They found that despite retailers nearly doubling the amount of money they spend on crime prevention between 2002 and 2003, their total financial losses as a result of retail crime rose by 15% from £117 million to £135 million.

Shops spent £93 million in 2003 to try and prevent crime, up 93% from the previous year when £48 million was spent.

Large outlets spent an average of £19,600 on their security, while smaller retailers paid around £1200 for their security, despite rarely employing security staff, who account for most of the bigger stores costs.

Alarmingly, staff working in the retail sector are being subjected to verbal and physical abuse, threats and intimidation more than ever before.

In 2002 there were 24 such incidents per 1000 employees. In 2003 this rose dramatically to 218 incidents per 1000 staff.

According to the SRC, it is staff in smaller stores in the country or community who suffer more from direct intimidation as they are regarded as “soft targets” rather than larger outlets in cities.

Dundee businessman Eddie Thompson, who is chairman of the SRC, said today that more needed to be done to combat the rising tide of retail crime from the Scottish Executive on downwards.

“The most important thing to emerge from the survey is the violence towards staff,” he said.

“The problem is getting worse and it really means that more has to be done to stop it, starting with the Scottish Executive, local authorities, police and retailers.

“It is the smaller shopkeepers, the people in the community who help keep that community going, who suffer the most.

“The larger stores tend to suffer more from theft whereas the problem with the smaller stores is that 95% of staff live within half an hour of the store.

“As everybody tends to know one another, this is where the intimidation can come in,” he added.

The SRC’s survey covered 1843 retail outlets in Scotland, employing 64,200 staff with a combined turnover of £6.3 billion, or 31% of all Scottish retail sales.