MALAYSIAN shopkeepers, department stores and others in the retail industry will be faced with a RM1 billion ($420 million) loss -- to theft by customers, employees and even suppliers.

Half of it, or RM500 million, will be lost to shoplifters while employees will steal goods worth nearly RM200 million.

A survey on shoplifting estimated that suppliers will also shortchange their clients by nearly RM80 million in the amount of goods invoiced but not delivered.

The RM1 billion loss is estimated to occur in the 12 months to June next year, and represents a 15 per cent increase from a year earlier.

"This is a very conservative projection. It could be worse," managing director of Checkpoint Systems Sales (M) Sdn Bhd, Polly Tan, says.

Checkpoint in Malaysia is a subsidiary of US-based Checkpoint Systems Inc, sponsor of the Global Retail Theft Barometer 2008. The survey was conducted by the Centre for Retail Research.

The industry term for retail theft is retail shrinkage.

Findings from the Global Retail Theft Barometer were released recently for the period between July last year and June this year.

The survey, carried out in 36 countries, revealed that global retail shrinkage for the July to June period amounted to US$105 billion ($161 billion).

Of this, retail shrinkage in Asia-Pacific covering countries like Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, amounted to US$15 billion.

In Malaysia, 18 retailers with a 252-store network and a combined sales of US$1.2 billion participated in the survey.

As a percentage of total sales, retail shrinkage in Malaysia was 1.53 per cent -- the fifth highest among the 36 countries surveyed.

What do Malaysians steal?

Top on the list are apparel and accessories, followed by auto parts and hardware products.

These were followed by cosmetics, perfume and health and pharmaceutical items.

This was followed by employee theft at 22.5 per cent (US$58 million) and supplier or vendor theft at nine per cent (US$23 million).

The remaining 19.2 per cent of financial loss amounting to US$49 million was due to administrative errors.

More preventive measures should be taken to control this, for example, using source tagging and surveillance system to help monitor internal systems, Tan says.

"With the release of the data, retailers are now aware of the source of theft and can boost efforts to enhance security."

Retailers have, in fact, indicated that they want to invest further as more people are stealing.

She says security cost in Malaysia was US$34 million last year but investments could increase this year.