Retail loss prevention (also known as retail asset protection) is a set of practices employed by retail companies to preserve profit. Profit preservation is any business activity specifically designed to reduce preventable losses. A preventable loss is any business cost caused by deliberate or inadvertent human actions, colloquially known as "shrinkage". Loss prevention is mainly found within the retail sector but also can be found within other business environments.

Retail loss prevention is geared towards the elimination of preventable loss. Most companies take this traditional approach by either having their own in-house loss prevention team or using external security agencies.