SOMETIMES, A CHEKCPOINT TAG IS ALL IT TAKES
As I sit here in my hotel room this evening, I’m replaying today over in my head. I’m out training a new LP associate at one of our hottest markets. My new associate has a ton of experience in this field, but I could see he was getting very frustrated today. His job, his sole purpose on my team is to stop shoplifting. Just like any great LP associate, I want him to make apprehensions and throw people in jail. That’s the only way the criminals will learn. Kicking them out and getting your product back just doesn’t work. A few nights in jail every time they come to my stores and you can bet that they’re going to move on to a softer target.
As my new associate and I are walking the floor, I try to impart some of my wisdom to him. Little tricks that I’ve picked up over the years to help me identify shoplifters and pointing out all the different items that are secured with Checkpoint hard tags. He knows most of these, so I’m just making small talk as we await a thief. I think this is one of the only jobs on the planet where, in order to fully train someone, someone else has to break the law. Hours are passing and the store is just plain slow. I’m getting bored; so is he. Then, bingo.
As we walk past the shoe department, we noticed a female suspect with a box of infant shoes in her hands. She’s walking towards the front of the aisle and without trying to conceal her actions, she is very visibly attempting to pry off the Checkpoint hard tag that is securing the shoe. I point this out to him, but he’s already on top of it. He picks up surveillance and we watch as this suspect, for several minutes, attempts to defeat the tag. After 20 or so minutes, she gives up, sets the shoes down and leaves the store. The tag did its job and stopped shoplifting, but we were left without an apprehension.
As a few more hours sail by, it is becoming quite evident that today just isn’t our day. There are several more potential shoplifters, but for some reason, they either “dump” the merchandise, or lose their nerves. As we were starting to give up hope that we’d make a stop, we see a very obvious user of methamphetamine enter the store. This has to be a go!
We start surveillance and she the suspect immediately grab 5 shirts, toss them into her shopping cart and begin walking towards the back of the store. She paid no mind to size so I was definitely confident we’d make our first apprehension. Once in a secluded corner of the store, she begins to stuff the shirts into her purse, but quickly realizes that the shirts are secured with a Checkpoint hard tag. We watch again as the shoplifter tries ever so desperately to remove the tags. She can’t. She gets frustrated. She leaves without stealing.
While I was frustrated and a bit disappointed in our first day of training, I was however, pleased to see that our physical security measures were working to stop shoplifting in the store. Still, a shoplifter arrest would’ve been fantastic. Tomorrow is another day and with it will bring another stream of shoplifters into my store. Hopefully we will have a bit more luck and get the great pleasure of throwing someone in the county jail tomorrow.
For more information, contact us: KW, or call 1.770.426.0547
As I sit here in my hotel room this evening, I’m replaying today over in my head. I’m out training a new LP associate at one of our hottest markets. My new associate has a ton of experience in this field, but I could see he was getting very frustrated today. His job, his sole purpose on my team is to stop shoplifting. Just like any great LP associate, I want him to make apprehensions and throw people in jail. That’s the only way the criminals will learn. Kicking them out and getting your product back just doesn’t work. A few nights in jail every time they come to my stores and you can bet that they’re going to move on to a softer target.
As my new associate and I are walking the floor, I try to impart some of my wisdom to him. Little tricks that I’ve picked up over the years to help me identify shoplifters and pointing out all the different items that are secured with Checkpoint hard tags. He knows most of these, so I’m just making small talk as we await a thief. I think this is one of the only jobs on the planet where, in order to fully train someone, someone else has to break the law. Hours are passing and the store is just plain slow. I’m getting bored; so is he. Then, bingo.
As we walk past the shoe department, we noticed a female suspect with a box of infant shoes in her hands. She’s walking towards the front of the aisle and without trying to conceal her actions, she is very visibly attempting to pry off the Checkpoint hard tag that is securing the shoe. I point this out to him, but he’s already on top of it. He picks up surveillance and we watch as this suspect, for several minutes, attempts to defeat the tag. After 20 or so minutes, she gives up, sets the shoes down and leaves the store. The tag did its job and stopped shoplifting, but we were left without an apprehension.
As a few more hours sail by, it is becoming quite evident that today just isn’t our day. There are several more potential shoplifters, but for some reason, they either “dump” the merchandise, or lose their nerves. As we were starting to give up hope that we’d make a stop, we see a very obvious user of methamphetamine enter the store. This has to be a go!
We start surveillance and she the suspect immediately grabs 5 shirts, toss them into her shopping cart and begin walking towards the back of the store. She paid no mind to size so I was definitely confident we’d make our first apprehension. Once in a secluded corner of the store, she begins to stuff the shirts into her purse, but quickly realizes that the shirts are secured with Checkpoint hard tags. We watch again as the shoplifter tries ever so desperately to remove the tags. She can’t. She gets frustrated. She leaves without stealing.
While I was frustrated and a bit disappointed in our first day of training, I was however, pleased to see that our physical security measures were working to stop shoplifting in the store. Still, a shoplifter arrest would’ve been fantastic. Tomorrow is another day and with it will bring another stream of shoplifters into my store. Hopefully we will have a bit more luck and get the great pleasure of throwing someone in the county jail tomorrow.
For more information about Checkpoint Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
SEE MORE CLEARLY WITH ALPHA EYEWEAR TAGS
What’s the first thing you reach for when you start driving each morning? For me, it’s my pair of sunglasses. Not because I want to look cool (which I do, anyway), but they serve a very essential role in maintaining a healthy eye. Prolonged sun exposure is not a good thing when you’re talking about long term vision health. That’s why I spent a few extra dollars to make sure my vision is protected. I also got a really great discount, since my stores carry an enormous selection of sunglasses. This is why we also use the Alpha eyewear tag.
First lesson in retail is this; if you want to sell something, you need to let your customers touch it, feel it and try it on. This is especially true if that customer is going to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$700 on a pair of sunglasses. There are plenty of you out there that run/manage stores that sell the same product, so you know what I’m talking about. There’s a huge market for these specialized lenses and frames, which also makes them a prime target for sticky fingers. So can you balance a store display with the need to prevent shoplifting?
I’ve said it once and I’ll go ahead and say it again. Just because it’s expensive, doesn’t mean you should lock it up in a case. I get so frustrated when I go to a store and find the product I want is locked and in-accessible to me, the paying customer. I want to be in and out of the store. Like most people out there, I really don’t want to wait on an associate, as that can sometimes take what seems to be hours. If your store is in the designer sunglass business, you should know how important each customer and each sale is to your bottom line.
We first dabbled into the eyewear business years ago. Like so many others, we thought we needed to keep these in a glass showcase. That was our method to prevent shoplifting. The first couple of years, our sales were terrible. We found some floor displays and moved the majority of our sunglasses to the sales floor. We quickly learned the value of Alpha eyewear tags. At first, we did nothing to prevent shoplifting. That was a costly mistake. It was quite simple for a thief to walk right out with a brand new pair of sunglasses.
Using the Alpha eyewear tag, I found that we could find that balance that is oh, so important. The tags applied very smoothly and did not obstruct the wearer at all as they were trying them on. They also wear a great deterrent to any would-be thief. We should have used these tags from the very start. Dare I say, I could see clearly now, the thieves are gone! I could now put those sunglasses in the hands of my customers, and out of the hands of my thieves.
For more information, contact us: Alpha Hard Tags, or call 1.770.426.0547
What’s the first thing you reach for when you start driving each morning? For me, it’s my pair of sunglasses. Not because I want to look cool (which I do, anyway), but they serve a very essential role in maintaining a healthy eye. Prolonged sun exposure is not a good thing when you’re talking about long term vision health. That’s why I spent a few extra dollars to make sure my vision is protected. I also got a really great discount, since my stores carry an enormous selection of sunglasses. This is why we also use the Alpha eyewear tag.
First lesson in retail is this; if you want to sell something, you need to let your customers touch it, feel it and try it on. This is especially true if that customer is going to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$700 on a pair of sunglasses. There are plenty of you out there that run/manage stores that sell the same product, so you know what I’m talking about. There’s a huge market for these specialized lenses and frames, which also makes them a prime target for sticky fingers. So can you balance a store display with the need to prevent shoplifting?
I’ve said it once and I’ll go ahead and say it again. Just because it’s expensive, doesn’t mean you should lock it up in a case. I get so frustrated when I go to a store and find the product I want is locked and in-accessible to me, the paying customer. I want to be in and out of the store. Like most people out there, I really don’t want to wait on an associate, as that can sometimes take what seems to be hours. If your store is in the designer sunglass business, you should know how important each customer and each sale is to your bottom line.
We first dabbled into the eyewear business years ago. Like so many others, we thought we needed to keep these in a glass showcase. That was our method to prevent shoplifting. The first couple of years, our sales were terrible. We found some floor displays and moved the majority of our sunglasses to the sales floor. We quickly learned the value of Alpha eyewear tags. At first, we did nothing to prevent shoplifting. That was a costly mistake. It was quite simple for a thief to walk right out with a brand new pair of sunglasses.
Using the Alpha eyewear tag, I found that we could find that balance that is oh, so important. The tags applied very smoothly and did not obstruct the wearer at all as they were trying them on. They also were a great deterrent to any would-be thief. We should have used these tags from the very start. Dare I say, I could see clearly now, the thieves are gone! I could now put those sunglasses in the hands of my customers, and out of the hands of my thieves.
For more information about Alpha Hard Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
“Oh yeah, that’s Moose” says the nice police officer. Finally, a name. Those four words were some sweet music to my ears. When you are in retail and you are experiencing theft over and over again, it can really start to wear you down. You have tested your Checkpoint System, tagged everything that is being targeted. You know that you and your whole staff are doing everything possible to protect your assets, and it is still walking right out the door. It is obviously frustrating, and it can make you watch everybody that walks in the door, waiting and daring them to steal something. I, for one, can become quite unpleasant to work with, and find myself being referred to as the LP Nazi, when I am in a slump like this.
I thought I was the only one falling victim to this little group of boosters that had been hitting us regularly. They have got us for hair regrowth formulas and expensive electric toothbrushes. The good thing is I know they fear getting caught, because they have worked hard at and managed to remove the Alpha Spider Wraps from these items, plus they made sure the Checkpoint labels got removed and discarded as well. Several times it was the same woman, but everything else has varied. She wore her hair different, carried another colored purse, came in a car once and a truck another time, and the last time she brought a guy with her. But then I got word that the group had hit another one of our locations. I had made reports each time, and a deputy called from a neighboring county to ask questions about my incidents.
It turned out they had been actively stealing from four other stores that he knew of, and the great news was they got less from me than any other place. They have gotten a total of about $200 or so from us,on their multiple visits, but got over $600 in one place this past weekend alone, in less than ten minutes. This other store sells similar merchandise, but they do not utilize the same tools that we do. They don’t have a Checkpoint System in place, so nothing is tagged, and nothing is off limits to the boosters.
The thieves got teeth whitening strip kits, expensive facial care items, and more. The thing that connected our theft reports was the getaway truck though. I made sure I watched the video and got every detail possible, and included it all in my report. The paint fading on the hood, the geometrical designs painted on the top of the cab, the handicap placard hanging in the window… I watched it back and forth and in slow motion until I got every identifying mark on that vehicle.
So the officer called me today, and he came and reviewed my videos I had made and saved after making my incident reports. He said that the truck looked vaguely familiar, and then he had the “eureka” moment when he watched the man walked in a few seconds after the woman did that last time. “Oh yeah, that’s Moose.” He told me the man’s real name, and said he would go get the warrants prepared for his arrest. He also said that he had been caught and jailed many times for theft, and he would likely talk to save his own skin. When I showed the deputy how they removed the anti-shoplifting tools from the merchandise before attempting to leave, he said he wasn’t surprised. He said Moose can’t really run due to an old injury, so he cannot take any chances on being detected as he makes his exit.
I hope to update this story with the awesome and exciting sequel about how we shut down the next big ORC group. Truthfully though, I will be content if Moose does roll over on the other members, and they all just go to jail for a while. I can at least sleep a little better knowing my Checkpoint System is doing it’s job, which is deterring as much theft as possible. Knowing my competition is lacking this extremely important anti-shoplifting device, and knowing they are losing a whole lot more than my store, is pretty good too I guess.
For more information on Checkpoint Systems, anti-shoplifting and retail theft prevention contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 or Antishoplifting.net
