In June, 2011 National Retail Federation reported that retail shrinkage increased to 1.58 percent of retail sales in 2010, up from 1.44 percent in 2009. According to the survey, total retail losses cost retailers $37.1 billion last year, up from $33.5 billion in 2009.

According to the survey, the majority of retail shrinkage last year was due to employee theft, at $16.2 billion, accounting for 43.7 percent of total losses. Retailers reported that 18.7 percent of cases involved collusion between internal and external bad actors. Retailers lost $12.1 billion to shoplifting, which is 32.6 percent of total losses. Other losses included administrative error ($4.8 billion and 12.9% of shrinkage) and vendor fraud ($2 billion and 5.4% of shrinkage). Retailers said that the cause of the remaining shrinkage was unknown.

In June, 2007, National Retail Federation reported: “Though total retail losses continue to rise in correlation with industry sales, it is encouraging that shrinkage as a percentage of sales has stayed flat,” said Dr. Richard Hollinger, lead author of the report and a criminology professor at the University of Florida. “Retailers seem to be putting a dent in the amount of criminal activity in their stores, though they acknowledge they have a lot of work left to do.” 

According to the survey, the majority of retail shrinkage last year hit was due to employee theft, at $19.5 billion, which represented almost half of losses (47%). Shoplifting accounted for $13.3 billion, or about one-third (32%) of losses. Other losses included administrative error ($5.8 billion and 14% of shrinkage) and vendor fraud ($1.7 billion and 4% of shrinkage).