👉 Background: Myer is Australia’s biggest department store and despite a rocky few years, Myer recently announced some super positive half yearly results.

👉 What happened: But one curly little thing stood out of their results -  theft had grown to 1.7% of wholesale sales. This is the highest it’s been in 5 years. Myer reckons that theft is up because

• They’ve been stocking more desirable brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren
• Customers can’t afford these items in the current economic climate.
  

👉 What else: So Myer has doubled down on tech, uniformed officers and undercover cops to reduce shrinkage and stop more in-store theft.

What's the key learning?

💡In this all important context, shrinkage is a term used to describe a loss in stock for a business. It may be because of wastage, like the product is damaged or it could be because of good ol fashioned theft.

💡As a business owner, there will always be a small degree of stock that you can’t sell because of waste, damage or theft. This is called a shrinkage expense. But for Myer, this expense is really adding up.

💡So now, Myer is putting control measures in place to keep shrinkage as low as possible, like security cameras, alarms, and undercover cops because every dollar of shrinkage reduces profit.

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