bangalore its not just the booming retail industry in india thats making news internationally but the alarming shrinkage rates the percentage of loss of products between manufacture and point of sale as well as per global retail theft barometer conducted by centre for retail research england across 32 countries in north america europe and the asiapacific india has the highest shrinkage rate of 29the largest survey of retail crime and loss in the world which was conducted between june 2006 and june 2007 also notes the sunnier side to this the current percentage is a 94 reduction from last yeartracking and measuring shrinkage in india is difficult and large retailers are becoming proactive only of late one method could be to offer employee incentives if the shrinkage is below a certain percentage says r kannan director of retail consultancy firm ramms india its tough to differentiate between customer and employee theft in indiaother countries with high shrinkage rates are thailand 165 us 152 canada 148 and australia 139 while austria 094 switzerland 096 and iceland 1 had the lowest rates the total global shrinkage cost retailers in the 32 countries 98630 million or 136 of turnover up from 134 last year around 820 retailers operating 138603 stores provided the data used in this studythe survey funded by checkpoint systems found that customer theft is responsible for 42 of shrinkage 41504 million disloyal employees cost 352 34671 million internal error and administrative failure like pricing or accounting mistakes was 165 16248 million and supplier theft and fraud was 63 6207 millionusing the right systems at all stages right from inventory through the supply chain up to cash tills and surveillance can greatly help reduce shrinkage retailers are increasingly ramping up from systems by inhouse programmers to internationally reputed software by it companies specialising in retail says naresh ahuja md of retail solutions provider etp in stores it might not always be a practical idea to use rfid tags since they might not be a costeffective solution for low value itemsthe moststolen items included branded and expensive products cosmetics and skincare alcohol womens apparel perfumes and designerwear other highly stolen lines included razor blades dvdscds video games and video consoles small electric items and fashion accessories in india lingerie cosmetics batteries and small food items are the most commonly flicked says kannanretailers in the us canada australia and iceland reported that employee theft was higher than customer theft the average amount stolen by apprehended customer thieves was 270 while employee thieves stole 1967 seven times more than customersin contrast customer theft was seen as the greatest source of loss for asiapacific countries amounting to 526 8031 million while employee thieves accounted for 219 3335 million