It’s really not a secret that shoplifting costs your store thousands of dollars per year. Thieves think of our stores as soul-less entities that can absorb losses like a paper napkin. Even for giant corporations, that’s simply not true. Whether you manage 500 stores, or just 1, you can’t afford to let dishonest people to rob you blind! With technology advancing on a daily basis, you can bet that there is an anti-shoplifting tool out there that meets your needs, and most importantly, your budget.
I work in the investigations department of my company and I often think back to all of the shoplifters and dishonest employees I’ve dealt with. Some make me furious at the amount of money my stores lost, while some just make me laugh. My company is heavily invested in the firearm and accessory business. Obviously, we don’t keep firearms accessible, however the line of accessories such as scopes, mounts, range finders and binoculars are displayed in a way that allows the customer to interact with the product. We used several anti-shoplifting devices to keep the displays secured. Any given item had at least 3 layers of protection. You wouldn’t think someone would try to steal an item that was so secured. This job never really surprises me anymore.
A store called me one morning and stated that they did their morning display audit and noticed that 4 of their most expensive scopes were gone. They were not sold and they had to have gone missing within the last 24 hours. I immediately went to the camera system and started my investigation. Just as the manager said, the day before, I could clearly see the scopes on display. A few hours on the camera and I found my shoplifter. At first I saw him looking at all the anti-shoplifting devices securing the product, then he walked away for a while. When he came back, he seemed to be frustrated with the system of locks and alarms connecting the scopes to the display shelf. At this point, I was still very confused on how he was able to remove the merchandise, so I stared at my CCTV monitor like I was watching a blockbuster thriller! I watched as my suspect seemingly had a light bulb go off over his head. He bent down out of view and we he re-emerged, he simply cut the cables to the scopes and removed them from the store. What just happened?
The store was only a few minutes down the road, so I headed over to inspect. I went to the area where I saw him bend down and saw a surge protector, exposed. That power pack was the source of power for the entire security display. During some routine cleaning, an associate had moved it and it remained outside of the cage. My shoplifter simply turned off the power to the alarms. I was not a happy person. When I first talked to the manager, he was quick to blame the fixture as a waste of money that didn’t secure his merchandise. There’s a lesson in this case, and unfortunately for his manager, it was an expensive lesson. No matter what controls you have in place to prevent losses in your store, they are only as effective as those who implement them.
For more information, contact us at Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
