If shoplifting is the second largest area of retail loss, how do you fight it?
Training!!!. If you are not teaching your associates how to prevent shoplifting to begin with you will never, ever succeed as a retailer. The key is the way they are trained. The main focus should not be on catching the shoplifter.
Even though this is important, prevention is much more profitable and will lower retail loss.
Prevention training involves the actual approach to a suspected shoplifter. It is simple, can be entertaining as you drive the shoplifter insane and send them down the road to someone else who is doing nothing but watching their revenue walk out the door. The approach is different for each situation. Every employee that works the sales floor should be trained in this method. This should also be made a job duty. If you do this you will decrease your shoplifting losses. You do not need to have specialized employee, be a loss prevention or security expert to approach a suspected shoplifter.
Don’t be the store down the road that is watching their revenue walk out the door.