PROTECTING FRAGRANCE FROM SHOPLIFTERS
Over the past couple of years, I have forged a partnership with law enforcement agencies and fellow retailers across my home state. I call it the “LEARN” program. (Law Enforcement and Retail Network). It all started when I just got fed up with the amount of shoplifting I was dealing with. We were doing all we possible could to prevent shoplifting in our store, but the thieves were continually targeting us. I approached my local sheriff’s office and partnered up with a great detective.
We began working together and eventually started going retailer to retailer, talking to managers and especially the loss prevention staff. We’d collect email addresses and when someone had a shoplifter, we’d share that information with the group. Over the years the group has grown larger and larger. There are over 150 different retailers in my state participating, along with dozens of law enforcement agencies. If someone steals and gets away, we are usually able to identify them with relative ease. We also hold quarterly conference to share intel and discuss crime patterns. While our store teams are doing everything in their power to prevent shoplifting, we are constantly investigating it on the backside.
Just recently, an email was shared from a local merchant that specializes in designer clothing and fragrances. Apparently, even though price-points for some bottles approach $100, they’ve never thought to use EAS devices to protect fragrance. The email was contained some still images of a couple boosters that cleaned them out on a certain line of perfume. They were hoping someone could identify the clean smelling cohorts so they could attempt to recover their bouquet of bounty.
A few days later, the same merchant sent out another “BOLO” regarding the same duo. They had targeted another store location and cleaned up another haul of perfume. Seriously guys, if this is a popular target, there are several options available that can help you protect fragrance. This time, the photos were a little better quality and I immediately recognized one of the shoplifters. I kid you not, her name is Essence. Law enforcement was able to track her down and luckily for the store, a large portion of their product was recovered before it could be sold through various online mediums.
How many of you out there, reading this right now are in the same boat? You try to prevent shoplifting by using the latest technology, but there are those commonly stolen items that you simply overlook. If you sell high end fragrance, then PROTECT FRAGRANCE with keeper boxes!
For more information about Alpha Keepers contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.
Over the past couple of years, I have forged a partnership with law enforcement agencies and fellow retailers across my home state. I call it the “LEARN” program. (Law Enforcement and Retail Network). It all started when I just got fed up with the amount of shoplifting I was dealing with. We were doing all we possible could to prevent shoplifting in our store, but the thieves were continually targeting us. I approached my local sheriff’s office and partnered up with a great detective.
We began working together and eventually started going retailer to retailer, talking to managers and especially the loss prevention staff. We’d collect email addresses and when someone had a shoplifter, we’d share that information with the group. Over the years the group has grown larger and larger. There are over 150 different retailers in my state participating, along with dozens of law enforcement agencies. If someone steals and gets away, we are usually able to identify them with relative ease. We also hold quarterly conference to share intel and discuss crime patterns. While our store teams are doing everything in their power to prevent shoplifting, we are constantly investigating it on the backside.
Just recently, an email was shared from a local merchant that specializes in designer clothing and fragrances. Apparently, even though price-points for some bottles approach $100, they’ve never thought to use EAS devices to protect fragrance. The email contained some still images of a couple boosters that cleaned them out on a certain line of perfume. They were hoping someone could identify the clean smelling cohorts so they could attempt to recover their bouquet of bounty.
A few days later, the same merchant sent out another “BOLO” regarding the same duo. They had targeted another store location and cleaned up another haul of perfume. Seriously guys, if this is a popular target, there are several options available that can help you protect fragrance. This time, the photos were a little better quality and I immediately recognized one of the shoplifters. I kid you not, her name is Essence. Law enforcement was able to track her down and luckily for the store, a large portion of their product was recovered before it could be sold through various online mediums.
How many of you out there, reading this right now are in the same boat? You try to prevent shoplifting by using the latest technology, but there are those commonly stolen items that you simply overlook. If you sell high end fragrance, then PROTECT FRAGRANCE with keeper boxes!
For more information about Alpha Keepers contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.
I got my inventory results for this past year, and they were a lot worse than I had expected. I just took over this location a few months ago, and I knew the controls were lacking before my arrival, but we missed our shrink budget by over $2,000. I figured out a couple of the worst categories, books and soda, were caused by vendor paperwork errors and those have since been corrected. I can at least look forward to a swell next year. However, we have had some significant thefts in the cosmetics section and of course, that was our worst category for shrink. We had figured out who was in the group that was hitting us and we had to create an action plan to stop shoplifting in that quadrant of the store.
We went through and adhered Checkpoint Labels to our entire stock of foundations and lipsticks over a period of two weeks. I saw the ring leader of the group enter the store about three weeks ago. At the time I didn’t know it was her, but something about her made me suspicious. I even had a feeling right then that she was our makeup thief. I watched her for a bit, and then I got called to the front checkout to assist with a customer. I hated to leave her unattended, but I have to put my paying customers first. I was able to watch her from the front and I could see she was picking up lipsticks and quickly replacing them. I knew right then those Checkpoint Labels were working and I knew that woman was our culprit. She was able to get to a spot where I couldn’t see her, and she stole some eyeliners and mascaras. She did not activate the alarm on the Checkpoint Systems because we had not tagged those items. I was able to verify the theft later via camera footage.
Then last week, exactly two weeks from the day I figured out who the thief was, I was working the evening shift. I was just about to leave to take the deposit to the bank, when someone down one of the aisles caught my eye. You guessed it! It was her. I smiled at her, went back to the front, and told my cashier to call the police. Then I went outside quickly to figure out where the getaway car was. I walked over behind the car and jotted down the license plate number. (There was a dude in the driver’s seat, glaring at me in the mirror! I seriously did not care at that point though. Enough was enough.) Then I went back inside and verified her position in the store. I walked past her and the only thing in her cart was her giant purse. I asked her if she needed help and she said she was fine. Then her phone rang. I walked back toward the front to see if the police had arrived and not long after that she came to the front. She approached me and loudly asked me why I went out and got information from the car. I calmly told her I did it in case she left before the police came; I wanted them to be able to find her. She was not pleased with my answer. In the cart she was pushing were several packages of name brand facial care items. (All that added up to over $400 retail) She left it all and stormed out the door. They pulled out of the parking lot, but were pulled over right afterward.
I would like to point out that all the stuff she had chosen to steal this time were all lacking Checkpoint Labels. Our “stop shoplifting” plan was working in cosmetics so she moved over to a different category. She knew she couldn’t defeat our Checkpoint Systems, so she was carefully choosing items that were not protected.
Get more information on Checkpoint Labels. Contact us or call today 1.770.426.0547
FDid you know that the average median pay of a small business owner is $59,243 a year? According to the website www.payscale.com , “Experience has a moderate effect on income for this job”. Even with moderate effects being taken into consideration, this certainly means that small business owners must be careful in how they invest in their business in order to make it grow. Money can’t be wasted or invested in products or services that are not value added. Small business owners of retail stores must consider whether it is worth investing in anti-theft devices for the business(es) they own. Can they afford to protect their merchandise against theft and pilferage? How much money would it cost just to determine if investing in electronic article surveillance (EAS) equipment is feasible? What if I told you that there is a Free Loss Prevention Calculator that can help you determine the cost of investing in EAS products and the Return On Investment?
Loss Prevention Systems Inc. now offers a Free Loss Prevention Calculator that can help you see the cost of investing in Checkpoint EAS products. Based on your annual sales and estimated merchandise shrinkage, along with the cost of equipment, you will see how many months it will take for you to see your Return On Investment. Using the Loss Prevention ROI calculator, the business owner inputs a few simple numbers and can get an immediate estimate of how long it will take for the equipment to pay for itself through reduction in theft and even accidental loss.
Does using anti-theft devices make a significant difference in shortage reduction? Let’s take a look at information from the 2014-2015 Global Retail Theft Barometer Report. According to the reporting information for North America, the following retailers saw inventory shrinkage deteriorate from the 2013-2014 reporting period:
- Apparel Specialist Retailers 0.60% in 2013-2014 to 2.28% in 2014-2015
- Other Non-Grocery retailers 1.70% in 2013-2014 to 1.90% in 2014-2015
- Pharmacies/Drugstores 1.00% in 2013-2014 to 2.25% in 2014-2015
Of these three retail categories, Apparel Specialist Retailers decreased their spending on Loss Prevention as a percent of total sales from .39% in 2013-2014 to .24% in 2014-2015. Other Non-Grocery Retailers reduced their spending from 1.00% in 2013-2014 to .75% in 2014-2015. While Pharmacies/Drugstores did increase their spending on Loss Prevention from .14% in 2013-2014 to .50% in 2014-2015 and they did see an increase in shrinkage, the report points out on page 53 that, “Shoplifting continues to plague the retail industry due to escalating problem of ORC (organized retail crime), easy sale of stolen merchandise through online sites, reduced sales floor coverage and, the general perception of shoplifting as a “low-risk/non-offensive” crime. On the other hand, it is also noteworthy that the report shows that Sporting Goods Stores, where the most spending on Loss Prevention took place, (1.41% of total sales) ranked 6th best in shortage results in North America at only 1.21% Shrinkage. The worst performance being 13th ranked Drugstores/Pharmacies at 2.25%, a full percentage point difference.
The Loss Prevention ROI calculator will help the small business owner determine what an investment in EAS equipment would provide as an estimated reduction in shortage and how fast the investment will pay for itself. It is easy to see initial costs for investing in a new system as purely an expense to the bottom line without looking at the big picture and realizing that the investment may pay for itself down the road. One additional factor you may want to consider when using the Free Loss Prevention Calculator is that the 2014-2015 GRTB reported that not all retailers who protected their merchandise with EAS protected every SKU in their inventory. “48% of respondents protected more than 50% of their high-risk SKUs with EAS, while 38% of the respondents protected 10-50% of their high-risk SKUs; only 14% of the respondents protected less than 10% of their high-risk SKUs with EAS.” You have the ability with the calculator to try out various amounts you may consider investing to see what the ROI will turn out to be. For those on a tight budget but needing protection, this free tool will aid in the decision making process.
Theft and fraud are difficult issues to deal with especially for the small shop owner who may not know what resources are available or affordable to stop merchandise shrinkage. The Loss Prevention ROI Calculator is a fantastic resource to consult, free of charge. You may be surprised at just how affordable protection can be and how quickly it will pay for itself.
Need more information on the Free Loss Prevention Calculator? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Living in a beach/tourist community, there are a lot of activities for locals and tourists alike to engage in. One of the favorite past times is fishing. Living so close to the ocean, as well as lakes and inland waterways, there is plenty of access to fresh water and saltwater fishing. It also means that there is a significant demand for fishing rods and reels for fishermen/women of different skill levels. Big box retailers, sporting goods stores, hunting and fishing stores all sell fishing gear and bait, it’s a big market in this part of the country. Needless to say, since it is so popular there is also a certain dishonest element that shoplifts fishing gear. I worked as a Loss Prevention Manager for a large retailer for many years in this community and dealt with a number of shoplifting cases in which fishing rods and reels were the focus of theft. It was not always easy to prevent shoplifting and deter theft of these items. If we had Alpha’s O Tag to use, we could have deterred much of the theft and fraud we experienced in this department.
The O Tag is a retail anti-theft device that is a one-piece design and is unique from other types of devices. The O Tag has a circular design that allows it to clamp around a tubular object, such as a baseball bat, display merchandise power cords and as we are discussing in this article, fishing rods. The tags are designed to work with electronic article surveillance (EAS) antennas and will set off the alarm in the antennas if they are brought into the radio frequency field of the antennas. The tags require a detachment key in order to remove them so it is extremely risky for a shoplifter to try to force one off of a piece of merchandise. Enough force and a fishing rod will break, rendering the merchandise useless. The EAS antennas and the tags combine to effectively deter thieves, but in cases where they aren’t deterred, the alarm allows store employees to respond and try to recover goods or identify the culprit.
I did see some theft of fishing rods and those were usually in video reviews attempting to determine where merchandise went. Many times the shoplifters were rolling merchandise out the front doors in shopping carts or carrying them away. The only retail anti-theft devices we had to use were EAS soft tags attached to the manufacturers’ hang tag. Unfortunately, some of the shoplifters would just pull the hang tag off and the EAS tag with it. This of course meant no EAS alarm to alert staff that someone might be attempting a theft. Using an O Tag on the merchandise would have prevented the shoplifters from being able to remove the retail anti-theft device from the rods and more than likely sent them to another store.
If the owner of a small fishing store and bait shop were to decide to use the tags, they would not be restricted to using the devices on fishing poles to prevent shoplifting, they could also be placed on such things as tackle box handles and drink cooler handles. If a store sells fishing boat accessories such as gallon containers of marine oil in bottles with handles on them, this retail anti-theft device can be placed around the handle to prevent shoplifting. Other fishing accessories that may be protected with the tags include, ice fishing shovels, chisels, bows for bow fishing and fishing net handles.
If you own a fishing supply store why cast around looking for a new angle to prevent shoplifting? You’ll be hooked once you use the O Tag and see how effective it is in keeping merchandise in stock and theft down. You’ll be able to keep prices low and hook new customers.
O Tags are important and we can help you with them. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
Retail, big or small, is an increasingly competitive, cost sensitive environment, and while not every retailer can afford to have a full time loss prevention team, no retailer can afford to do nothing to stop shoplifting. Retailers need solutions but they don’t need a bigger payroll expense. Labor is time and time is money so solutions need to cover both of those issue and that is what investing in Electronic Article Surveillance provides.
When I teach LP associates and operations staff about theft and it’s shrink impact I address two points. The first: the people who cause loss. The second: that time is critical to success.
People, in my opinion, fall into three classes regarding theft. The first class is the Professionals, those who steal for a living and whom we will discuss later. On the opposite end of the spectrum comes the Honest Angels, folks who would stop at a roadside stand and pay for everything they take even though no one is around for miles. The Fence Sitters are the third, the largest, and the most diverse group and the one that Electronic Article Surveillance impacts the most. The motivations that drive their decisions to steal vary, like financial issues, family needs, an entitlement mind-set or simply the existence of opportunity. These people don’t chose theft as a profession, they choose it in a moment when need or opportunity outweigh morality. But in that moment when they choose to step off the fence the risk and fear of being caught is in the forefront of their minds. The presence of items like EAS Tags has a major impact on their choices.
Unprotected merchandise creates an opportunity for theft, and unseen protections like LP don’t always deter shoplifters. EAS Tags create a visual reminder of the risk, representing time, time needed to complete the theft. Time creates too much risk and the Fence Sitter won’t take that risk. In the end they leave your store. Your merchandise remains safe and available for your paying customers.
With the fence sitting population covered let’s look back at the professional thieves, the boosters who make their living stealing your livelihood, from you. Electronic Article Surveillance impacts their actions as well but in a different manner than the Fence sitters. For boosters It boils down to a single factor, time! Successful boosters have an average time in a store of under 5 minutes. Even a full LP team has a hard time spotting and apprehending boosters with that small of a window. It is here that EAS Tags do serious work to stop shoplifting by the boosters.
Boosters removing tags takes time and time increases their chance of being caught. Professional thieves look to maximize their profit while minimizing their risk and effort. Merchandise protections removes these two elements, reducing the draw for the boosters. Even without LP in your store the presence of Electronic Article Surveillance works to stop shoplifting by increasing the risk to the booster, creating a deterrent.
In the end it is all about time. Extra time and effort spent by determined boosters increases LP’s success rate against them, saving your profit and increasing the return on investment for having LP. The visual deterrent of Electronic Article Surveillance increases the time the fence sitters think about their choice, causing them to give up, saving your profit. Most important is the time you save stressing about profits. Time is priceless and isn’t it about time you got to ease your mind?
Need information on Electronic Article Surveillance? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now
