Top 3 Reasons Why ORC may be
Smaller Fish in the Shrink Sea

What is ORC?
The National Retail Federation (NRF) defines Organized Retail Crime (ORC) as, "theft/fraudulent activity conducted with the intent to convert illegally obtained merchandise, cargo, cash, or cash equivalent into financial gain (no personal use), typically through online or offline sales. Organized retail crime typically involves a criminal enterprise that organizes large-scale thefts from a number of retail stores and employs a fencing operation to sell the illegally-obtained goods for financial gain."

ORC: The Smaller Fish in the Shrink Sea?
Shrink rates can be lowered by either decreasing the amount of inventory shortage or by increasing sales, The Calibration Group's whitepaper, "SOH: The Retail Problem That's 7 Times Greater than ORC" reveals. Accordingly, ORC may no longer be considered the biggest threat to retailers' bottom lines from a Loss Prevention perspective. The Top 3 reasons to consider when pondering this comparison:

1. ORC costs North American retailers a staggering $34.67 billion a year, but the $252.9 billion stock-on-hand (SOH) issue overshadows ORC by more than 7:1.

2. If North American retailers eliminated ORC entirely, profit earned from the $34.67 billion in merchandise now available for sale would be $1.04 billion.*

3. If North American retailers resolved their SOH issues and recouped the lost sales, the profit earned from the $252.9 billion would be nearly $7.6 billion.*

* Calculations based on 3% net profit margins

The Four-Letter Solution
An inventory visibility system (IVS) with RFID technology offers retailers clear insight into their inventory at any given point in time. RFID, along with a comprehensive, yet simple software application, has now become the solution that can easily be embedded into any retail framework. An IVS system with RFID provides store personnel with key inventory management data, such as how many items are in back stock and on the sales floor, which in turn allows the staff to manage inventory more "real-time" by making necessary adjustments.

This technology also provides the ability to take a full inventory of the store within minutes as opposed to hours. Loss Prevention professionals can now enhance profitability more effectively by increasing sales while simultaneously lowering the shrink rate.
 

Download the whitepaper here.   Download the infographic here.