America's biggest retailers say organized retail crime has grown into a multibillion-dollar problem, but the effectiveness of their strategies to solve it and the validity of the data overall have come into question. However, the problem isn't as clear-cut as retailers and trade groups have made it seem. External retail crime accounts for only 37% of those losses, or about $35 billion, the NRF data shows. Still, law enforcement agencies and retailers insist organized retail crime remains an issue and said they stand behind their data. We see it every day in our stores," Scott Glenn, Home Depot's vice president of asset protection, told CNBC.

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