Frank Horst, EHI expert for security and inventory differences, explains: “Despite securing goods and employee training, it is stolen in the trade, which is not rivet and nail-proof.” According to the study, inventory losses in 2024 amounted to EUR 4.95 billion with a turnover of around EUR 495 billion (gross). This means an increase of around 3% compared to the previous year.
The vast majority of losses arise from the theft of customers, employees, suppliers and service staff and was EUR 4.2 billion (2023: 4.1 billion euros). According to the companies surveyed, around EUR 2.95 billion is due to the lovefing by customers. Loss of EUR 890 million will be charged to their own employees, the personnel of suppliers and service companies 370 million euros. The economic damage resulting from the theft caused by lost sales tax amounts to around 570 million euros per year, reports the EHI study. Around a third of the shoplifting steels with almost 1 billion euros total damage went to the account of organized groups of perpetrators. This means an increase of 5%.
98% of all thefts are not recognized and displayed. According to the retail association, around 24.5 million shoplifting steels worth 120 euros each remain undetected. In total, retail spends 1.6 billion euros in order to reduce inventory differences from shoplifting. In view of the high number of theft, every fourth dealer has increased their budget for security dimensions.
The current investigation took part in 98 companies with a total of 17,433 sales outlets, which generated total sales of around EUR 94.3 billion.
