The economic downturn has altered the face of retail crime in the Asia Pacific region, with a study showing that employees prefer to steal more cash than merchandise.
According to the report by Retail Systems Research (RSR), retailers are concerned about workers stealing more cash and less of merchandise.
The report further noted that shoplifting or theft by consumers and gangs is on the rise.
"Traditionally employee theft has been the largest portion of the retail crime pie and it still is, but we believe we are seeing a shift in employee theft as retailers get better at spotting it," electronic security services provider, ADT Security Asia Pacific Vice President (Retail and Security Products) Kelvin Lam said.
The survey titled "Loss Prevention 2010: Retailers Battling Shrink in Tough Times" said more than 45 per cent respondents listed theft of cash by employees as one of their top three concerns, which is 13 per cent more than in 2008.
While theft of cash by employees is a smaller portion of retail crime than merchandise theft by workers, customers and gangs, it has become of increasing concern to retailers.
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In 2009, 68 per cent retailers named theft of merchandise by employees as one of their top concerns-- down 12 per cent from previous year. At the same time, 62 per cent listed shoplifting by customers as a top concern, compared with 52 per cent in 2008.
"The economy is reducing the number of employees in the stores and creating more opportunities for shoplifting and gangs," Lam said.
Retailers have become better at identifying employee theft. Still, the economy presents more opportunities for shoplifters because in addition to there being fewer watchful employees on the store floor, there are more opportunities to re sell discounted stolen items online to bargain-hungry consumers, Lam said.
Besides, there is some good news for retailers as new anti-theft technologies like point-of-sale and analytic software are working to help reduce theft of all kinds.
"We are continuing to work with our retail customers to help them maximise and add technologies like cameras, video analytics and anti-theft tags to target shoplifters and organised retail criminals," Lam said.
According to Lam, there are also solutions available for employee theft of cash that include new and more extensive data collection and analysis of transactions.
The survey was conducted on 83 small to large multi-national retailers by RSR, a research company run for the retail industry.