Canadian Retailers Face $9.1 Billion in Losses: Purchek® Technology Included in the Tools to Reverse the Trend
The Canadian retail industry faces a growing crisis: organized retail theft. According to the Retail Council of Canada., losses have surged from $5 billion in 2018 to $9.1 billion in 2024, driven by increasingly sophisticated and violent crimes. In a recent article published by The Globe and Mail in January 2025, it is highlighted that theft has evolved into coordinated operations targeting everyday items and high-value goods, often resold online. Nearly half of incidents last year involved violence, putting employees and customers at risk.
To combat this trend, retail executives and law enforcement are calling for legislative reforms to address these sophisticated operations. However, many are also turning to advanced technology to address the challenges now. Companies are investing in innovative theft prevention solutions to protect their businesses, employees, and shoppers.
California-based Gatekeeper Systems has seen rising demand for its cutting-edge technology. The company installs its patented Smartwheel®devices on shopping carts that automatically lock when someone attempts to push a cart out of a store without paying. Gatekeeper Systems algorithms analyze cart movements, and if the system detects behavior inconsistent with a paying shopper, it triggers the cart’s brakes and may activate a store alarm. “We’re seeing much faster adoption in recent years by mass merchants as well as DIY retailers,” said Gatekeeper Systems CEO Robert Harling, “The growing concerns around employee safety and shopper safety have really driven them to accelerate their adoption.” (Source: The Globe and Mail)
The power of Purchek® Theft Intelligence Services
Robert Harling underscores the urgency of adopting advanced solutions: “The growing concerns around employee safety and shopper safety have really driven [retailers] to accelerate their adoption.” Purchek® technology not only eliminates the need for physical confrontation but also provides retailers with valuable insights into theft patterns. This data enables businesses to optimize security strategies and validate their return on investment. (Source: The Globe and Mail)
Purchek® Theft Intelligence Services elevate the value of your Purchek® solution by transforming isolated incidents into actionable insights. Those critical insights are available to customers subscribed to Gatekeeper Systems’ Purchek® Theft Intelligence Services. Our dynamic reporting provides enterprise, division, and store-level reporting and can be customized to meet your preferences and delivery frequencies. This solution has you always prepared to quickly describe the attempted pushout activity and impact of the Purchek® solution to your management team.
Beyond merely preventing theft in real-time, our services offer a comprehensive understanding of theft activities, allowing retailers to identify patterns, trends, and organized retail crime (ORC) incidents with precision. By leveraging flagged video data that highlights repeat offenders and ORC events, loss prevention teams are freed from time-intensive monitoring, enabling them to focus on proactive, action-driven measures to improve safety and reduce shrink.
Armed with these actionable insights, retailers can implement targeted countermeasures tailored to their unique challenges, resulting in more effective loss prevention strategies and greater impact on theft reduction. Our Situational Awareness Report provides detailed, data-driven insights to guide smarter, more strategic decisions, ensuring retailers optimize the value of their Purchek® technology and achieve measurable operational and financial gains.
Additionally, our turnkey investigation services enable retailers to maintain focus on core operations while ensuring theft incidents are efficiently managed. This holistic approach maximizes the benefits of Purchek® technology, helping retailers thrive in today’s demanding retail landscape.
Purchek® Theft Intelligence Services provide a powerful, data-driven solution to tackle this crisis head-on.
