Peter Facey
Today, British Retail Consortium published its annual study on the damage that the British shops suffer from theft, robbery and other crimes. The total amount of damage compared to the previous year increased by 2% and reached a record amount of £ 613 million. At the same, BRC notes that the financial damage caused by consumer crimes rose by 35% last year. This suggests that the criminals are choosing more expensive products, not settling for trifles.
Another trend is the growing role of fraud and cybercrime, from which stores also carry substantial damage. Compared with the previous year, the amount of losses from such crimes increased by 55%. According to BRC, this dynamic should make both retailers and authorities pay more attention to protecting the business from fraud and cybercrime. In particular, introduction a UK-wide fraud accounting system for retail market should be one of these measures.
BRC said that a common database, which stores network and make data about cases of fraud, should help businesses not only reduce the amount of crime, but also to provide local law enforcement agencies with more information to find and punish the criminals.
The study also notes that a very acute problem is theft committed by employees of stores - the amount of damage is 6% of the total losses. The average amount of the damage from theft by employees amounted to £ 1114, while the average amount of the damage from the robbery - £ 1433. The number of acts of aggression against members of stores amounted to 48,530, in conversion on 1,000 employees - 41 act of aggression. This is substantially more than the year before - 32 to 1,000 employees. However, BRC notes that the vast majority of these attacks (39 per 1,000) was not accompanied by physical violence, but expressed in aggressive behavior. Average damage caused by the theft from consumers was £ 325, which is 35% more than the year before. However, such crimes are most popular in Britain - last year, there was 521 thousand of them, representing 81% of total offense.
source: brc.org.uk
Another trend is the growing role of fraud and cybercrime, from which stores also carry substantial damage. Compared with the previous year, the amount of losses from such crimes increased by 55%. According to BRC, this dynamic should make both retailers and authorities pay more attention to protecting the business from fraud and cybercrime. In particular, introduction a UK-wide fraud accounting system for retail market should be one of these measures.
BRC said that a common database, which stores network and make data about cases of fraud, should help businesses not only reduce the amount of crime, but also to provide local law enforcement agencies with more information to find and punish the criminals.
The study also notes that a very acute problem is theft committed by employees of stores - the amount of damage is 6% of the total losses. The average amount of the damage from theft by employees amounted to £ 1114, while the average amount of the damage from the robbery - £ 1433. The number of acts of aggression against members of stores amounted to 48,530, in conversion on 1,000 employees - 41 act of aggression. This is substantially more than the year before - 32 to 1,000 employees. However, BRC notes that the vast majority of these attacks (39 per 1,000) was not accompanied by physical violence, but expressed in aggressive behavior. Average damage caused by the theft from consumers was £ 325, which is 35% more than the year before. However, such crimes are most popular in Britain - last year, there was 521 thousand of them, representing 81% of total offense.
source: brc.org.uk
