Data on retail shrink, theft, fraud, holiday ecommerce, consumer behavior, and returns highlights how loss prevention priorities are changing across stores and distribution operations.
Holiday retail combines heavy customer traffic, seasonal staffing, high transaction volumes, ecommerce demand, and increased reverse-logistics activity. The NRF shrink report estimated $112.1 billion in retail shrink during fiscal 2022, while newer research shows loss patterns continuing to evolve across physical theft, organized retail crime, digital fraud, and return abuse.
These pressures also extend into fulfillment and distribution operations as merchandise moves through receiving, storage, picking, shipping, and returns. Voxel’s retail platform provides visibility into supported safety and operational conditions involving vehicles, ergonomics, PPE, spills, obstructions, doors, and workplace areas using existing camera infrastructure.
NRF estimated $112.1 billion in retail shrink during fiscal 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021. Shrink encompasses inventory losses and discrepancies rather than shoplifting alone, making it a broader measure of retail exposure. At national scale, even relatively small changes in shrink rates can translate into billions of dollars in merchandise losses.
The average retail shrink rate reached 1.6% of sales in fiscal 2022, compared with 1.4% the previous year. The figure is an annual industry benchmark rather than a holiday-specific rate. Individual retailers can experience different results depending on merchandise mix, store format, inventory controls, transaction patterns, and operating practices.
Internal and external theft together represented 65% of shrink reported by surveyed retailers. That distribution shows why loss prevention needs to extend beyond customer-facing shoplifting. Employee access, inventory handling, receiving, merchandise movement, and other internal processes can also influence losses, requiring controls that span multiple stages of retail operations.
More than half of surveyed retailers, 53%, reported increasing technology and software solution budgets. Retail technology can support inventory visibility, fraud analysis, incident management, security, and operational oversight. During peak periods, stronger data can help multi-location teams identify recurring patterns and allocate attention more consistently instead of treating every loss event in isolation.
NRF found that 54% of retailers had increased or were increasing employee workplace violence training. Modern loss prevention therefore includes protecting employees and customers as well as merchandise. Busy holiday periods can create crowded, demanding environments where clear escalation procedures and employee guidance help teams respond consistently without encouraging unnecessary confrontation.
Surveyed retailers experienced an average 12.4% decrease in shoplifting incidents from 2024 to 2025. The downward movement is encouraging, but it does not mean retail loss is declining uniformly. Other fraud and repeat-offender patterns moved differently, making a broader view of theft, transactions, and fraud important when retailers establish peak-season priorities.
Merchandise-theft incidents decreased by an average of 8.1% between 2024 and 2025. The improvement complements the decline in shoplifting, while highlighting that retail risk changes over time rather than following one direction. Consistent incident tracking can help retailers identify which methods are becoming less common and which require greater attention.
Despite lower overall shoplifting, 50% of retailers reported increasing repeat-offender activity. Recurring events can be harder to identify when locations analyze cases independently. Standardized reporting and information sharing can help connect incidents across stores, giving loss-prevention teams a clearer view of patterns involving the same individuals, groups, products, or geographic areas.
Organized-retail-crime-related events increased among 40% of surveyed retailers. Coordinated activity can cross locations, jurisdictions, digital channels, and supply-chain touchpoints, making it more complex than isolated shoplifting. Consistent classification and cross-location visibility can help organizations understand whether apparently separate incidents form part of a broader pattern.
Phone scams increased among 69% of retailers, demonstrating how retail loss extends beyond merchandise physically leaving a store. Social-engineering schemes can target employees and established procedures directly. Verification requirements, authorization controls, and employee awareness can therefore complement physical security measures when retailers address an increasingly varied fraud environment.
More than half of retailers, 51%, reported increases in loyalty fraud. Loyalty programs connect customer accounts, promotions, points, and transactions across physical and digital channels, creating another potential avenue for abuse. Holiday promotions can increase account activity, making unusual redemption and transaction patterns particularly relevant during peak shopping periods.
Gift card theft or fraud increased among 42% of retailers. Gift cards become especially prominent during holiday shopping and can transfer value rapidly across channels. Employee awareness, transaction verification, activation safeguards, and monitoring for unusual purchasing or redemption behavior can strengthen controls without treating every gift card transaction as inherently suspicious.
On a not seasonally adjusted basis, the Census Bureau estimated $365.2 billion in U.S. ecommerce sales during Q4 2025. The quarter encompasses the major year-end holiday shopping period, making the figure useful context for the amount of merchandise flowing through fulfillment, transportation, delivery, and return networks as retailers manage peak demand.
Not seasonally adjusted Q4 ecommerce sales increased 5.6% from 2024 to 2025, according to the Census Bureau. Growth in online purchasing increases more than digital transaction volume: it also expands picking, packing, parcel movement, customer service, inventory reconciliation, and reverse-logistics workloads across distribution operations supporting holiday demand.
Ecommerce represented 18.3% of total sales in Q4 2025 on a not seasonally adjusted basis. That share reinforces the need to view holiday retail as an omnichannel environment. Inventory and loss-prevention processes increasingly span stores, ecommerce systems, fulfillment facilities, carriers, pickup operations, and return channels rather than remaining concentrated on the sales floor.
Deloitte found consumers planned to spend an average of $1,595 during the 2025 holiday season. Retailers compete for that spending across stores, ecommerce, promotions, and marketplaces. Accurate inventory, reliable fulfillment, and efficient customer experiences become particularly important when shoppers are actively comparing prices and deciding where to allocate limited seasonal budgets.
Average planned holiday spending was 10% lower than the previous year in Deloitte’s 2025 survey. More constrained budgets can increase consumer attention to discounts and value, placing additional pressure on retailers to manage promotional activity, inventory availability, and margins while maintaining controls around transactions and merchandise during peak shopping periods.
Deloitte found 77% of consumers expected higher prices on holiday items. Price expectations can shape when people shop, how aggressively they seek promotions, and whether they switch brands or channels. For retailers, that behavior can create intense activity around discount events, increasing simultaneous demands on pricing systems, inventory, staffing, and fulfillment.
Another 58% of consumers described holiday shopping as stressful. Crowded stores, budget pressure, product availability, and compressed shopping schedules can all influence the customer experience. Organized store environments, reliable inventory information, efficient checkout, and well-prepared seasonal teams can help retailers manage peak traffic while reducing unnecessary friction for shoppers and employees.
Deloitte reported that 82% of consumers planned to shop during Black Friday-Cyber Monday in 2025, up from 79% in 2024. Concentrating purchase intent into a short period can intensify demand across stores and ecommerce simultaneously, requiring coordinated staffing, inventory management, transaction controls, fulfillment capacity, and customer support.
U.S. merchandise returns totaled $685 billion in 2024. Returns move products back through stores, carriers, warehouses, inspection processes, and inventory systems, making them a significant operational workload. Holiday purchases can add another surge of reverse logistics just as retailers and distribution centers emerge from peak outbound activity.
The $685 billion in merchandise returns represented 13.21% of sales in the 2024 analysis. At that scale, returns affect much more than customer service desks. Merchandise may require transportation, inspection, restocking, refurbishment, liquidation, or another disposition before inventory records and product availability can be fully reconciled.
Fraudulent returns and claims generated an estimated $103 billion in losses in 2024. Return fraud can involve stolen merchandise, receipts, payment methods, customer accounts, or policy abuse rather than conventional shoplifting. High-volume return periods can make consistent verification processes especially valuable as retailers balance fraud prevention with an efficient experience for legitimate customers.
Return and claims fraud represented 15.14% of returns in the 2024 research. The proportion illustrates why reverse logistics is also a loss-prevention function. Transaction information, merchandise condition, order history, receipts, and return-policy controls can all contribute to differentiating legitimate customer activity from patterns that warrant additional review.
Among retail executives surveyed, 60% identified wardrobing as a return-fraud challenge. Wardrobing involves buying merchandise, using it, and then returning it. The practice can be particularly relevant around events and gift-giving periods, making consistent merchandise inspection and return verification useful without imposing unnecessary friction on customers making legitimate returns.
Retail loss can arise through merchandise theft, organized retail crime, fraud, return abuse, inventory discrepancies, and operational breakdowns. Peak-season planning is strongest when retailers combine appropriate loss-prevention controls with safe, efficient movement of people, vehicles, and inventory across stores and distribution facilities.
Retail and distribution teams can focus on several practical priorities:
Voxel’s risk management platform works with 95% of existing IP cameras and can deploy to a site in 48 hours using existing camera infrastructure. Its AI has been trained on more than 5 billion hours of real-world industrial workplace scenarios, while its retail capabilities support visibility into vehicles, ergonomics, PPE, spills, obstructions, restricted areas, and other workplace conditions.
Customer results demonstrate how this visibility can support high-throughput operations. At MSI’s Orange facility, lost-time injuries fell 50% and workers’ compensation costs fell 73% within six months. At the Port of Virginia, truck speeding fell 50% while safety-team efficiency increased 85%. These outcomes reflect individual customer environments, baseline conditions, and implementation approaches.
NRF estimated an average retail shrink rate of 1.6% of sales in fiscal 2022, compared with 1.4% the previous year. The figure is an annual retail-industry benchmark rather than a holiday-specific shrink rate, and individual results can vary by merchandise mix, store format, inventory controls, and operating model.
Recent NRF research found that shoplifting incidents among surveyed retailers decreased an average of 12.4% from 2024 to 2025. Other patterns moved differently: half of retailers reported higher repeat-offender activity, 40% reported increasing organized-retail-crime-related events, and several fraud categories also increased.
Not seasonally adjusted U.S. ecommerce sales totaled $365.2 billion in Q4 2025 and represented 18.3% of quarterly retail sales. That volume moves merchandise through digital transactions, fulfillment facilities, transportation networks, customer service processes, and returns, expanding holiday loss-prevention considerations beyond physical stores.
Return and claims fraud generated an estimated $103 billion in losses in 2024 and represented 15.14% of returns in the Appriss Retail research. Return fraud can involve stolen merchandise, transaction abuse, wardrobing, receipts, customer accounts, and other tactics requiring different controls from conventional shoplifting.
Voxel provides continuous visibility into supported safety and operational conditions across retail distribution environments using compatible existing cameras. Capabilities include vehicle safety, ergonomics, PPE, spills, obstructions, doors, and area controls, while Actions helps teams connect identified risks with ownership, deadlines, follow-up, and coaching.
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