Like retail itself, retail crime is shifting online, with phone scams and e-commerce or digital fraud increasing at most major retailers surveyed by the National Retail Federation, according to a report released Thursday. Theft and fraud related to gift cards and returns are also top concerns.
The NRF didn’t provide estimates of theft- or fraud-related losses at the retailers included in the report. As of 2024, the group no longer provides an annual shrink report. In 2023, the group retracted a claim that organized retail crime led to several tens of billions of dollars in losses, after Retail Dive found it relied on a faulty statistic.
Earlier this year, several major retailers that had reported rising shrink said the problem had eased, in some cases reaching pre-pandemic lows. Some loss prevention experts now see the causes of shrink as multilayered rather than strictly crime-related.
Organized retail crime, which the NRF has spotlighted for years, does remain in focus. But Thursday’s report emphasizes that the problem includes not just shoplifting but also “supply chain vulnerabilities” like cargo theft as well as “phone scams targeting store associates and gift card fraud.” Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed anti-organized retail crime legislation that has long been an NRF lobbying priority.
Shoplifting itself is stabilizing, as the average number of shoplifting and merchandise theft incidents overall fell for the first time “in several years,” the NRF said. The group attributes the decline to investments in “technologies, training and measures to harden stores, enhance deterrence and response, and train employees to prevent and de-escalate incidents.”
Other research finds shoplifting on the rise so far this year. Reported shoplifting in three dozen major U.S. cities in the first half of 2026 was up 4% compared to the same period in 2025 and up 5% compared to 2019, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. That research leverages data from online portals of city police departments with monthly incident-level data for the period between January 2018 and June 2026.
For its report, the NRF surveyed senior loss prevention and security executives in the retail industry from February to April 2026. Respondents were from 66 retailers representing 143 brands across a variety of retail sectors.
