When you work in a store that sells beer and wine, you have the additional issues with theft that go along with that type of product. It is an inevitable problem, and the staff has to learn what to do to deter and stop the losses. Bottle Loks are a fantastic and easy solution to this problem, and they work in many ways. They deter theft merely by their presence on the bottles, with the word “alarm” clearly printed on them. They work with the Checkpoint System, so if there is an attempt to remove them from the store, the alarm will sound. Plus, they have the capability to self alarm if tampered with or if taken beyond a predetermined point.
I work for a small retail pharmacy and I have to deal with my fair share of theft. We do have the occasional professional booster group of shoplifters, but mostly we encounter everyday petty theft. Along with that group is the subset of “dumb crooks”. Yesterday I had to address one of their apparent key members. I had a guy come in the store and drop off a prescription at the pharmacy. He told them he would return in twenty minutes to pick it up. As he made his way to the front exit, he strolled down the wine aisle, which is near the checkout. The clerk at the front was ringing someone out at the time, but my staff is trained to be aware of shoppers in that aisle, especially in the early hours. She saw choose a bottle, and then he walked past her over to the cosmetics section of the store. The clerk assumed he was with someone else, since he walked over there. Instead of that, he stuffed the bottle down his pants, Bottle Lok and all, and went straight out the door. The alarm sounded, but he quickened his pace and left before he could be stopped.
The part that I did not get was that he had to come back to pick up the medication he had just ordered. So I went upstairs, got a good shot of him on the camera, and waited. Sure enough, twenty minutes later he was back. So I walked to the pharmacy, another bottle in hand, and when he came to the register to pay, I calmly told him I would be happy to ring him up for his medicine, plus I would be adding the bottle of wine to his purchase. Of course, he tried the old “I didn’t do it” story, but I shut him down quickly. I explained to him that he would break that bottle he stole before he would get that Bottle Lok off of it, so the plan was simple and he could follow it or he could go to jail. He listened then. I made him buy the wine, go back outside and get the bottle he stole, and we would trade when he came back in, in exchange for me not having him arrested.
One, it wasn’t worth my time to go to court. Two, he was coming back anyway, and he could not get the medication unless he paid for the wine. Three, he would not do very well in court, or jail for that matter, considering his lack of intelligence. The Bottle Lok did it’s job, so the best case scenario was to get it back without him cutting his hand off trying to remove it. Win win for both of us in my book.
When you work in a store that sells beer and wine, you have the additional issues with theft that go along with that type of product. It is an inevitable problem, and the staff has to learn what to do to deter and stop the losses. Bottle Loks are a fantastic and easy solution to this problem, and they work in many ways. They deter theft merely by their presence on the bottles, with the word “alarm” clearly printed on them. They work with the Checkpoint System, so if there is an attempt to remove them from the store, the alarm will sound. Plus, they have the capability to self alarm if tampered with or if taken beyond a predetermined point.
I work for a small retail pharmacy and I have to deal with my fair share of theft. We do have the occasional professional booster group of shoplifters, but mostly we encounter everyday petty theft. Along with that group is the subset of “dumb crooks”. Yesterday I had to address one of their apparent key members. I had a guy come in the store and drop off a prescription at the pharmacy. He told them he would return in twenty minutes to pick it up. As he made his way to the front exit, he strolled down the wine aisle, which is near the checkout. The clerk at the front was ringing someone out at the time, but my staff is trained to be aware of shoppers in that aisle, especially in the early hours. She saw him choose a bottle, and then he walked past her over to the cosmetics section of the store. The clerk assumed he was with someone else, since he walked over there. Instead of that, he stuffed the bottle down his pants, Bottle Lok and all, and went straight out the door. The alarm sounded, but he quickened his pace and left before he could be stopped.
The part that I did not get was that he had to come back to pick up the medication he had just ordered. So I went upstairs, got a good shot of him on the camera, and waited. Sure enough, twenty minutes later he was back. So I walked to the pharmacy, another bottle in hand, and when he came to the register to pay, I calmly told him I would be happy to ring him up for his medicine, plus I would be adding the bottle of wine to his purchase. Of course, he tried the old “I didn’t do it” story, but I shut him down quickly. I explained to him that he would break that bottle he stole before he would get that Bottle Lok off of it, so the plan was simple and he could follow it or he could go to jail. He listened then. I made him buy the wine, go back outside and get the bottle he stole, and we would trade when he came back in, in exchange for me not having him arrested.
One, it wasn’t worth my time to go to court. Two, he was coming back anyway, and he could not get the medication unless he paid for the wine. Three, he would not do very well in court, or jail for that matter, considering his lack of intelligence. The Bottle Lok did it’s job, so the best case scenario was to get it back without him cutting his hand off trying to remove it. Win win for both of us in my book.
For more information contact us at BottleLoks.net or call 1.770.426.0547
Shoplifters, believe it or not, can be pretty smart. I really hate saying that out loud, but it is true in most cases. Now, I’m not talking about that teenager who comes in and steals something for the first time, or the stay at home mom who is out looking for a little excitement. They’re stupid. Big difference. I’m talking about those people who make a full time career out of shoplifting. Some of these people make double, or even triple what most people make in a year, and it’s tax free. That alone is pretty genius. The more I progress in my loss prevention career, the more I see shoplifters progress. The more they progress, the more anti-shoplifting tactics evolve and it’s an endless cycle. One of the biggest and most damaging new trends I’ve seen develop over the last 4 years is refund fraud.
If you aren’t familiar with this fraud scheme, it goes something like this. Shoplifter steals item from store, brings it back for store credit, then buys what they really want, or sells the credit to someone for cash. Very simple tactic, but very difficult to catch if you are a smaller company. A few months back, I was reviewing some inventory adjustments on fishing line. I noticed that one of my stores had a large decrease in what they should’ve had, while a sister store had an inflated inventory. I thought this had to have been a shipping error from the warehouse. Turns out, I was wrong. The fishing line was a prime target for refunders since they were not protected with an anti-shoplifting device, nor would they set off the checkpoint system at the exit doors.
After a few days of working the case, I found where the store with the inflated inventory had taken several refunds in the past few weeks of this particular fishing line. Each spool retailed for about $50 and are geared toward your more serious fisherman. After reviewing some sales data, I determined that there were no sales of that sku to support the refunds. That’s as far as I could go with it though. We don’t have a camera on fishing line and it’s not generally thought of as a high theft area, so there isn’t much attention paid to that area of the store. I talked about the probable thefts in the store meetings daily, but unless we caught someone in the act, there wasn’t much I could do at that point, even though I knew full well these people were stealing my fishing line and then going shopping on my dime.
A few weeks went by and we continue to accept the refunds. Our way of thinking was that at the very least, we were recovering our stolen property and building a case. If we denied the refund, we would simply be out of the product and not have any idea on where it was going. I finally had enough and I had the store order some checkpoint labels. We generally used these on our higher theft merchandise, but I decided to apply them to the fishing line. About a week went by and I was helping a manager near the entrance when one of the suspects I had seen return the fishing line before attempt to exit the store. This time, the Checkpoint system alarmed and I was able to make a product recovery. Since then, we hadn’t had any additional refunds on that particular item.
For more information, contact us: Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
Shoplifters, believe it or not, can be pretty smart. I really hate saying that out loud, but it is true in most cases. Now, I’m not talking about that teenager who comes in and steals something for the first time, or the stay at home mom who is out looking for a little excitement. They’re stupid. Big difference. I’m talking about those people who make a full time career out of shoplifting. Some of these people make double, or even triple what most people make in a year, and it’s tax free. That alone is pretty genius. The more I progress in my loss prevention career, the more I see shoplifters progress. The more they progress, the more anti-shoplifting tactics evolve and it’s an endless cycle. One of the biggest and most damaging new trends I’ve seen develop over the last 4 years is refund fraud.
If you aren’t familiar with this fraud scheme, it goes something like this. Shoplifter steals item from store, brings it back for store credit, then buys what they really want, or sells the credit to someone for cash. Very simple tactic, but very difficult to catch if you are a smaller company. A few months back, I was reviewing some inventory adjustments on fishing line. I noticed that one of my stores had a large decrease in what they should’ve had, while a sister store had an inflated inventory. I thought this had to have been a shipping error from the warehouse. Turns out, I was wrong. The fishing line was a prime target for refunders since they were not protected with an anti-shoplifting device, nor would they set off the Checkpoint system at the exit doors.
After a few days of working the case, I found where the store with the inflated inventory had taken several refunds in the past few weeks of this particular fishing line. Each spool retailed for about $50 and are geared toward your more serious fisherman. After reviewing some sales data, I determined that there were no sales of that sku to support the refunds. That’s as far as I could go with it though. We don’t have a camera on fishing line and it’s not generally thought of as a high theft area, so there isn’t much attention paid to that area of the store. I talked about the probable thefts in the store meetings daily, but unless we caught someone in the act, there wasn’t much I could do at that point, even though I knew full well these people were stealing my fishing line and then going shopping on my dime.
A few weeks went by and we continue to accept the refunds. Our way of thinking was that at the very least, we were recovering our stolen property and building a case. If we denied the refund, we would simply be out of the product and not have any idea on where it was going. I finally had enough and I had the store order some Checkpoint Labels. We generally used these on our higher theft merchandise, but I decided to apply them to the fishing line. About a week went by and I was helping a manager near the entrance when one of the suspects I had seen return the fishing line before attempt to exit the store. This time, the Checkpoint System alarmed and I was able to make a product recovery. Since then, we hadn’t had any additional refunds on that particular item.
For more information, contact us: Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
We used to find empty wrist watch packages nearly every day at my store, and we weren’t sure exactly how to solve the problem. The retail anti-theft devices we already had in the store for other products were too bulky, so they just didn’t work well for the watches we sold. Then I talked with my supervisor about what other options were available to protect the products. We asked some of our colleagues what they used, and we received the same answer from each of them, which was the Alpha Jewel Lok.
Watches and jewelry in general were becoming top theft items in the store, and at this point, we were desperate for a solution to our theft problem. The interesting part was that most of the watches had retail anti-theft devices in the form of source tags already in the package, but the package was open so that the customer was able to handle the watches before they were purchased. The problem was that shoplifters would just remove the watches from the packages, so the tags weren’t the best solution for our specific issue. We needed something that would actually attach to the product, instead of the package. After getting advice from colleagues and looking around ourselves, we decided to give the Alpha Jewel Lok a chance. I can honestly say that there was a drastic reduction in the amount of jewelry and watches that were stolen after we started using the devices.
I really didn’t expect that we would see such great results in a short amount of time, so it wasn’t long before we realized that we could use this device on other items in the store. After all, the goal was to prevent shoplifting altogether, so why not take full advantage of the device? We also used it on loose jewelry and some wallets. Doing a little research, I found that you can also use them on some clothing items, shoes, and other accessories like belts. You can basically use it for any merchandise that you can get the hook to fit. You attach the device directly onto the product itself, so unless the shoplifters want to damage part of the merchandise, it will be very difficult to remove it. The good thing is that it still convenient for your customers and allows them to handle the items before making the purchase.
What makes the Alpha Jewel Lok work so well on these items is that it’s small, light and durable. It allows you to better protect merchandise that you had problems with in the past, and it’s nearly impossible to remove without the proper S3 key. This means it’s hard times for the shoplifters, which is always a good thing for you. The small hook that attaches to the merchandise fits tightly, so there isn’t any room to get anything in the space to cut it off of the product, but of course that doesn’t stop them from trying. I have watched shoplifters try to remove it without success many times. Don’t worry though, if you have the key to remove it, it’s a cinch and it only takes a quick second to take it off the item. That means that your customers won’t have to inconveniently wait at the register.
For more information contact us: (Alpha Jewel Lok) or call 1.770.426.0547
We used to find empty wrist watch packages nearly every day at my store, and we weren’t sure exactly how to solve the problem. The retail anti-theft devices we already had in the store for other products were too bulky, so they just didn’t work well for the watches we sold. Then I talked with my supervisor about what other options were available to protect the products. We asked some of our colleagues what they used, and we received the same answer from each of them, which was the Alpha Jewel Lok.
Watches and jewelry in general were becoming top theft items in the store, and at this point, we were desperate for a solution to our theft problem. The interesting part was that most of the watches had retail anti-theft devices in the form of source tags already in the package, but the package was open so that the customer was able to handle the watches before they were purchased. The problem was that shoplifters would just remove the watches from the packages, so the tags weren’t the best solution for our specific issue. We needed something that would actually attach to the product, instead of the package. After getting advice from colleagues and looking around ourselves, we decided to give the Alpha Jewel Lok a chance. I can honestly say that there was a drastic reduction in the amount of jewelry and watches that were stolen after we started using the devices.
I really didn’t expect that we would see such great results in a short amount of time, so it wasn’t long before we realized that we could use this device on other items in the store. After all, the goal was to prevent shoplifting altogether, so why not take full advantage of the device? We also used it on loose jewelry and some wallets. Doing a little research, I found that you can also use them on some clothing items, shoes, and other accessories like belts. You can basically use it for any merchandise that you can get the hook to fit. You attach the device directly onto the product itself, so unless the shoplifters want to damage part of the merchandise, it will be very difficult to remove it. The good thing is that it still convenient for your customers and allows them to handle the items before making the purchase.
What makes the Alpha Jewel Lok work so well on these items is that it’s small, light and durable. It allows you to better protect merchandise that you had problems with in the past, and it’s nearly impossible to remove without the proper S3 key. This means it’s hard times for the shoplifters, which is always a good thing for you. The small hook that attaches to the merchandise fits tightly, so there isn’t any room to get anything in the space to cut it off of the product, but of course that doesn’t stop them from trying. I have watched shoplifters try to remove it without success many times. Don’t worry though, if you have the key to remove it, it’s a cinch and it only takes a quick second to take it off the item. That means that your customers won’t have to inconveniently wait at the register.
For more information contact us: Alpha Jewel Lok or call 1.770.426.0547
