About two years ago, I started making a few changes in my lifestyle. I was working long hours and my eating habits had deteriorated. I think anyone who’s ever worked in the LP field has been here. I decided it was time to give up the big chain stores and fast food and focus on eating healthier. So instead of running down to that mega store to buy boxed product loaded with preservatives and other junk, I started shopping at my local, hometown grocers and markets. I found the quality of food to be so much better and I love the idea of my money staying in the local community. With the background that I have, I did see how many of these smaller stores had little protections in place to prevent theft. Grocery store theft is a problem for the mass retailers, so I can only imagine what it does for the smaller stores who lack adequate controls.
Grocers operate on a razor thin margin, and have a plenthora more issues than most big box retailers. Think about this… when’s the last time a television set expired? Every day is a battle against the expiration date of literally, everything in the store, in addition to shoplifters. One trend is quickly gaining steam across the nation is meat theft. Could you imagine buying your eggs and milk and seeing a shoplifter place a few steaks down her shirt? It happens. Every single day, and if you’re a small business, you could be losing thousands of dollars each week to this pervasive theft trend.
When I first got into the LP industry as an undercover agent, I can remember the speech given to countless shoplifting suspects by local law enforcement. “Maybe if you were stealing food for your family, instead of *insert non-essential electronic item*, I might let you off with a warning.” Does steak theft fit into this category, now, or would the speech be, “If you were stealing bread and water and not this $25 cut of beef, I’d let you off.”? Where is the line drawn? I can understand a father and provider being backed so far into a corner that shoplifting a few groceries may seem like the best alternative to a bad situation, but why do most people get so offended when someone is caught shoplifting steaks, or other high priced cuts of meat?
I’ve never seen anyone get offended when I catch a shoplifter stealing a $400 handbag, and I’ve never once heard “Maybe if you only stole that $20 handbag, it’d be different.” So why the beef over meat theft? I have a few ideas that may point to why it invokes such a reaction, how it can be prevented and what your store can do to better protect its product and keep the prices low for the legitimate shoppers. You’ll have to read parts 2 and 3 to find out though.
For more information, contact us: Grocery Store Meat Theft, or call 1.770.426.0547
About two years ago, I started making a few changes in my lifestyle. I was working long hours and my eating habits had deteriorated. I think anyone who’s ever worked in the LP field has been here. I decided it was time to give up the big chain stores and fast food and focus on eating healthier. So instead of running down to that mega store to buy boxed product loaded with preservatives and other junk, I started shopping at my local, hometown grocers and markets. I found the quality of food to be so much better and I love the idea of my money staying in the local community. With the background that I have, I did see how many of these smaller stores had little protections in place to prevent theft. Among the other myriad of challenges I satered to notice in these smaller grocers, shoplifting steaks seemed to be the biggest problem.
Grocers operate on a razor thin margin, and have a pleathora more issues than most big box retailers. Think about this… when’s the last time a television set expired? Every day is a battle against the expiration date of literally, everything in the store, in addition to shoplifters. One trend is quickly gaining steam across the nation is meat theft. Could you imagine buying your eggs and milk and seeing a shoplifter place a few steaks down her shirt? It happens. Every single day, and if you’re a small business, you could be losing thousands of dollars each week to this pervasive theft trend.
When I first got into the LP industry as an undercover agent, I can remember the speech given to countless shoplifting suspects by local law enforcement. “Maybe if you were stealing food for your family, instead of *insert non-essential electronic item*, I might let you off with a warning.” Does shoplifting steak fit into this category, now, or would the speech be, “If you were stealing bread and water and not this $25 cut of beef, I’d let you off.”? Where is the line drawn? I can understand a father and provider being backed so far into a corner that shoplifting a few groceries may seem like the best alternative to a bad situation, but why do most people get so offended when someone is caught shoplifting steaks, or other high priced cuts of meat?
I’ve never seen anyone get offended when I catch a shoplifter stealing a $400 handbag, and I’ve never once heard “Maybe if you only stole that $20 handbag, it’d be different.” So why the beef over meat theft? I have a few ideas that may point to why it invokes such a reaction, how it can be prevented and what your store can do to better protect its product and keep the prices low for the legitimate shoppers. You’ll have to read parts 2 and 3 to find out though.
For more information, contact us: Grocery Store Meat Theft, or call 1.770.426.0547
Thieves target just about every item there is out there. Seriously, nothing is safe anymore. When I saw a few years back that detergent and soap were some of the heaviest shoplifted items, I wanted to just give up. It’s hard to run a store when that shoplifter is trying to find every imaginable way to take your hard earned money. It’s the same whether you work in a large national retailer, or a hometown, around the corner home improvement store. The only difference in the two is the big retailer can absorb thousands of dollars in shrink. Can you?
If your little store could take $100k in shrink, then it’s probably not just a little store. A thief will not target one store. From my years of work in this field, I’ve learned that, depending on the individual booster, they target a certain type of merchandise. They will then steal that item from whomever has it on their shelves. I worked a lot with other retailers investigating criminal rings, and it’s all too common to see the same shoplifter targeting multiple stores all for the same item. Typically, they go for merchandise that cannot be easily secured and target stores that have little, or no control measures in place.
Take for example, saws and drills. Aside from locking them in a store room, the security is limited. Thankfully, the Alpha O-Tag solves this problem. Power tools are a very commonly targeted item for a couple of reasons. They are hard to secure, home improvement stores are always busy and they can be easily sold at a pawnshop, or even right in your own parking lot!
Alpha O-Tags can save you thousands of dollars in lost product. The tags can be simply attached to the electrical cords of the tools and it makes it almost impossible for a thief to steal it. You don’t need to be a national retailer to think about theft prevention. Shoplifters hurt us all and they don’t care that each time they steal, they are taking money out of your pockets. Take control of your profits and see what the Alpha O-Tags can do for you.
For more information, contact us: KW, or call 1.770.426.0547
Thieves target just about every item there is out there. Seriously, nothing is safe anymore. When I saw a few years back that detergent and soap were some of the heaviest shoplifted items, I wanted to just give up. It’s hard to run a store when that shoplifter is trying to find every imaginable way to take your hard earned money. It’s the same whether you work in a large national retailer, or a hometown, around the corner home improvement store. The only difference in the two is the big retailer can absorb thousands of dollars in shrink. Can you?
If your little store could take $100k in shrink, then it’s probably not just a little store. A thief will not target one store. From my years of work in this field, I’ve learned that, depending on the individual booster, they target a certain type of merchandise. They will then steal that item from whomever has it on their shelves. I worked a lot with other retailers investigating criminal rings, and it’s all too common to see the same shoplifter targeting multiple stores all for the same item. Typically, they go for merchandise that cannot be easily secured and target stores that have little, or no control measures in place.
Take for example, saws and drills. Aside from locking them in a store room, the security is limited. Thankfully, the Alpha O-Tag solves this problem. Power tools are a very commonly targeted item for a couple of reasons. They are hard to secure, home improvement stores are always busy and they can be easily sold at a pawnshop, or even right in your own parking lot!
Alpha O-Tags can save you thousands of dollars in lost product. The tags can be simply attached to the electrical cords of the tools and it makes it almost impossible for a thief to steal it. You don’t need to be a national retailer to think about theft prevention. Shoplifters hurt us all and they don’t care that each time they steal, they are taking money out of your pockets. Take control of your profits and see what the Alpha O-Tags can do for you.
For more information, contact us at losspreventionsystems.com, or call 1.770.426.0547
It still never stops amazing me at the sheer number of people who will shoplift. While my job is to come up with ever changing innovations to prevent shoplifting, there are a group of people out there that will constantly evolve and find ways to defeat my methods. It’s a continuous game of cat and mouse with the loser paying full price for the item with no return. The retailer I now work for has begun increasing the amount of electronic accessory carried in the stores. With an increase in expensive electronics, comes an increase in people trying to steal them.
Heart rate monitors are a very popular item, especially as we head into the New Year. With millions of Americans making resolutions to get in shape, a heart rate monitor is a vital part of one’s training regimen. You cannot keep these locked up, or you won’t sell them. Customers want to feel them and read the specs in addition to making sure the product won’t be overly bulky as they go about their workout routines. With some reaching prices of $300, we needed a solution to prevent shoplifting of these items.
We started out by using some basic checkpoint labels, but found that it wasn’t a good enough deterrent. We were still losing the product. We wanted to use the Alpha Spider Wrap, but due to our budget constraints, we couldn’t invest too heavily in the product. As it was, we were selling the product very close to cost in order to beat out any completion. Any added value services would erode the tiny margin we had. We eventually found and utilized the iS Surround Spider Wrap. It’s a one alarm tag that gave the deterrent of a more sophisticated alarm. It was simply deactivated at the register and the customer removed it at home.
We weren’t being targeted by a normal shoplifter when it came to our heart rate monitor assortment. I had several investigations regarding a group of organized criminals that were stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of heart rate monitors at a time, and reselling on various online platforms. The way the tag is designed, it would deface the packaging once removed, thus greatly discouraging our professional thieves. It’s very hard to sell an item that looks like it was stolen, and this tag did just that. Over the course of 7-9 months after deploying the tags, we saw a reduction in activity by this group. They had moved on to other retailers, as we had apparently discouraged their illicit activities with a very simple solution.
I talk with store managers on a very regular basis and they all want to know how they can best prevent shoplifting. The truth, no matter if you want to believe it or not, is that you will never stop external losses completely. Someone with enough motivation will find fault in your security measures. Having the right tools in place though, will minimize those losses.
For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
It still never stops amazing me at the sheer number of people who will shoplift. While my job is to come up with ever changing innovations to prevent shoplifting, there are a group of people out there that will constantly evolve and find ways to defeat my methods. It’s a continuous game of cat and mouse with the loser paying full price for the item with no return. The retailer I now work for has begun increasing the amount of electronic accessories carried in the stores. With an increase in expensive electronics, comes an increase in people trying to steal them.
Heart rate monitors are a very popular item, especially as we head into the New Year. With millions of Americans making resolutions to get in shape, a heart rate monitor is a vital part of one’s training regimen. You cannot keep these locked up, or you won’t sell them. Customers want to feel them and read the specs in addition to making sure the product won’t be overly bulky as they go about their workout routines. With some reaching prices of $300, we needed a solution to prevent shoplifting of these items.
We started out by using some basic Checkpoint Labels, but found that it wasn’t a good enough deterrent. We were still losing the product. We wanted to use the Alpha Spider Wrap, but due to our budget constraints, we couldn’t invest too heavily in the product. As it was, we were selling the product very close to cost in order to beat out any completion. Any added value services would erode the tiny margin we had. We eventually utilized the Alpha Spider Wrap.
We weren’t being targeted by a normal shoplifter when it came to our heart rate monitor assortment. I had several investigations regarding a group of organized criminals that were stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of heart rate monitors at a time, and reselling on various online platforms. The way the Spider Wrap is designed, it would deface the packaging once removed, thus greatly discouraging our professional thieves. It’s very hard to sell an item that looks like it was stolen, and this Spider Wrap did just that. Over the course of 7-9 months after deploying the tags, we saw a reduction in activity by this group. They had moved on to other retailers, as we had apparently discouraged their illicit activities with a very simple solution.
I talk with store managers on a very regular basis and they all want to know how they can best prevent shoplifting. The truth, no matter if you want to believe it or not, is that you will never stop external losses completely. Someone with enough motivation will find fault in your security measures. Having the right tools in place though, will minimize those losses.
For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting Loss, or call 1.770.426.0547
