A 30-year veteran in retail technology, Sensormatic Solutions President Tony D’Onofrio is leading the charge to redefine retail.
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Retailers have made significant strides in their efforts to combat growing losses. Investments in emerging technology have helped leaders get a handle on the issue at hand, but these insights have uncovered new facets of an old challenge. While the continued—and seemingly growing—prevalence of organized retail crime (ORC) and theft may feel discouraging, there’s an opportunity to move forward with precision, for those willing to see it.
Recent retail data does show that crime-related losses are growing. However, it also shows that the nature of the threat is fundamentally different from what retail leaders once believed. In short, as analytics tools have gotten more sophisticated, so has loss prevention teams’ understanding of the landscape and the strategies ORC groups favor.
And in that newfound knowledge, there is an opportunity to learn, both about how theft operates in omnichannel environments and about the role digital tools will play as the fight against ORC continues.
The National Retail Federation’s (NRF’s) 2025 Impact of Theft & Violence report asserts that retail criminals have become increasingly "brazen and dangerous" in recent years. The average number of shoplifting incidents increased by 18% from 2023 to 2024, while the number of threats or violent incidents increased by 17% during the same time frame.
The study found that retailers are experiencing increases in activity across virtually all theft categories. Roughly half (52%) of retailers reported increases in shoplifting and merchandise theft, with the average number of annual incidents rising 93% from 2019 to 2023. During the same period, the financial impact also saw a similar increase, with dollars lost to shoplifting rising by 90%.
Of note, the data also shows that activity in less “traditional” ORC strategies is rising just as—or even more—dramatically. More than half of retailers surveyed shared that their businesses experienced more supply chain (50%), e-commerce (55%) and phone-based (70%) scams in 2025 than in previous years. This indicates that ORC groups are adjusting their tactics to changing technologies across stores and omnichannel ecosystems.
At the same time, ORC networks are growing in scale and scope. The NRF’s data notes that, in 2025, two-thirds (67%) of retailers reported being targeted by transnational ORC outfits. So, yes, at face value? The landscape feels unprecedented. But that might not be as true as it feels.
What we’re seeing is as much a shift in ORC tactics as one in understanding, and that does not mean the technologies implemented over the past decade or so are failing. In fact, they’re working exactly as intended.
The digital tools retailers have deployed over the past 10 or so years were never meant to prevent theft on their own. They were meant to pair with targeted prevention tools to stop theft where it actually happens, without getting in the way of the shopper's experience.
Just as data-driven tools have been adopted by other industries, retail analytics systems are contextualization engines meant to guide retailers toward effective strategies. They illustrate the scale of challenges with clarity and specificity, which inevitably surface problems that have always been hidden in operations.
The reality is that loss has likely always been happening at this scale; we just haven’t been able to see it clearly, which means we haven’t been able to act on it. Seeing these numbers laid bare is, indeed, daunting, but it’s necessary. It’s the first and most basic step on the journey toward data-driven transformation.
You have to know where you really are if you hope to move forward—and this is true no matter what industry you’re in. Now that retailers know where they really stand, they can start building a road map for what’s next.
On the retailer level, the next phase of ORC prevention will vary depending on what internal systems uncover. For most, it will be iterative and evolving, demanding continuous optimization of physical deployments based on what the data reveals.
For example, retailers who discover that employee theft is driving significant losses may invest in enhanced physical deterrents in warehouses, storage facilities or employee exits. Alternatively, a retailer might discover that ORC groups are targeting unexpected items, prompting them to reevaluate what’s “high-risk” and implement additional tags, locks or alarms to deter thefts.
There will also be a collaborative element to these efforts, and it will be unlike any the industry has undertaken before. The data shows that this is not a business-specific challenge. It’s systemic, interrelated and industrywide. Traditional understandings of ORC’s impact have been skewed by underreporting, misattribution and unseen drivers. Even today, most retailers (64%, according to the NRF’s survey) report fewer than half of incidents to law enforcement.
The path forward requires a three-part framework that drives a closed loop and empowers all parties to act:
1. The continued refinement of enterprise operations described above
2. The development of a collaborative information-sharing system that connects retailers, technology providers and law enforcement
3. The advancement of federal legislative action, like the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act
Though the data might be discouraging at first glance, the story it tells is of potential. Retailers finally have the visibility to understand the true scope of a problem that has always existed—and the tools to begin solving it in earnest.
The path forward may not be simple, but it is clear. And abandoning smart tools isn’t part of it. The numbers they provide show retail leaders where the industry now is, so they can come together to decide where to go from here.
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