creep up like this - not just in numbers but in blatant in your face crime - you will start seeing backroom theft skyrocket. People eventually become demoralized and while it's complete anecdote I'm personally seeing it now. Eventually theft is going to become normalized if we continue down this path. Why work a $20/hr retail job when someone can walk in, take $1500 worth of product, and walk out with zero consequences. It adds up. I also cannot agree that shrinkage is not a major problem for most retail stores. A major chain can likely hide it via averaging it out, but for a mom and pop/small chain in a rough area (the type of places I worked for) shrinkage was a major factor of profitability. You have to sell a lot of candy bars to make up for a single one being stolen when you are operating at 10-20% margin. I also completely understand this is very widely distributed through the country at the moment, and I live in one of the worst off places for this sort of thing. My perception is certainly due to that fact.