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- Home Depot said shoplifting is still a challenge.
- CFO Richard McPhail said the operating environment is “increasingly difficult”.
- However, the director said that the investments in the fight against shoplifting and organized theft “are paying off.”
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Shoplifting and organized retail crime were a dominant story in retail last year.
While the problem hasn’t made as many headlines this year, Home Depot says the problem hasn’t gone away.
“This is a problem for the entire retail industry,” CFO Richard McPhail said Tuesday during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “It’s hard to quantify.”
“Our investments are paying off,” he added. “That doesn’t mean the working environment is getting any easier. In fact, it’s getting harder.”
In other words, casual shoplifters and organized criminals remain a thorn in Home Depot’s side; they are now simply being handled better, according to the CFO.
The company said its anti-shrinkage efforts improved its profit margin for the quarter by almost half a percentage point. Home Depot posted sales of more than $40 billion last quarter.
“It’s an everyday initiative that our teams fight every day,” McPhail said.
Home Depot has been both a prominent target and opponent of organized retail theft in recent years.
The company’s vice president of asset protection, Scott Glenn, previously told BI that the company wanted to strike a balance between securing merchandise and enabling customers to get what they need.
“We certainly don’t want to impact the 99.5% of our customers who are just there to pick up their hammers and nails,” Glenn said. “We don’t want to look like an armed encampment.”
One solution to the puzzle: power tools that only work when activated at the point of sale.
At the time, Glenn also emphasized the difference between solo thieves and “professional shoplifters,” he said are often connected to a larger network.
Last year one Florida pastor accused of running a retail crime ring responsible for stealing $3 million worth of goods from the chain.
Earlier this year, Court Watch obtained the latest in a series of indictments against suspects rent and sell heavy machinery at Home Depot instead of giving it back.
Prosecutors in those cases and others cited contributions from Home Depot’s internal investigators as helping identify suspects.
In September, the company highlighted some of its ongoing efforts to tackle retail crime in its stores support for federal legislation that would help centralize and coordinate an interstate response.
If you are a Home Depot employee and would like to share your perspective, please Contact Dominick via email or text/call/signal at 646.768.4750. Responses are kept confidential and Business Insider strongly recommends that you use a personal email and non-work device when reaching out.
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