As a counselor for both in-class and online stop theft classes I am constantly looking for stories about theft or shoplifting. Recently I have been reading about a new form of shoplifting that has gone viral – online shoplifting?

Did you know that retailers in the United Kingdom claim that online shoplifting was responsible for more than $650 million in sales last year? Who knew, right? As reported in www.retail-digital.com.

With such a huge problem you would think retailers had a plan in place. You would be wrong. Less than one-third of retailers have any clue how they are going to combat the issue. Furthermore, 82% think most retailers are unable to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent claims without alienating honest customers. More than three-quarters do not even have a procedure for handling fraudulent claims.

This is an online shoplifters paradise as fewer than 10% of cases of reported lost goods are actually scrutinized by home shopping firms.

Meanwhile, the cost to retail firms of false reports of lost goods goes largely unnoticed in many companies, as more than 60% of the respondents believe most retailers are failing to track and measure the direct or operational costs of fraudulent claims. Can retailers really be unaware of the cost to their bottom line?

The Answer

What is essential to enable home shopping firms to eliminate fraud and ensure that legitimate claims are dealt with promptly and efficiently is having the necessary consumer data to hand to allow them to take an informed and appropriate approach to each customer on a case-by-case basis – that is, giving frontline claims management staff information that enables them to identify which claims are potential cases of fraud and which are likely genuine instances of goods gone missing.