Major retailers worked together to connect more than one million dots between repeat and organized offenders last year using retail crime intelligence platform, Auror.
This global milestone was achieved through structured crime reporting across retailers within the Auror Network, which allows users to verify links between multiple events involving the same individuals. U.S. retailers worked together to connect retail crime more than 730,000 times last year.
This gives retailers and law enforcement the real picture of offending patterns across stores, cities and jurisdictions. These insights show that the top 10% of offenders are responsible for more than 65% of retail crime in the U.S., and those repeat offenders are up to three times more likely to be violent or use a weapon.
Auror co-founder and CEO Phil Thomson said the milestone demonstrates the change in how the sector is combating the high volume, violent and organized problem of retail crime - and that it’s working.
“Retailers have always captured this information about crime, but the way they did it was different from store to store - some would use sticky notes, USB sticks or CDs, and others might use ‘walls of shame’,” he said.
“These processes were not only time-consuming, but also offered no visibility around whether the individuals abusing frontline workers or stealing products were doing the same thing at another store. Repeat offenders have always thrived in that anonymity.
“Using technology to work together through sharing information about crime and collaborating directly with law enforcement is the key to making stores safer at scale.”
To-date, retailers have connected more than two million dots globally through Auror. It has helped the world’s largest retailers reduce violent retail crime in their stores as a result of intelligence surfaced through dot connections.
One of the largest American supermarket chains reduced violent retail crime across their store network last year by 12%, while a national UK retailer reported a 26% drop in violent behavior towards their staff.
Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) Director of Research Dr. Cory Lowe said "controlling organized retail crime requires retailers and law enforcement to be more coordinated than the offenders themselves”.
“Decades of research shows a minority of offenders drives the majority of harm,” he said.
“When retailers can link incidents across locations, investigators can identify patterns, prioritize high-impact offenders, and build stronger cases, ultimately improving outcomes and holding serious, repeat offenders accountable.”
Auror and its partners are on a shared mission to reduce violent retail crime by 50% in 5 years through stronger collaboration between retailers and law enforcement, and focusing on the highest harm offenders.
About Auror
Auror is a global software company providing a Retail Crime Intelligence platform to the world’s leading retailers to record potential crime in their stores after it occurs, better collaborate with law enforcement on crime, and create safer stores for all.
Auror allows retailers to record events in a secure and structured way, helping them connect the dots to identify prolific and organised offenders. This information empowers retailers to make informed decisions to protect their people, customers, and property, and address the large scale of retail crime impacting our communities.
Globally, Auror is used by more than 85,000 retail stores and in more than 3,500 law enforcement agencies across North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
