Struggling Retailers Paralyzed in Loss Prevention Efforts, New Study Finds

Retailers' perception of opportunities afforded by Loss Prevention initiatives based on sales performance, leads one to wonder: Is this a story of how Winners continue to win, or how laggards continue to miss the mark? While there is universal agreement that Shrink control is an ever-increasing retailer priority, Winners (those whose sales outperform their peers and inflation) rank nearly every opportunity for improvement higher than their underperforming peers.

Miami, FL (PRWEB) November 20, 2008 -- RSR's newest research study, "Loss Prevention and Beyond: Survival of the Fittest," sponsored by Sensormatic, finds retailers grappling with a down economy, increases in the impact of organized crime and the continuing saga of trying to find the sweet-spot of customer-centricity using employees who will steal from them at the first opportunity.

RSR believes there are two ways retailers can bring significant improvements to the gross margin erosion caused by shrink. The first is to add business intelligence to existing investments - going beyond forensics to real-time tools and analysis. The second is to tap into the larger available labor pool brought about by the economic down-turn and upgrade the quality of the in-store workforce.

"Retail laggards really need to snap out of the sense of despair that seems to be dogging them," said Steve Rowen, Managing Partner at RSR and co-author of the report. "It's time to look for opportunities and build for the future. We can't just focus on short-term sales and economic bad news."

Retail Winners' perspective is significantly different. They are most bullish on improving tools to support Returns and void management, cash management, and in using EAS/Security tags to drive better shrink results. Laggards, on the other hand, seem to experience tremendous discontinuities between perceived threats and ways to overcome them.

RSR's new study, Loss Prevention and Beyond: Survival of the Fittest explores the challenges and opportunities associated with continuing to recoup lost gross margin associated with internal and external merchandise theft.

To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, click here (http://www.retailsystemsresearch.com/_document/summary/757) or:

http://www.retailsystemsresearch.com/_document/summary/757 (http://www.retailsystemsresearch.com/_document/summary/757)

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