National retailers continue to sound the alarm that theft is rising, but in a way that closing stores would fail to address.
Organized retail crime, or ORC, rose an average of 26% in 2021, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation, representing a growing share of inventory shrink, the retail industry’s term for theft, Forbes reports.
At Target, the shrink has already shaved $400M from the company’s gross margin in 2022 compared to last year, Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call last month. Fiddelke said he expects that to hit $600M by the end…