Target Says It Lost $400 Million To Shoplifting Over Three Months

"Organized retail theft" cost Target $400 million in the third quarter, the company announced Wednesday.

"We know we're not alone across retail in seeing a trend that I think has gotten increasingly worse over the last 12 to 18 months," Target Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke told Yahoo Finance. "So, we're taking the right actions in our stores to help curb that trend where we can."

A Target spokesman told Yahoo Finance that the shoplifting is the result of "organized retail crime."

The National Retail Federation reported retailers lost a combined $94.5 billion to theft in 2021 compared to $90.8 billion in 2020.

Target's shoplifting policy is one of the toughest of any retailer and was revised in 2022. Target uses facial recognition technology to gather evidence over time against repeat shoplifters. Target also has a private forensics lab to build cases against shoplifters and shares information on repeat offenders with other retailers.

For the quarter, Target missed its financial forecasts and executives lowered their guidance for the holiday shopping season.

Target CEO Brian Cornell said "guests' shopping behavior increasingly impacted by inflation, rising interest rates, and economic uncertainty" cut into sales.

Target (TGT) stock dropped more than 12% in early trading.