About Us

Who We Are

At ECR Retail Loss, we are dedicated to making a positive impact on the retail landscape by addressing one of its most stubborn challenges: reducing retail losses, which includes shrink.

Our motto, ‘Enabling the retail sector to sell more and lose less,’ encapsulates our mission to provide innovative approaches and insights that drive profitability and efficiency across the industry.

ECR Retail Loss board includes representatives from Aholddelhaize, Next, Nike, Procter & Gamble and Tesco, while our research panel includes respected academics from world-leading universities.

Full details of our team, including board members, academic researchers and research grant providers, are available here.

What We Do

ECR Retail Loss helps the industry think differently about managing the problem of retail loss by bringing new knowledge, insights, tools, and techniques to the forefront.

We’re a growing network of more than 300 retailers globally, with two-thirds of the world’s top 100 retailers represented. Members participate in our regular meetings and contribute to our active research programme.

We also have active participation from dozens of consumer packaged goods suppliers and selected research grant providers, fostering a comprehensive approach to retail innovation.

ECR Retail Loss is a not-for-profit organisation. Any income that we generate is invested in further research.

Our Research and Resources

We conduct detailed academic research into the most relevant aspects of retail loss, making these valuable insights available to the industry free of charge. Our research spans eight key focus areas:

• Video in Retail
• Self-Checkout
• Food Waste
• RFID in Retail
• E-commerce Loss
• Retail Loss, Safety and Security
• Inventory Accuracy
• On-Shelf Availability

To facilitate collaboration and innovation, ECR Retail Loss hosts eight Working Groups and four Expert Groups, chairing more than 75 online sessions, webinars and in-person meetings each year.

Working Groups are broad forums open to all retailers, while our invite-only Expert Groups allow for deeper collaboration and data sharing.

Innovation and Collaboration

We support innovators in retail loss through our bi-annual Innovation Challenges. These shine a spotlight on the best new developments for preventing retail loss.

Each event focuses on one of our key research areas, bringing fresh, actionable interventions to the forefront. Many previous winners are already helping retailers reduce shrink.

By providing a collaborative platform for startups and small businesses to share their impactful ideas, products or services, ECR Retail Loss helps promote a strong retail ecosystem.

The Wider ECR Community

ECR Retail Loss is part of the global ECR Community: a not-for-profit association of organisations in the Retail and Consumer Product Group sector.

ECR Community provides a neutral platform to develop and share best practices across its worldwide network of 40,000+ manufacturers, retailers, service providers and industry associations.

The community’s other focus areas include:

• Sustainability
• Circular Economy
• Category Management
• On-Shelf Availability
• Supply Chain

Join Us

ECR Retail Loss is open to anyone in the industry. We provide free access to a wealth of knowledge, tailored to your role and specific needs.

Whether you are a retailer, a supplier, an academic researcher, or a technology provider, you can explore our reports to inform your work on managing retail losses.

Join us in our journey to reshape the retail industry—helping retailers sell more and lose less.