The industry uses a very amorphous metric called "shrink". It's the total delta between inventory the computer says should be there and inventory actually there

The industry uses a very amorphous metric called "shrink". It's the total delta between inventory the computer says should be there and inventory actually there. It includes product mistracked or mislaid and sometimes even includes product deliberately discarded for economic reasons. Shrink has always been 1-2% of sales, and retailers have long decided it isn't worth it to spend a lot to try and push the number lower.