What is Retail Crime Intelligence?

Retail Asset Protection /  Loss Prevention (AP/LP) teams can no longer rely on traditional case and incident management systems to combat highly Organized Retail Crime (ORC) groups and prolific subjects brazenly stealing and reselling billions of dollars in merchandise.

The impact of shoplifting on retail profits, the customer experience, and in-store safety has reached epidemic levels globally, and it has become the most attractive type of crime to profit from. In this ever-changing and complex world, even exceptional AP/LP teams need the support of their entire organization and industry partners to address this growing trend.

So, what else can retailers do today to succeed? Industry leading retailers are choosing to adopt Retail Crime Intelligence (RCI) - the world’s fastest growing industry-wide approach to reducing retail theft and harm.

What is Retail Crime Intelligence?

Retail Crime Intelligence is a software platform that connects people and organizations with timely intel to proactively reduce the impacts of crime in retail stores. It’s used by Asset Protection / Loss Prevention departments alongside their store and security teams, law enforcement and trusted partners to identify and prevent the people driving their theft-related loss and harm.

Case management vs Retail Crime Intelligence

AP/LP teams are tasked with reducing theft-related loss (and more broadly crime) while balancing the customer experience. Traditional case management solutions for AP/LP teams are used to record incidents vs proactively reducing crime.

Case management

  • Case management software is focused on recording and storing incident information in a centralized location.
  • It is a function that informs AP/LP teams about what has already occurred in stores
  • It is a reactive function that looks at specific individual cases.

Retail Crime Intelligence

  • Retail Crime Intelligence is a platform focused on reporting intel on the people driving an organization's theft-related loss and harm and distributing it in real time to all those who need it to prevent crime.
  • It informs AP/LP teams, stores, law enforcement, and trusted partners on who, what, how, why, when and where crime is and where it’s likely to occur next
  • It is a proactive system that connects, generates, and shares intel on the people driving theft-related loss and harm.

Data flow

Case Management

One-way

I used to receive crime information from incident reports in store. Its primary purpose was determining where to deploy resources so I needed to assume this was accurate.

Retail Crime Intelligence

Shared intelligence

Giving the people on the front line the ability to see intel of the people active in their store and area has completely changed the engagement and outcomes for stores.

Connect the dots

Case Management

Individual incidents

I had incidents reported one at a time, and several members of my team needed to manually join the dots.

Retail Crime Intelligence

Aggregated

Letting the system aggregate the information is much more accurate and powerful in dealing with these repeat individuals and getting engagement from police.

Who needs Retail Crime Intelligence and why does it matter?

If your retail organization is impacted by shoplifting in stores then you should invest in Retail Crime Intelligence.

Over 70% of retail theft is caused by just 20% of offenders, indicating that the majority of the loss is really ORC or professional thieves. This is the equivalent of 1 in 25,000 customers who visit stores causing millions of dollars of theft related loss.

Retailers across the world struggle to stop prolific shoplifters day after day. According to the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention, “prolific offenders are caught just once every 100 times they steal”. This means the longer it takes to generate the intel and case to successfully identify, prevent and prosecute prolific shoplifters and ORC groups, the longer your store profits and people are impacted. Innovative AP/LP teams who have adopted Retail Crime Intelligence have the necessary intel and systems to prevent and/or resolve cases against these bad actors within six criminal events on average.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at what this means for a typical retailer and what they would need to sell to make up for the stolen product.

Average stolen amount

100 instances

Equivalent to sales* of

$100

$10,000

$200,000

$500

$50,000

$1,000,000

$1,000

$100,000

$2,000,000

*For a retailer with a 5% Net Profit Margin
Formula: (Stolen amount ÷ profit margin %) × stolen amount = equivalent sales

With this example, you can see stopping just a single but highly effective shoplifter could mean saving the equivalent of $200,000 to $2 million in sales for your organization to make up for the loss. Many regional and national retailers will have hundreds of these at any given time, equating to hundreds of millions in sales being required to cover that profit.

With Retail Crime Intelligence, repeat offenders don’t return to a retailer within 6 criminal events, resulting in millions of equivalent sales savings, not to mention, less unsafe situations in stores, better team productivity, and better on shelf-availability.

How does Retail Crime Intelligence stop shoplifters, faster?

1. Identifies the people driving the harm

Retail Crime Intelligence empowers AP/LP and store teams to report actionable intel on the people driving their harm. This leads to the identification and visibility of the 20% of subjects driving 70% of reported loss within 30 days of deploying the system.

2. Connects people and cases

Using incident, people, vehicle, and product descriptors the platform systematically connects multiple events to subjects to build comprehensive profiles on each and every shoplifter. RCI data shows that repeat people who have been involved in more than 5 events have 3 accomplices on average.

3. Disperses timely intel to prevent crime

By identifying the people driving the most theft and harm, and making that intel available to frontline teams in real time, over 90% of people who are prevented in store do not return within the next 6 months.

4. Resolves cases faster

Using incident, people, vehicle, and product descriptors the platform systematically connects multiple events to subjects to build comprehensive profiles on each and every shoplifter. RCI data shows that repeat people who have been involved in more than 5 events have 3 accomplices on average.

Is Retail Crime Intelligence right for your organization?

If your retail organization has a regional or national store presence, and experiences two or more of the following characteristics then get in touch with Auror, the Retail Crime Intelligence platform for a free consultation on how it can reduce theft related loss and harm in your organization.

  • Store teams under-reporting incidents  
  • Takes more than 10 minutes to report a detailed incident
  • No or limited ability to connect the dots
  • No or limited ability to distribute real time intel on threats to teams
  • No or limited ability to allocate guards where and when needed most
  • No or limited visibility on the impact of theft-related loss
  • No or limited engagement with law enforcement
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