Category Archives: Alarm Systems

Retail Shrinkage

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Retail shrinkage is the loss suffered by retailers as a result of shoplifting by customers and/or employees, supplier fraud and inventory miscounts. Those in the field of security work may see the size of retail shrinkage as a sort of market size, the maximum amount that could be saved for a retailer if deterrent measures were taken to eliminate all such losses.

Today’s market size is the estimated value of all retail shrinkage in the United States in 2010.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010
Market size: $37.1 billion
Source: Andrew Allentuck, “Security Cameras, Detection is Also Deterrence,” The Costco Connection, September 2011, page 21.
Original source: National Association for Shoplifting Prevention
Posted on September 8, 2011

Residential Smoke Detectors

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The number of working smoke detectors in residential housing units in the United States is listed below. This figure translates into a single smoke detector in 87% of all residential housing units in the country, which is an encouraging number. However, a more promising figure would be well over 100% since that would mean that many homes made use of more than a single smoke detector, as is recommended by the U.S. Fire Administration, part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on its website here.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2009
Market size: 116,141,000 detectors
Source: “Housing Units—Characteristics by Tenure and Region: 2009,”
Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011, Table 983, U.S. Census Bureau, page 616.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.