“Don't feel like (loss prevention) is out of your hands,” Mitchell encouraged retailers. Confrontation is important, but not something many Christian retailers want to think about, she said.

Mitchell-who started out investigating narcotics fraud in the pharmacy arena and then financial crimes for retail chains TJ Maxx and Service Merchandise before joining LifeWay-said the Southern Baptist chain had no loss-prevention program before she was hired.

The majority of retail losses are comprised by what Mitchell called “the big three”: internal theft, external theft and paperwork errors.

“Shrink” is the difference between “what you have in your inventory and what you should have,” she said. Employee theft accounts for almost 50% of all shrinkage, while shoplifting accounts for only 32.6%. The remainder is comprised of vendor fraud and administrative errors that can be fixed.

Cash and check losses, including register theft and bad checks, were huge compared to credit card losses, Mitchell cited. She also touched on the Nigerian Bible scams of recent years, and four retailers in the workshop said they had been a victim or an intended victim of the scam.

One in 10 associates will steal if given the opportunity, Mitchell said, and it is important not to give them that opportunity by instating “controls” such as having employees sign an ethics statement, controlling key distribution to the store and watching individual employees' shortages.

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