Sell more and lose less - with ECR Retail Loss

Two numbers came out of ECR's 2026 self-checkout summits, and the second one is the interesting one. The first is how long a self-checkout host takes to reach a customer who needs help, or who has not scanned something. That runs from fifteen to forty five seconds, and sometimes a good deal longer. The second is how long the host takes to clear the intervention once they arrive. Under five seconds...

Most retailers can tell you which stores are the difficult ones. Far fewer can show you why, on paper, in a way that stands up. New ECR research by Professor Emmeline Taylor of City St George's, University of London looked at how retailers model crime risk, and found maturity across the sector to be uneven. Retailers model health and safety. They model business continuity. For crime, a great deal...

Push more transactions through self-checkout and you will lose more stock. That much was already suspected. What nobody could put a number on, until now, was how much more. Professor Matt Hopkins of the University of Leicester joins Colin Peacock to talk through the Self-Checkout Loss Report 2026, the largest study of fixed self-checkout loss yet attempted, built on data from thirty-nine retailers...

Body-worn cameras are now one of retail's most talked-about safety tools. The question is no longer whether they work, but how to get colleagues to wear them. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to Professor Emmeline Taylor about what a recent ECR call with around 40 retailers revealed about body-worn cameras on the shop floor. They cover the three things a camera does (det...

Not long ago, retail CCTV was a comfort blanket: there because the store specification said so, and looked at only after something went wrong. That has changed. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to Professor Emmeline Taylor about the rise of remote monitoring in retail, fresh from a two-day ECR meeting with 50 to 60 retailers. They unpack how remote monitoring centres, so...

Bananas are one of retail's best sellers. They are also one of its biggest waste lines. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to food waste expert Richard Thalemann about why so many bananas are thrown away, and what retailers can do about it. They unpack a recent ECR meeting and a visit to a ripening factory in Dublin: why 36% of banana waste comes down to fruit that is too...

The stores that waste the least food often have one thing in common: engaged colleagues. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to food waste expert Richard Thalemann about why engagement matters so much, and why it is so hard to sustain. They explore why people treat food differently at home and at work, the cognitive dissonance of caring about waste while being measured on s...

Eggs don't look like a big loss problem. Look closely at the numbers and the picture changes. In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock is joined by food waste expert Richard Thalemann to ask why so much egg waste goes unrecorded, and what retailers can do about it. They cover the rule that forces a whole box to be binned when a single egg breaks, the £2 million a year one retailer put...

Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to explore how retailers around the world are deploying live facial recognition and what it takes to get it right when it comes to reducing losses while maintaining privacy. They break the conversation into three areas. Firstly, organisational readiness: why deploying facial recognition in retail is not about flicking a switch, and why it can take...

Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to discuss how Exception Based Reporting (EBR) is being used across retail to tackle staff dishonesty and drive cultural change . Drawing on a new ECR Retail Loss survey of businesses across 19 countries, they explore the four key data points retailers are using to reduce losses by flagging internal theft: voided items, refunds to the same card, m...

Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to discuss the latest findings on forecourt crime  rom ECR Retail Loss working group meetings. They explore why pay at pump is not the silver bullet for drive-offs and no means of payment, despite its appeal as a target-hardening measure. The conversation covers how one retailer combined ANPR technology with better signage and streamlined reportin...

Dr Susanne Guth-Orlowski of the RAIN Alliance joins Colin Peacock to reflect on the 2025 ECR RFID Innovation Summit in Düsseldorf, hosted by C&A. Around 70 retailers attended, from those with 20 years of RFID experience to those just getting started. The conversation covers what stood out: the diversity of RFID use cases across fashion, sports and home retail , the Qualcomm presentation o...

Sophie Wong joins Colin Peacock to talk about leaving corporate life at Coles to launch her own retail loss prevention consultancy, Positively Powered. She shares the good, the bad, and the ugly of going it alone: from the freedom to think creatively and work across different retail organisations, to the reality of building a business from scratch without a steady paycheck. Sophie and Colin discus...

Professor Michael Townsley and Dr Andrew Childs join Colin Peacock to discuss new ECR Retail Loss r esearch into returns fraud and abuse . Drawing on a survey of nearly 6,000 consumers across four countries and an investigation into dark web fraud communities, they reveal how widespread problematic return behaviours really are, why most offenders experience no friction at all, and the three practi...

The scale of retail supply chain theft is hard to ignore. With some retailers reporting $200 million worth of freight on the road on any given day, even a small percentage of loss translates into significant financial damage. Yet many businesses still allocate minimal resources to tackling the problem. In this episode, Professor Emmeline Taylor draws on her research into freight crime and findings...

Predicting inventory inaccuracies is a practical way for retailers to target the items most likely to be wrong, rather than counting everything equally. Colin Peacock speaks with Aris Syntetos, Yacine Rekik and Christoph Glock about a decade of ECR research into inventory record inaccuracy , why it matters for availability and loss, and what interventions can make a difference. They share headline...

Facial recognition is delivering serious results—one retailer reported a 25% drop in shrink—but it’s still on shaky ground. Professor Emmeline Taylor and Colin Peacock return to explore the real-world complexities of deploying this technology, from shared watchlists and legal grey areas to misidentifications that can make headlines. As more retailers turn to facial recognition, getting the human t...

Internal theft is responsible for a huge chunk of retail loss—yet only 2% of cases ever come to light. Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to discuss the rising complexity of staff dishonesty, from sweethearting and fake returns to collusion at self-checkouts and e-commerce touchpoints. Drawing on new ECR research, she explores how smarter comms, not bigger budgets, could make the bigges...

What happens when someone orders five beers and a bag of crisps to arrive within 15 minutes but the store only has four beers? Professor Daniel Corsten joins Colin Peacock on the podcast to dissect the economics and challenges of quick commerce. And why they so often don’t add up. From soaring labour costs to out-of-stocks and substitutions, it’s a model that struggles to work in higher-wage marke...

Cameras don’t solve on-shelf availability—but they support it. Daniel Corsten joins Colin Peacock to discuss the latest ECR Retail Loss research and explains why shelf image technology is best seen as an enhancer, not a silver bullet. Supported by case-studies, he explores how retailers are using robots, badges, and fixed cameras to complement—not replace—traditional ways to measure on shelf avail...

Criminologist Joe Clare shares practical lessons from ECR Retail Loss’s recent returns fraud research, revealing how a small group of repeat offenders can drive the bulk of losses. Even though 14% of all customers admit to doing it. Clothing dominates, but camping gear and electronics are also potential targets. He discusses with Colin Peacock how profiling, policy changes, and strategic tagging c...

Despite being the cheapest option for food redistribution, less than a quarter of major retailers donate surplus food to their store colleagues. Colin Peacock and ECR Retail Loss’s expert food waste advisor Richard Thalemann explain how one retailer overcame fraud fears, tax headaches and tech hurdles to build a safe, scalable solution that’s a potential blueprint for others to follow. Hosted on A...

Some retailers report up to a 25% shrink reduction when they use face recognition. In this episode, Colin and Emmeline explore how stores across the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand are deploying biometric recognition—mostly for watchlist alerts—but also for access control and retrospective investigations. They also tackle the legal, regulatory and ethical issues that retailers the world over ar...

Is pay-at-pump a quick fix or a false promise? How can retailers reduce drive-offs and maintain supplementary spending? Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to examine the evolving tactics retailers are using to fight forecourt losses. From digital reporting platforms to the strategic use of ANPR, the episode sheds light on how tech, training, and smarter reporting are reshaping the futur...

This week, Colin Peacock is joined by Professor Michael Townsley to reflect on ECR Retail Loss’s first-ever meeting focused on benchmarking KPIs for e-commerce loss — an increasingly vital yet under-defined area of retail loss prevention. Drawing on insights from six global retailers, they explore how different teams are measuring key metrics like acceptance rates, chargebacks, returns disputes, a...