Retail Shrink and ORC: Is Self-Checkout on the Way Out? US Retailers Scale Back To Fight Theft

What's Inside

Continuing our regular series on retail shrink and organized retail crime (ORC), we focus this month on developments from the US and the UK. We discuss recent legislative changes, retailer announcements and news about loss-prevention technologies.

References to shrink and associated keywords in the earnings transcripts of selected US and UK retailers for full-year 2023 were 1.5X the average level of the prior five years. References in 1Q24 remain elevated—nearly 38% higher than in the year-ago quarter—implying ongoing, heightened concern about shrink and retail crime among retailers.

Read this report to learn more about these findings as well as the scaling back of self-checkout by major US retailers.

Data in this research report include:

• Number of times “shrink,” “theft,” “shoplifting” and “retail crime” was mentioned by selected US and UK retailers in their quarterly earnings calls, 1Q18–1Q24

Companies mentioned in this report include: 99 Cents Only, Amazon, BJ’s Wholesale, Boots UK, Co-op, Costco, Dicks Sporting Goods, Dollar General, Five Below, Primark, Walmart

Other relevant research:

• Read the previous report in the Retail Shrink and ORC
• RetailTech: Leading-Edge Loss Prevention—Tackling Theft and Fraud Through RFID, Video Surveillance and More—a free report, sponsored by Sensormatic
• Retail Challenges Drive Edge Technology Investment—a free report, sponsored by VMware
• Retail-Tech Landscape: Loss Prevention
• Watch our Insights Video for more insights from our analysts on loss prevention.
• Visit the Coresight Research Retail Technology Hub to explore reports, data and competitive landscapes on technology.