Biometric system to reduce shrinkage

SC Magazine has a story on how a retailer is reducing shrinkage by the use of Biometric System from Calif.-based DigitalPersona.

Holt Renfrew, one of Canada's premier high-end fashion and lifestyle shopping retailers, has deployed a fingerprint-based biometrics point-of-sale (POS) system that tracks sales associates' transactions at cash registers.
Deployed in 2001, in its first three months the technology paid for itself in loss prevention, says Hodkin.
And no mistake about it, eliminating shrinkage is a big deal to retailers. The number of dishonest retail employees caught stealing, which runs around 68,994, and the $49.9 million recovered in 2005, was not trivial, according to the recent Retail Theft Survey conducted by Jack L. Hayes International, a consulting firm specializing in loss prevention and inventory-shrinkage control. Their research revealed that the average dishonest retail employee caught stealing cost an employer $724.15 in 2005. This equals almost six times the amount taken by shoplifters, which comes in around $126.87, Hayes International stats showed.

Shrinkage is caused mainly by Employee theft and shoplifting with employee theft accounting for 48.5% of total shrinkage. While the story talked about the direct losses due to employee thefts, there are many indirect costs also associated with Shrinkage. Some of these are, costs to have security guards, security systems like cameras, RFID tags etc.