Retail crime is no longer a loss-prevention line item. It is a balance-sheet issue, and it now runs from the shop floor to the search bar.
Australian retailers have spent the past three years absorbing higher rents, wages, energy and interest costs. Increasingly, they are absorbing something else as well: a steady and rising theft tax that moves through stores, warehouses, websites and payment systems.
Industry bodies conservatively estimate that crime now costs Australian retailers around $9 billion a year. Griffith University's 2024 ANZ Retail Crime Study put the figure at $7.79 billion, close to 2% of turnover, after a rise of roughly 40% in two years.
Two per cent sounds modest, but in a sector where net margins often sit in the low single digits, it is anything but. Australian Institute of Criminology research notes that losing 2 to 3% of sales to theft can wipe out around a quarter of a retailer's profit. For a business already under pressure, that can be the difference between a reset and a restructure.
We work with retailers when the margin for error has disappeared. This is what the latest data shows, and what we believe boards and owners should be doing about it.
In-store theft is at record levels
Nationally, the ABS recorded 595,660 victims of theft in 2024 (excluding motor vehicles), the highest level in 21 years and up 6% on the year before. Almost half of those incidents took place in a retail setting.
Victoria remains the epicentre. Crime Statistics Agency data for the year to June 2026 shows 96,008 offences at retail locations, or roughly 263 every day. Store theft reached a record 37,398 offences, about 102 a day, alongside 5,120 assaults at retail locations. Retail is now the state's third most common location for recorded crime, and since 2022 retail offences have risen around 63%, with theft up by more than 90%.
New South Wales is following the same path. BOCSAR recorded 32,835 retail theft incidents in the year to June 2026, close to 90 a day. Retail theft rose 10.4% over two years and was the only major offence category in the state still climbing. The Australian Retail Council estimates the cost to NSW retailers at $2.8 billion, and BOCSAR has noted the recorded rate is the highest in 20 years and 36% above 2006 levels.
The goods being taken tell their own story. In NSW, liquor features in around 40% of retail thefts where the item is recorded, and licensed premises are the most targeted venue type. Clothing and footwear account for roughly a quarter of thefts, with that category up 17% in the year to March 2026.
Who is doing the stealing
This is not teenagers on a lark and a dare. Most offenders are adults. In Victoria, adults accounted for 88% of offender incidents in the year to March 2026, as youth-linked incidents fell for the first time since 2022. In NSW, only around one in seven people charged with retail theft was aged 10 to 17.
A small group causes most of the harm. Auror's retailer data shows the top 10% of offenders are responsible for more than 60% of total harm and loss, and Crime Stoppers Victoria reports that nearly 70% of retail theft in the state is committed by repeat offenders, many working in organised networks.
Those repeat offenders are also more dangerous, up to four times more likely to be threatening or violent. Across 2025, threatening behaviour in Australian retail rose 26%, violence 17% and weapon use 10%, on top of a 66% jump in weapon-related events in 2024. Around one in four retail crime events now involves violence, intimidation or abuse.
Organised crews target high-value, easily resold goods and move them through online marketplaces and fencing networks. Attitudes are shifting too: Monash University's Consumer Deviance Spotlight found that more than one in four Australian shoppers see retail theft as justifiable to some degree, whether that means swapping price tags or skipping items at self-checkout.
And the threat is not only external. Customer theft remains the biggest driver of loss, but the Griffith study found employee theft still costs retailers millions each year, with insider knowledge making the damage harder to detect.
The online front - scams, clones and ghost stores
While shoplifting dominates the headlines, fraud is migrating to where customers now spend. Australians spent around $64.9 billion online in the year to July 2025, close to 15% of retail sales, and criminals have followed the money.
In 2025 more Australians reported losing money to shopping scams than to any other scam type, with reported losses of $10.8 million according to the National Anti-Scam Centre. Buying and selling scams again recorded the most loss reports in the first half of 2026, with 7,652 people reporting money stolen. Fake websites, social media ads and apps were the most common first point of contact, accounting for $122 million, or 47%, of losses reported to Scamwatch in the first nine months of 2025. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the National Anti-Scam Centre took down 5,834 scam websites.
Increasingly, the scammers borrow the identity of real Australian brands. The ABC reported on a Sydney shopper who paid for a $140 tumble dryer on what looked like an Aldi website; the site vanished four days later. Gorman, Frankie Says Relax and Frank Green have all warned customers about imitation stores, and a CHOICE sweep uncovered look-alike domains impersonating Rip Curl and Witchery. The ACCC has also issued public warning notices against so-called ghost stores: sites posing as local boutiques, complete with invented family backstories and fake closing-down sales, that ship poor-quality goods from offshore.
Why this is a retailer problem, not just a consumer one
A customer scammed by a clone of your brand will often blame your brand. The cost shows up in customer service workload, chargebacks, diverted ad spend and lost trust.
Retailers also carry direct exposure. AusPayNet reports card fraud on Australian-issued cards reached $913 million in 2024, up 20%, driven by card-not-present fraud, which rose 19% to $816 million and makes up around nine in every ten dollars of card fraud. Domestic card-not-present fraud has fallen under the industry's mitigation framework, which shows controls work when merchants apply them.
Returns are another weak point. Around 60% of Australian retailers reported returns fraud or policy abuse over a 12-month period in Loop's research, from wardrobing to empty-box returns. Yet 74% say they put customer experience ahead of prevention, and only about half rate their controls as very effective. The balancing act is real: Blue Yonder's October 2026 survey found 84% of Australian shoppers would cut back on retailers that restrict returns for frequent returners.
What this means for the balance sheet
In our experience, crime and fraud losses rarely sit in isolation. They compound the pressures retailers are already managing.
- Margin erosion hides in the numbers. Shrink is often booked as a stocktake adjustment months after the loss. By the time it is visible, the cash has already gone.
- Costs rise on both sides. Guards, cameras, tagging, body-worn cameras and insurance premiums go up while sales leak out the door.
- People costs are real. Violence and abuse affect retention, absenteeism and WHS obligations, and boards carry that responsibility.
- Location risk is being repriced. Landlords, insurers and investors are factoring crime into decisions about centres and precincts.
- It accelerates distress. With retail insolvencies already elevated, unmanaged shrink can turn a tight year into a solvency question.
Practical steps for retail leaders
- Make shrink a board KPI. Report it monthly by store, category and cause, not once a year at stocktake.
- Get the data right first. Separate known theft, process error, supplier shortfall and internal loss. You cannot fix what you cannot attribute.
- Focus on the few. Prioritise intelligence sharing and police partnerships that target repeat and organised offenders, where most of the harm sits.
- Test your internal controls. Refunds, voids, discounts and stock adjustments are common channels for insider loss. A periodic forensic review is inexpensive insurance.
- Protect your brand online. Monitor for look-alike domains and ads, register defensive URLs and publish a clear list of your official sales channels.
- Harden checkout and returns. Use strong customer authentication on higher-risk transactions and tailor returns policies so loyal customers are not penalised for the behaviour of a few.
- Govern new technology properly. Following the Bunnings decision, facial recognition and AI analytics may be lawful in defined circumstances, but only with a clear purpose, proportionality, deletion controls and a transparent privacy policy.
- Stress-test the forecast. Build realistic shrink and fraud assumptions into cash-flow modelling and covenant headroom.
Retail crime has moved from opportunistic shoplifting to a persistent, organised and increasingly digital cost of doing business. The retailers that weather it best will be those that measure it honestly, control what they can, and act before the losses surface in the cash position.
At Olvera Advisors, our retail, risk management and forensic teams help businesses find where value is leaking and build practical plans to stop it, whether that means a targeted forensic review or a broader operational reset.
If shrink, fraud or margin pressure is keeping you up at night, let's talk.
Sources: Australian Retail Council media releases on retail crime and Auror retailer data (2025–2026); Griffith University, 2024 ANZ Retail Crime Study; Australian Bureau of Statistics, Recorded Crime – Victims, 2024; Crime Statistics Agency Victoria, data to March and June 2026; NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, quarterly updates 2026; Crime Stoppers Victoria; Monash University, Consumer Deviance Spotlight (2025); Bunnings Group Limited and Privacy Commissioner [2026] ARTA 130; National Anti-Scam Centre, Targeting Scams 2025 and Scamwatch updates 2025–2026; ACCC public warning notices; ABC News, SmartCompany and CHOICE reporting on clone retail websites; AusPayNet, Australian Payment Fraud Report 2025; Loop returns fraud research (Australia); Blue Yonder consumer survey (October 2026); Australian Institute of Criminology, Understanding and Controlling Retail Theft
