In the loss prevention world, we look at things a bit different than our business colleagues. Executives and company managers look at how well a product will sell and we look at how easy that same item is to steal. We always seem to play the devil’s advocate on merchandise in the stores. Sometimes, that’s not an easy role to play since it’s very common to be labeled “sales prevention”. We’re all on the same team, and we all have the same goals. Just as company leadership wants to increase sales and reduce expenses, I also want to increase sales. They have their way, and I have mine… simply stop shoplifting by making small changes throughout the stores.
Understandably so, not every item in a store can be protected by additional security measures. I can’t spend the money and payroll expense to stick a checkpoint label on each of the 100,000 items in my store. You just can‘t do that. What you need to do is identify what product has the most risk for loss, or look at the products that your shrink is the highest on, then make decisions on how to best keep that product in the store in order to generate sales.
No bigger challenge have I ever faced with company management was the tagging of denim jeans. The company I worked for had a large selection of jeans and our sales in that category were very strong. So was shrink. For every 5 pairs we sold, we lost one. For you math whizzes, that’s a 20% loss. Our margins was only 25%, so we were not making that profit. But we were making a profit, and that’s all the executive levels managers cared about. Week after week, I would bring up shrink in this category. I would showcase my team’s apprehension statistics on denim. Heck, I even showed video in one meeting where an organized group of Cuban Nationals hit 15 stores and stole more than 500 pairs of denim in ONE DAY! It still wasn’t enough to convince the guys in the ivory tower to let me deploy something as simple as checkpoint tags to reduce the losses. After at least 2 years of push back, I was finally able to test a tagging initiative in ONE store.
I purchased a small quantity of ink tags and tagged every single pair of jeans in the store. Two months went by and not a single pair of jeans were stolen. Not one. The checkpoint tag was enough of a deterrent for our thieves not to tamper with. After showing these results to company management, we then deployed the tags company wide. It took years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss to get to this point.
Chances are, if you are reading this, you can don’t have to deal with the headache I do. Small business owners and stores are targeted by the same shoplifters as large chains. The difference is that large companies can absorb hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss, whereas that same number to a single family owned store would be devastating. I encourage every business owner to stand up to shoplifting and protect your biggest financial investment, your inventory.
For more information, contact us: Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
In the loss prevention world, we look at things a bit different than our business colleagues. Executives and company managers look at how well a product will sell and we look at how easy that same item is to steal. We always seem to play the devil’s advocate on merchandise in the stores. Sometimes, that’s not an easy role to play since it’s very common to be labeled “sales prevention”. We’re all on the same team, and we all have the same goals. Just as company leadership wants to increase sales and reduce expenses, I also want to increase sales. They have their way, and I have mine… simply stop shoplifting by making small changes throughout the stores.
Understandably so, not every item in a store can be protected by additional security measures. I can’t spend the money and payroll expense to stick a Checkpoint Label on each of the 100,000 items in my store. You just can‘t do that. What you need to do is identify what product has the most risk for loss, or look at the products that your shrink is the highest on, then make decisions on how to best keep that product in the store in order to generate sales.
No bigger challenge have I ever faced with company management was the tagging of denim jeans. The company I worked for had a large selection of jeans and our sales in that category were very strong. So was shrink. For every 5 pairs we sold, we lost one. For you math whizzes, that’s a 20% loss. Our margins were only 25%, so we were not making that profit. But we were making a profit, and that’s all the executive levels managers cared about. Week after week, I would bring up shrink in this category. I would showcase my team’s apprehension statistics on denim. Heck, I even showed video in one meeting where an organized group of Cuban Nationals hit 15 stores and stole more than 500 pairs of denim in ONE DAY! It still wasn’t enough to convince the guys in the ivory tower to let me deploy something as simple as Checkpoint Tags to reduce the losses. After at least 2 years of push back, I was finally able to test a tagging initiative in ONE store.
I purchased a small quantity of Checkpoint Ink Tags and tagged every single pair of jeans in the store. Two months went by and not a single pair of jeans were stolen. Not one. The Checkpoint Tag was enough of a deterrent for our thieves not to tamper with. After showing these results to company management, we then deployed the tags company wide. It took years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss to get to this point.
Chances are, if you are reading this, you don’t have to deal with the headache I do. Small business owners and stores are targeted by the same shoplifters as large chains. The difference is that large companies can absorb hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss, whereas that same number to a single family owned store would be devastating. I encourage every business owner to stand up to shoplifting and protect your biggest financial investment, your inventory.
For more information, contact us: Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
Is there anything you can do to prevent shoplifting? Of course there is! No matter what type of retailer you are, no matter the product you sell and no matter how small your business may be, there is definitely a solution to any type of theft problem you are having. And if you think you don’t have a theft problem, I can assure you that you do.
Take for instance, baseball mitts. When you think of baseball mitts, do you really think of this as being a high shrink item? Probably not. In my world it is, though. I worked for a company that carried some of the most expensive baseball mitts you could imagine. My job was to make sure they didn’t walk off… or didn’t walk off easily.
Mitts are difficult to secure. You can’t very well strap an Alpha Spider Wrap around them, or jab a hard tag through the leather. You also needed to still allow the customer to feel, touch and try on the glove. It’s a balancing act for sure. For quite a few years, we deployed Alpha 2 alarm tags through the webbing. The cable allowed for ease of use and it didn’t interfere with the customer’s experience. The problem was we would find defeated tags pretty often. The determined thief would simply cut the cable, then steal the glove.
We needed something that accomplished the same goals, but alarmed if the tag was tampered with, or the cable was cut. The alpha 3 alarm gave us those benefits, all while keeping with our commitment to our customers. Thieves still target our gloves occasionally though. The only difference is when they cut the tag, it’s pretty easy to identify the shoplifter. They’re the ones with the incredibly surprised look on their face as they try to discard the screeching security device!!
For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
Is there anything you can do to prevent shoplifting? Of course there is! No matter what type of retailer you are, no matter the product you sell and no matter how small your business may be, there is definitely a solution to any type of theft problem you are having. And if you think you don’t have a theft problem, I can assure you that you do.
Take for instance, baseball mitts. When you think of baseball mitts, do you really think of this as being a high shrink item? Probably not. In my world it is, though. I worked for a company that carried some of the most expensive baseball mitts you could imagine. My job was to make sure they didn’t walk off… or didn’t walk off easily.
Mitts are difficult to secure. You can’t very well strap an Alpha Spider Wrap around them, or jab a hard tag through the leather. You also needed to still allow the customer to feel, touch and try on the glove. It’s a balancing act for sure. For quite a few years, we deployed Alpha 2 alarm tags through the webbing. The cable allowed for ease of use and it didn’t interfere with the customer’s experience. The problem was we would find defeated tags pretty often. The determined thief would simply cut the cable, then steal the glove.
We needed something that accomplished the same goals, but alarmed if the tag was tampered with, or the cable was cut. The Alpha 3 Alarm gave us those benefits, all while keeping with our commitment to our customers. Thieves still target our gloves occasionally though. The only difference is when they cut the tag, it’s pretty easy to identify the shoplifter. They’re the ones with the incredibly surprised look on their face as they try to discard the screeching security device!!
For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
You may think that shoplifters are the only people making clothing disappear from your store without paying for it, but there could be other sinister individuals that are making your profits dwindle away, leaving you wondering what happened. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s probably not a magician, and this is no illusion. You could be losing just as much of your merchandise from your own store employees or other people that work in your store such as contracted workers like cleaning crews, or even vendors. When creating your clothing security strategy, it is important to consider thefts from these types of associates and plan accordingly.
I have conducted several internal theft investigations in which the contracted cleaning crew was taking merchandise from the store. One case in particular was a cleaning crew that was comprised of three people, and all of them were stealing. The crew worked overnight to early morning, and two of them usually worked together and the other worked by himself. I first noticed one of the two that worked together picking up merchandise from the shelf, and placing it into a bag that was on the floor cleaning machine. At that point, I didn’t know if anyone else was involved, because he was by himself when he concealed the item.
I then continued watching, and saw that his counterpart was looking at clothing while working. The next night, I saw her pick up some clothing and take it into the fitting rooms. At the time, the store didn’t place security tags on clothes that fell into the price category she selected. When she came out of the fitting rooms, the clothing was nowhere to be found. I later checked the fitting rooms, and didn’t find the clothing, it’s almost like it disappeared into thin air. We did find the tags though, so I looked which types of clothing she was taking and reworked our clothing security strategy to add merchandise she was taking to the list of clothing we were protecting with Checkpoint tags. I then installed a covert camera in area of the stockroom where the cleaning crew kept its supplies. That was the turning point in the case. Not only did I observe her remove clothing from under the clothing she was wearing and conceal it into her own purse, but I also got a better understanding of the activities of the whole crew.
The subject that I watched conceal merchandise into the bag performed that trick nightly, and he brought the concealed items back into the supply area, where he transferred the items from the bag to his pockets. Most of the merchandise he took was small electronics and clothing. I learned they were working together when they both met near the cleaning supply area and showed each other what they had taken for the night. Then to my surprise, I observed the third member of the team go to the supply area by himself, and pull food out of his pockets that he would sit and eat. I later found that he picked the food up from the sales floor while he was working, and so were the other two members. When I concluded the investigation and spoke with the associates, it turned out that the two that worked together had no idea that the third person was also stealing, and vice versa.
For more information contact us: (clothing security) or call 1.770.426.0547
You may think that shoplifters are the only people making clothing disappear from your store without paying for it, but there could be other sinister individuals that are making your profits dwindle away, leaving you wondering what happened. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s probably not a magician, and this is no illusion. You could be losing just as much of your merchandise from your own store employees or other people that work in your store such as contracted workers like cleaning crews, or even vendors. When creating your clothing security strategy, it is important to consider thefts from these types of associates and plan accordingly.
I have conducted several internal theft investigations in which the contracted cleaning crew was taking merchandise from the store. One case in particular was a cleaning crew that was comprised of three people, and all of them were stealing. The crew worked overnight to early morning, and two of them usually worked together and the other worked by himself. I first noticed one of the two that worked together picking up merchandise from the shelf, and placing it into a bag that was on the floor cleaning machine. At that point, I didn’t know if anyone else was involved, because he was by himself when he concealed the item.
I then continued watching, and saw that his counterpart was looking at clothing while working. The next night, I saw her pick up some clothing and take it into the fitting rooms. At the time, the store didn’t place security tags on clothes that fell into the price category she selected. When she came out of the fitting rooms, the clothing was nowhere to be found. I later checked the fitting rooms, and didn’t find the clothing, it’s almost like it disappeared into thin air. We did find the tags though, so I looked which types of clothing she was taking and reworked our clothing security strategy to add merchandise she was taking to the list of clothing we were protecting with Checkpoint Tags. I then installed a covert camera in area of the stockroom where the cleaning crew kept its supplies. That was the turning point in the case. Not only did I observe her remove clothing from under the clothing she was wearing and conceal it into her own purse, but I also got a better understanding of the activities of the whole crew.
The subject that I watched conceal merchandise into the bag performed that trick nightly, and he brought the concealed items back into the supply area, where he transferred the items from the bag to his pockets. Most of the merchandise he took was small electronics and clothing. I learned they were working together when they both met near the cleaning supply area and showed each other what they had taken for the night. Then to my surprise, I observed the third member of the team go to the supply area by himself, and pull food out of his pockets that he would sit and eat. I later found that he picked the food up from the sales floor while he was working, and so were the other two members. When I concluded the investigation and spoke with the associates, it turned out that the two that worked together had no idea that the third person was also stealing, and vice versa.
For more information contact us: Clothing Security or call 1.770.426.0547
