Wal-Mart Is Getting Hit Hard by Thieves

Wal-Mart has a shrinkage problem, and it's not the Seinfeld variety. It's the kind that, in retail industry jargon, refers to stealing and losing stock to damage or poor inventory management.

In explaining a fairly dismal quarterly result on Tuesday morning, the massive retailer called out shrinkage again and again. In the press release, it was mentioned three times. In the conference call, it came up 13 times. That's a lot of shrinkage. Walmart sales, in fact, were pretty decent, but expenses weighed on the company’s profit. Part of those expenses entailed writedowns for inventory that just disappeared. Store employees say they have seen everything from customers stealing meat in their pants to thieves bursting out a back door with a shopping cart full of electronics to be loaded into a waiting car.