Something doesn’t quite make sense…

Everyone agrees shrink matters — but apparently not enough to fund it. No one argues it’s isn’t real. No one says it’s not hurting margin. But when things actually get approved, it rarely comes through due to shrink. It’s staff safety. WorkCover claims. Hostile behaviour on the shop floor. That’s what gets attention. That’s what gets budget. Maybe the issue isn’t whether shrink matters, it’s how it shows up, because “shrink went down 1%” isn’t a story anyone can act on.

“My store had 4 repeat incidents this week” is.

“Three known offenders walked in again” is.

“Staff are dealing with this daily” is.

The teams I see getting traction don’t talk about shrink as a number. They talk about it as something happening — now. Patterns. Frequency. Repeat behaviour, same way, every week. Less about proving it exists. More about making it impossible to ignore.

Curious how others are framing this internally — are you selling shrink, or showing it?