Belgian retailers lost €880 million last year to shoplifting

Belgian retailers lost about 1.16% of their turnover in 2013 to shoplifting and vendor fraud, according to the Global Retail Theft Barometer released Thursday by Checkpoint Systems. Losses through shoplifting and vendor fraud, theft by staff and administrative errors, accounted for €880 million on a total turnover of €75.8 billion in 2013.

The number is a slight decrease on the previous year, due in part to Belgian retailers investing more in store and product security in 2013. With 1.16% losses to shoplifting and vendor fraud, Belgium scores just above the European average and better than the Netherlands (1.23%), but worse than Germany (1.10%) and France (1.09%).

The study found that one in three employees in Belgium, or 29.7%, steals from their employer, considerably higher than in 2012 and the European average of 21.9%.