In this second part of a two-part discussion on clothing security tag usage in stores not traditionally thought of as clothing suppliers, I asked readers to think about stores that could benefit from using security tags on clothes. While there are many clothing retailers that obviously would use Checkpoint tags to prevent theft, what other businesses carry clothing that we may not associate with traditional clothing sales? I came up with a brief list of my own:
Lingerie stores
Auto Parts stores
College book stores
Gift Shops
Hardware stores
Swimwear shops
Department stores
Movie/video/music stores
Handbag stores
Men’s suit/tuxedo rental stores
Even pet stores sell clothing items for our furry little friends, such as sweaters and jackets. If you own a business that falls into one of these categories, you may want to consider the benefits you could derive from using clothing security tags.
Not everyone is familiar with what clothing security tags are so I want to take a few moments to describe them and what they do. These tags come in two designs, soft tags that peel off a roll and stick to some type of backing, usually cardboard, cellophane, plastic and non-metal surfaces. The tags are difficult to remove from an item and even when the paper is peeled off, the wire coil that activates an electronic article surveillance antenna (EAS) often remains on the surface. The second style of tag is the hard tag, usually a two-piece device with a pin on one part and a “cap” for the reverse side. This type of tag pins on the clothing item and is not removed until the clothing is brought to the register and purchased.
The soft tag is best to be placed on a hanging manufacturer tag of a garment and the hard tag can be pinned in a seam or in a highly visible location on an item. Visibility is important since it acts as a deterrent to thieves who may be deciding whether or not to shoplift from your store. Both tags will activate EAS antenna alarms when brought into range of the doors where the antennas are located. Most shoplifters know what EAS antennas are and prefer to avoid setting them off so they tend to go to locations where EAS is not in use. Checkpoint tags come in both styles and Checkpoint systems can make recommendations for EAS antennas.
Although the list I have made does include stores that specialize in certain “types” of garments, such as a bridal store or lingerie shop, they are limited in what they carry. In a big box retail store, you find nearly every kind of clothing item and for every person, children to teenagers to adults, everyone can be accommodated. We should not overlook the stores that carry a limited number of softlines merchandise. Video and music stores I visit carry character and novelty t-shirts for the customer. Hardware stores often have ball caps, gardening aprons, gloves and tool belts that can be protected with Checkpoint tags. Gift shops often carry hats and even purses and wallets that can be protected with clothing security tags.
You may be thinking that your store only carries a few clothing items so it isn’t worth the investment in EAS antennas and even the soft Checkpoint tags. I would like to remind the readers that EAS antennas will detect Checkpoint tags that are on clothing and other items. You can use clothing security tags on clothing and enjoy the same level of protection by tagging all of your other merchandise as well.
Clothing security tags aren’t just for clothing stores. Take a look at the merchandise you sell and see if you may carry some items you hadn’t thought about tagging before. If you don’t carry clothes, hats or softlines merchandise now may be a great time to consider expanding your product line and increase sales. Use security tags on clothes in the process and keep theft down and profits up.
Clothing Security Tags are important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
Information from the usa.gov website reports a new version of identity theft called synthetic ID theft, is a new twist on an old scam. According to their website, “…a thief steals pieces of information from different people to create a new identity. For example, the thief may steal one person’s social security number, combine it with another person’s name and use someone else’s address to create a brand new identity.” Previously, a thief would simply steal one person’s information and use it to create a new identity. This makes it more important than ever for employers to use a background check company to investigate potential new hires.
Pre-employment screening and employee background checks on job candidates can uncover any number of issues a candidate may be trying to screen from an employer. A background check company uses investigators to search out discrepancies in a job applicant’s resume or application. People will hide information about their driving records, level of education, military service (and discharge status), criminal records and as mentioned above, even their true identity.
I would like to focus attention in this article on the identity verification concern for new hires. Several problems arise when we discuss the issue of identity. If you don’t know who the person is who you have hired, what are you putting at risk in your business? Are you endangering your employees or customers? Are you hiring a person who will steal from you? Do they have a criminal background they are hiding? Another issue is whether or not the individual is even eligible to work in the U.S. If they are not, and you hire them YOU could face fines and penalties from the government.
According to the United States Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) website, “employers must verify the identity and employment authorization of each person hired after November 6, 1986. Failing to comply with I-9 requirements can cost an employer up to $1,100 for each form not in compliance. In addition, hiring or continuing to employ a person with the knowledge that the person is not authorized to work in the U.S. can result in a penalty of up to $3,200 for the first offense for each worker and for a third offense the penalty can carry a $16,000 penalty for each worker.” What if a new applicant is actually trying to gain employment with you while using a stolen or fake identity? The possibility of incurring these kinds of penalties should be enough to motivate any employer to ensure thorough employee background checks are completed on all applicants.
Employee background checks can include a social security number trace to determine previous addresses, identity and validity. An employment application will contain prior job locations. If someone indicates on the application they worked for such and such a business, located in one area, but the social security number trace shows the applicant never lived in that area, it will be apparent that the applicant has been less than honest in some fashion.
Hopefully the information from the government that I have provided to this point is enough to get you to seriously consider the advantages of hiring a background check company. If however you are still skeptical let me give you one more interesting tidbit from another government website https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2014/12/04/176.pdf (page 2 last paragraph) answering a question regarding whether an employer should have to conclude an applicant is not authorized to work when a Social Security Number doesn’t match the SSA’s records, their response is “Not necessarily”. They point out that a mismatch between a name and SSA records could be due to a number of reasons including unreported name changes, typing errors, hyphenated names and even identity theft. They say that a mismatch by itself should not be used as the reason for taking any adverse employment action against any employee. The question then becomes should you do something and risk getting in trouble with the Justice Department or do nothing and risk getting in trouble with the USCIS?
A background check company can help you avoid the pitfalls that could lead to unnecessary audits and fines from the government. Pre-employment screening by a trusted source can save you a lot of hiring headaches and give you the confidence that you are hiring the right people for your team.
Pre-employment screening is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
People never cease to amaze me. From my years as an Air Force Security Policeman through my years in retail, I have seen truly odd things from customers and on occasion I have had to adapt to these behaviors. Hopefully as I stroll through memory lane, you will find some of these things as amusing as I do. These days there are all types of measures taken to stop shoplifting, there are Checkpoint tags to place on merchandise, electronic article surveillance antennas, closed circuit television, but these tools were not always readily available about 30 years ago.
When I was a young Airman 1st Class stationed at my first base, I experienced my first encounter with aggressive shoppers. I had no idea that the release of a new toy could be the cause of a huge uproar. I learned my lesson when I was dispatched to go to the Base Exchange (BX)/toy store. It was somewhere in neighborhood of the Christmas shopping season and the BX had a “Toyland” store set up. I was assigned guard duty this particular day at the BX for a new toy coming out called the Cabbage Patch doll. I felt a little silly having to go to a store to guard a shipment of dolls, but I was not about to argue, orders were orders.
I arrived and stayed near the display where the dolls were being set up. I was more than a little surprised at the growing crowd waiting outside the doors for the store to open! These were just dolls weren’t they?! While I am sure there was some concern by store managers to stop shoplifting, I learned later that the bigger concern was to prevent rioting (admittedly it was not on the scale of a city riot, but it was big enough to me!). Checkpoint tags weren’t used at that time to prevent theft and even if they were, they weren’t going to prevent this mayhem. The doors opened and the crowd of shoppers stormed through those doors for the limited number of dolls on the display. I don’t know what management thought I was going to do, but my instinct for self- preservation prevailed…I moved out of the way. These shoppers were grabbing dolls from each other, yelling, pushing and screaming. What effort I did try to exert was to no avail and I watched, somewhat horrified I might add, as the melee ensued.
Eventually the last of the dolls was grabbed and held with a death-grip by some fierce shopper. I don’t know that my performance was what the management had in mind when they requested a Security Policeman to be present, but I did escape with all limbs attached so in my mind, mission accomplished. I will say that this experience somewhat prepared me for the future when I would find myself in a new career as a Retail Loss Prevention Manager. Black Fridays couldn’t be any worse…could they?!
My later experiences in Retail Loss Prevention did find me preparing merchandise and the store for Black Fridays, as well as chaotic new releases of products. Using Checkpoint tags to protect merchandise we normally kept in lock up cases, we spent many hours tagging merchandise, but the results paid off. While we were aware some theft took place, overall we did not find a lot of empty packages or torn shrink wrap with tags left on them in the days after Black Friday. The combination of protected merchandise, employee awareness, strong police and Loss Prevention presence proved to be a significant factor to stop shoplifting.
I was proud of the fact that during my time as a Loss Prevention Manager, we did not experience anything like my “Toyland” trauma. Thanks to Checkpoint tags and careful planning, I never went through that again.
Get more information on Checkpoint Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
TONSILLECTOMY AND ALPHA THUNDER TAGS
So just this morning, I had to drag myself out of bed; my comfortable, lovely and relaxing bed at 3:30am. Not only did I have to wake up, I had to put pants on and leave the house completely. Why, you ask? I have a sister. I have a sister that just keeps getting Streptococcus. Her tonsils just can’t handle the everyday germs like you and I, so it was time to part ways. They had to go; and apparently I was the only one that could drive her. Ever heard of Uber? The one good thing, if there was one, was I got to talk again about how great Alpha Thunder Tags are.
You might be asking where the connection is there. How can my sister’s tonsillectomy have any relation to Alpha Thunder Tags? Working in the LP industry makes me feel like an old man that talks about the “good ole’ days’ every chance I get. Instead of the days of yore, I like to talk about ways to stop criminals. Criminals get hurt and have to go to the hospital too, you know!
I’m sitting in the little waiting room area and there is literally no one in the surgical wing at this hour. There are a few nurses at the floor station and the halls are dead silent. I kind of wanted a career change at that moment. I notice that the nurse and staff all do their charting electronically, on iPads. Very carelessly, they set them down and walk away. Anyone with a dishonest bone in their body could simply walk by, scoop it up and be on their merry way before anyone would ever notice. Hospitals just don’t think like an LP manager does, I guess. For me, tablet theft is a very real problem in my store and we work extraordinarily hard to prevent it.
Back to the surgery! The tonsils put up a valiant fight, but in the end the scalpel was too much of a challenger. In the recovery ward now, in a little room, waiting for my kid sister to wake up from the cocktail of sleepy time meds, a nurse comes in to check on her; using an iPad of course. I have no one else to talk to so I ask if there’s ever been a tablet theft. I then have to explain what I do for a living before she realizes I’m not really interested in stealing her iPad. Her answer didn’t surprise me. She tells me that a few have gone “missing” over time, but didn’t think that people in hospitals steal.
While you may have a great team of employees in a hospital and maybe employee theft isn’t a problem, the fact here is that a hospital is open to the public. Anyone can simply walk in the front doors, and walk the hallways late at night looking for a table to steal. If questioned, they can just say they are visiting a family member and got lost; there’s no way to verify this. Not only that, but criminals get hurt. Normal people who get hurt have thieves in their family that will come visit them. Patients may also be kleptomaniacs. Bet you never thought about that before!
To easily protect your hospital, or private practice from tablet theft, Alpha Thunder Tags are the easiest, most cost effective method to do so. The small tag can be applied to all your devices (and not just tablets, either) that would give an audible alert anytime they passed through an antenna (which are basically invisible). This simple tool will not only protect the investment in the hardware, but will also help bolster any software tools you’re using to protect patient data. If you’re looking for a way to secure your tablets, look no further than the rumble of Alpha Thunder Tags.
Get more information on Alpha Thunder Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
So just this morning, I had to drag myself out of bed; my comfortable, lovely and relaxing bed at 3:30am. Not only did I have to wake up, I had to put pants on and leave the house completely. Why, you ask? I have a sister. I have a sister that just keeps getting Streptococcus. Her tonsils just can’t handle the everyday germs like you and I, so it was time to part ways. They had to go; and apparently I was the only one that could drive her. Ever heard of Uber? The one good thing, if there was one, was I got to talk again about how great Alpha Thunder Tags are.
You might be asking where the connection is there. How can my sister’s tonsillectomy have any relation to Alpha Thunder Tags? Working in the LP industry makes me feel like an old man that talks about the “good ole’ days’ every chance I get. Instead of the days of yore, I like to talk about ways to stop criminals. Criminals get hurt and have to go to the hospital too, you know!
I’m sitting in the little waiting room area and there is literally no one in the surgical wing at this hour. There are a few nurses at the floor station and the halls are dead silent. I kind of wanted a career change at that moment. I notice that the nurse and staff all do their charting electronically, on iPads. Very carelessly, they set them down and walk away. Anyone with a dishonest bone in their body could simply walk by, scoop it up and be on their merry way before anyone would ever notice. Hospitals just don’t think like an LP manager does, I guess. For me, tablet theft is a very real problem in my store and we work extraordinarily hard to prevent it.
Back to the surgery! The tonsils put up a valiant fight, but in the end the scalpel was too much of a challenger. In the recovery ward now, in a little room, waiting for my kid sister to wake up from the cocktail of sleepy time meds, a nurse comes in to check on her; using an iPad of course. I have no one else to talk to so I ask if there’s ever been a tablet theft. I then have to explain what I do for a living before she realizes I’m not really interested in stealing her iPad. Her answer didn’t surprise me. She tells me that a few have gone “missing” over time, but didn’t think that people in hospitals steal.
While you may have a great team of employees in a hospital and maybe employee theft isn’t a problem, the fact here is that a hospital is open to the public. Anyone can simply walk in the front doors, and walk the hallways late at night looking for a table to steal. If questioned, they can just say they are visiting a family member and got lost; there’s no way to verify this. Not only that, but criminals get hurt. Normal people who get hurt have thieves in their family that will come visit them. Patients may also be kleptomaniacs. Bet you never thought about that before!
To easily protect your hospital, or private practice from tablet theft, Alpha Thunder Tags are the easiest, most cost effective method to do so. The small tag can be applied to all your devices (and not just tablets, either) that would give an audible alert anytime they passed through an antenna (which are basically invisible). This simple tool will not only protect the investment in the hardware, but will also help bolster any software tools you’re using to protect patient data. If you’re looking for a way to secure your tablets, look no further than the rumble of Alpha Thunder Tags.
Get more information on Alpha Thunder Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Did you know that within food and grocery categories, coffee ranked fifth for most stolen items in North America, according to the 2014-2015 Global Retail Theft Barometer Report? I admit I was somewhat surprised by this. I expected meat and wine to be on the list, but coffee would not have been on my radar. When I saw this statistic I began to question what would be driving this category to be such a hot commodity (yes, pun is intended). Coffee prices swing up and down based on crop production and this is influenced greatly by rainfall or drought in coffee producing regions. Yet, it seems that regardless of the price of coffee it is always in demand and consumers are willing to pay for the bean or the beverage. Consider that just a couple of years ago coffee prices went up significantly due to drought in coffee growing countries like Brazil but the popularity of coffee houses continued to rise despite price increases. While there are those who are willing to pay more, there are also those who still want their beverage but aren’t willing to pay for it. The use of EAS labels is one way to stop shoplifting of specialty bags of coffee.
EAS labels (electronic article surveillance) are small adhesive tags that can be applied to products you want to prevent from being stolen. The labels have a circuit built into them and when brought into the detection field of an EAS antenna, activate the antenna’s alarm and lights. This alarm serves to alert store personnel to respond to and address the cause of the alarm. There is also the potential that the alarm may startle a shoplifter enough to cause them to drop the merchandise they were carrying and run from the store. The tag adhesive is strong enough that trying to remove it usually results in the paper being torn off, but the circuit remains attached.
With the increased popularity of coffee shops such as Starbuck’s and house coffee’s offered by restaurants like Dunkin Donuts, specialty coffee has found a niche in grocery stores. Customers can purchase favorite brands and blends of coffee bagged and ready to go directly off the shelf. A 12 ounce bag of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee at one big box retailer can be purchased for about $7.00 a bag and a 12 ounce bag of Starbucks coffee at the same place is roughly a dollar more. Another Grocery store chain sells Caribou Coffees at $8.99 for a 12 ounce bag. Add to this the rise in popularity of K cup coffee that can be up to $14 a box and the shortage ranking of coffee makes more sense.Thieves will steal because they want something and can’t afford it or it is stolen by organized theft rings and resold in “mom and pop shops” or alternatives such as online sites. It is also stolen because it is easy to steal. This is simply a category of product that is often overlooked in merchandise protection strategies. Applying EAS labels to your bags and boxes of coffee can significantly reduce the theft in your store.
Having worked in retail loss prevention I have seen the effectiveness of EAS labels to stop shoplifting. They are economical, coming in rolls of 2000 tags and they are easy to apply to merchandise by simply peeling them from the roll and sticking them to the merchandise. Dishonest customers generally shy away from merchandise that has anti-theft protection on it. I have made numerous recoveries of merchandise dropped at the doors when an alarm sounds during an attempted theft. I also learned how to give people an excuse for “forgetting” they had unpaid merchandise when an antenna sounded and frequently made recoveries that way.
If your bean counters (another intended pun) notice that coffee shortage is a problem for your store, take action to stop shoplifting. Use EAS labels to make shoplifters wake up and take their activity elsewhere.
Get more information on EAS labels, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
