“I personally believe this is driven by the opioid crisis,” Carol Tome, Home Depot’s then-chief financial officer, said in a phone interview with CNBC in May.
KEY POINTS
- Organized retail crime costs retailers nearly $778,000 per $1 billion in sales in 2018, an all-time high, according to a National Retail Federation survey
- In the past three quarters, Home Depot reported that an increase in “shrink” hurt its financial results.
- Retail shrinkage includes organized retail crime.
- Home Depot says if shrink gets too high, it may have to pass costs off to consumers.
- To stop the crime, Home Depot and other retailers are spending more on preventing theft and working with law enforcement.
- The Utah Attorney General’s Office worked with Home Depot and other retailers on a multimillion dollar operation against seven pawnshops selling stolen goods.
Imagine loading up a cart full of merchandise at a store, and just walking out the door in broad daylight as store employees watch you do it.
