Clothing Alarm-3 WC Blog 484
Clothing Security Tags-5
Getting Your Attention With A Clothing Alarm
I don’t know about you but I find alarms get my attention and a clothing alarm is meant to do the same thing. I think of my alarm clock waking me for work in the morning when I am in a deep sleep. That incessant beeping noise seems to come upon me suddenly and I am startled by the noise. I also get chewed out by my wife when I hit the snooze button and get up and shower and the alarm goes off again. My job is in a college library. When the alarm pedestal, at the doors, sound due to items that have not been properly checked out or are not supposed to leave the building I find my attention is immediately drawn to the location where the alarm activated. Then there is the fire alarm in our building that sounds occasionally due to a faulty sensor but we have to treat it as a real fire. That alarm is loud and certainly grabs my attention. There are also flashing ceiling lights that are meant to catch the attention of patrons and serve to alert any patrons who may be hard of hearing. All of these alarms do basically the same thing that clothing security tags do when they activate electronic article pedestals; they arouse the attention of anyone nearby.
I would be remiss if I did not spend time telling you what clothing security tags are and how they work. Clothing security tags may be soft tags that can be peeled from a roll of tags and applied to products or to hang tags. In some cases manufacturers may apply a tag to a piece of cardboard and conceal it in a product such as a purse or wallet. The other types of tags are made of a hard, heavy duty piece of plastic with a pin on one side and a clip that holds the tag in place. The tags are almost indestructible and require a special tool to remove them from a garment. Trying to take them off with any other means causes significant damage to clothing items. The removal tools are controlled by stores making them difficult to obtain by an individual who is not a retailer. Hard tags also have circuitry built into them that allows them to work with Checkpoint towers. It is the towers that will sound the alarm and flash the lights that gain the attention of employees (and the shoplifters!).
Is a clothing alarm really enough to deter shoplifters? It is. For one thing consider this, if it didn’t concern a thief whether an alarm was going to sound they wouldn’t go out of their way to try to force tags off of clothing so they could steal it. As a Loss Prevention Associate at a department store I watched as shoplifters attempted to take tags off of clothes. They would pull and twist but get flustered and abandon merchandise then often try to find something that was not tagged. I recall one young woman I caught for shoplifting but no clothing alarm had activated when she walked out of the doors. When I had her empty her purse of its contents there was a pair of jeans that were cut near the hip and waistband. I recognized that this was where clothing security tags would have been located. I asked if she knew the jeans couldn’t be worn. She acknowledged that she knew it but was too afraid to leave them. I reminded her that she would have been better off not having stolen at all and the removal of the tag had proven her intent. In most instances though the thief just gives up on the tagged products, stock shortage results prove it.
Clothing security tags can help reduce theft and improve profits for your store(s). Don’t be alarmed if you aren’t already using them, Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can help you get started. All it takes is a phone call.
Need information on clothing security tags? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
I don’t know about you but I find alarms get my attention and a clothing alarm is meant to do the same thing. I think of my alarm clock waking me for work in the morning when I am in a deep sleep. That incessant beeping noise seems to come upon me suddenly and I am startled by the noise. I also get chewed out by my wife when I hit the snooze button and get up and shower and the alarm goes off again. My job is in a college library. When the alarm pedestal, at the doors, sound due to items that have not been properly checked out or are not supposed to leave the building I find my attention is immediately drawn to the location where the alarm activated. Then there is the fire alarm in our building that sounds occasionally due to a faulty sensor but we have to treat it as a real fire. That alarm is loud and certainly grabs my attention. There are also flashing ceiling lights that are meant to catch the attention of patrons and serve to alert any patrons who may be hard of hearing. All of these alarms do basically the same thing that clothing security tags do when they activate electronic article pedestals; they arouse the attention of anyone nearby.
I would be remiss if I did not spend time telling you what clothing security tags are and how they work. Clothing security tags may be soft tags that can be peeled from a roll of tags and applied to products or to hang tags. In some cases manufacturers may apply a tag to a piece of cardboard and conceal it in a product such as a purse or wallet. The other types of tags are made of a hard, heavy duty piece of plastic with a pin on one side and a clip that holds the tag in place. The tags are almost indestructible and require a special tool to remove them from a garment. Trying to take them off with any other means causes significant damage to clothing items. The removal tools are controlled by stores making them difficult to obtain by an individual who is not a retailer. Hard tags also have circuitry built into them that allows them to work with Checkpoint towers. It is the towers that will sound the alarm and flash the lights that gain the attention of employees (and the shoplifters!).
Is a clothing alarm really enough to deter shoplifters? It is. For one thing consider this, if it didn’t concern a thief whether an alarm was going to sound they wouldn’t go out of their way to try to force tags off of clothing so they could steal it. As a Loss Prevention Associate at a department store I watched as shoplifters attempted to take tags off of clothes. They would pull and twist but get flustered and abandon merchandise then often try to find something that was not tagged. I recall one young woman I caught for shoplifting but no clothing alarm had activated when she walked out of the doors. When I had her empty her purse of its contents there was a pair of jeans that were cut near the hip and waistband. I recognized that this was where clothing security tags would have been located. I asked if she knew the jeans couldn’t be worn. She acknowledged that she knew it but was too afraid to leave them. I reminded her that she would have been better off not having stolen at all and the removal of the tag had proven her intent. In most instances though the thief just gives up on the tagged products, stock shortage results prove it.
Clothing security tags can help reduce theft and improve profits for your store(s). Don’t be alarmed if you aren’t already using them, Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can help you get started. All it takes is a phone call.
Need information on clothing security tags? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? – 3 WC Blog 434B
Free Loss Prevention Calculator – 3
It’s No Joke, Loss Prevention Pays For Itself – How Fast? The Free Loss Prevention Calculator Can Answer That Question For You
I attended a farmers market this afternoon. It was interesting because there was little in the way of what I would call farmer produce there. There were several bee product booths, which included honeys, bees wax (I almost bought some just so no one could tell me to mind my own beeswax anymore) and bee wax lip ointments. There was a seller of kettle corn (not the kind of corn I was thinking of for a farmer’s market) and a booth with glazed pecans and cashews. I bought some because, well I just liked it. How did I know I would like it? The vendor was giving out free samples of cashews. As so often happens as I was snacking on my sample and seeing quite a few other people getting samples as well I started wondering about the return on investment for the vendor. What was her profit going to be if she was giving away free product? In some way she HAD to recoup what it was costing her to give away product. Well, after tasting that free sample, the vendor made $4 from me. This reminded me that Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? This is the question.
I am sure that many of you are thinking that it is silly to even consider the question Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? In light of my experience at the farmer’s market though, is it so silly after all? If you think about it that pecan vendor invested in making the product. I don’t know how much time and energy went into it but I am certain it was significant. Still, that sample cost them something and to give it away demonstrated to me the value of their product and they sold me on it. In a similar fashion a store owner can pay for a new Checkpoint System but the investment will pay off in the amount of shortage it will eliminate from a store. Once the savings from reduced shortage pays for the system any additional savings go to the profit line of the store. The question at that point is how to determine what the time frame is that it will take for an investment to pay for itself. THAT can be figured out by using the Free Loss Prevention Calculator.
Available on the Loss Prevention Systems Inc. website, the Free Loss Prevention Calculator allows a user to enter annual sales information, and the amount a store owner would be willing to invest in a Checkpoint System. The calculator assumes a store annual shrinkage rate of 1.2% and an estimated shortage reduction to .65% (results could be lower) with the installation of a system. Using this formula the result is an estimate of the number of months it would take for a new system to pay for itself.
Now you’re thinking that you might be interested but how do I know that a Loss Prevention System will actually reduce my shortage? In a report published in Crime Science Journal on 30 May 17 by Aiden Sidebottom, Amy Thornton, Lisa Tompson, Jyoti Belur, Nick Tilley and Kate Bowers, titled: “A systematic review of tagging as a method to reduce theft in retail environments”, the authors go through the methods they used to create their report, the studies they cited and the challenges they had in different measures used by those who conducted those studies. That said, there was what I consider a significant finding in this report. “What, then, can be said about the effectiveness of tags as a theft reduction measure in retail environments? Mindful of the aforementioned variability in outcome measures, if we assume the reductions in theft, shrinkage and shortage all denote positive outcomes associated with the introduction of tags, then across these eight studies we find mixed results. Considering all types of tags, five studies report positive results” (added emphasis is mine). https://crimesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-017-0068-y
Five out of eight studies is significant especially after reading the report and seeing the information the authors had to sift through. I believe it is significant enough to support my position that a Loss Prevention System does reduce shortage. Therefore by using the Free Loss Prevention Calculator you can answer the question: Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? You don’t need to have a booth at a farmer’s market to grow profits. Investing in a Checkpoint System now will allow you to reap big profits later.
The Free Loss Prevention Calculator is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
I attended a farmers market this afternoon. It was interesting because there was little in the way of what I would call farmer produce there. There were several bee product booths, which included honeys, bees wax (I almost bought some just so no one could tell me to mind my own beeswax anymore) and bee wax lip ointments. There was a seller of kettle corn (not the kind of corn I was thinking of for a farmer’s market) and a booth with glazed pecans and cashews. I bought some because, well I just liked it. How did I know I would like it? The vendor was giving out free samples of cashews. As so often happens as I was snacking on my sample and seeing quite a few other people getting samples as well I started wondering about the return on investment for the vendor. What was her profit going to be if she was giving away free product? In some way she HAD to recoup what it was costing her to give away product. Well, after tasting that free sample, the vendor made $4 from me. This reminded me that Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? This is the question.
I am sure that many of you are thinking that it is silly to even consider the question Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? In light of my experience at the farmer’s market though, is it so silly after all? If you think about it that pecan vendor invested in making the product. I don’t know how much time and energy went into it but I am certain it was significant. Still, that sample cost them something and to give it away demonstrated to me the value of their product and they sold me on it. In a similar fashion a store owner can pay for a new Checkpoint System but the investment will pay off in the amount of shortage it will eliminate from a store. Once the savings from reduced shortage pays for the system any additional savings go to the profit line of the store. The question at that point is how to determine what the time frame is that it will take for an investment to pay for itself. THAT can be figured out by using the Free Loss Prevention Calculator.
Available on the Loss Prevention Systems Inc. website, the Free Loss Prevention Calculator allows a user to enter annual sales information, and the amount a store owner would be willing to invest in a Checkpoint System. The calculator assumes a store annual shrinkage rate of 1.2% and an estimated shortage reduction to .65% (results could be lower) with the installation of a system. Using this formula the result is an estimate of the number of months it would take for a new system to pay for itself.
Now you’re thinking that you might be interested but how do I know that a Loss Prevention System will actually reduce my shortage? In a report published in Crime Science Journal on 30 May 17 by Aiden Sidebottom, Amy Thornton, Lisa Tompson, Jyoti Belur, Nick Tilley and Kate Bowers, titled: “A systematic review of tagging as a method to reduce theft in retail environments”, the authors go through the methods they used to create their report, the studies they cited and the challenges they had in different measures used by those who conducted those studies. That said, there was what I consider a significant finding in this report. “What, then, can be said about the effectiveness of tags as a theft reduction measure in retail environments? Mindful of the aforementioned variability in outcome measures, if we assume the reductions in theft, shrinkage and shortage all denote positive outcomes associated with the introduction of tags, then across these eight studies we find mixed results. Considering all types of tags, five studies report positive results” (added emphasis is mine). https://crimesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-017-0068-y
Five out of eight studies is significant especially after reading the report and seeing the information the authors had to sift through. I believe it is significant enough to support my position that a Loss Prevention System does reduce shortage. Therefore by using the Free Loss Prevention Calculator you can answer the question: Loss Prevention pays for itself – How fast? You don’t need to have a booth at a farmer’s market to grow profits. Investing in a Checkpoint System now will allow you to reap big profits later.
The Free Loss Prevention Calculator is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
Alpha Security-3 WC Blog 450
Retail Anti-Theft Devices-4
Proper Training Of Employees On Everything From Alpha Security Devices To Store Safety Response Can Save A Store Money
Proper training of new employees is important. There are some managers who will hire someone for a position and because that new hire had prior work experience in that field the assumption is made that the transition will be easy. Learning how to straighten shelves should be the same from one retailer to the next or how hard can it be to go from one point of sale system to another? Cross training is also important, can a cashier work the salesfloor or can a sales consultant put out new merchandise? Perhaps it is knowledge of how to apply Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices. One retailer may require devices to be placed in one location and another retailer may only want them on certain merchandise. It isn’t always cut and dry. Training is important for employers to invest in for their associates. It can make the difference in whether sales increase, safety is a trademark for a store, and security of the building and merchandise is properly addressed.
I will continue with this thought shortly but I do want to discuss Alpha Security and the retail anti-theft devices they have developed since I mentioned them above. Alpha’s security devices are electronic article surveillance (EAS) enabled meaning they send out a signal that can be picked up by EAS pedestals. When tagged items are carried near a door with a pedestal located beside it the tag triggers alarms built into the pedestal. The alarm attracts the attention of workers nearby and if trained properly they respond, conduct receipt checks and recover merchandise. Alpha’s tags, wraps, keepers and cables provide retailers enough variety of products that nearly any merchandise that can be carried in a store can be protected to prevent shoplifting.
Notice I even mentioned that it requires trained employees to properly respond to alarm activations. Training is important in so many aspects of retail as I suggested previously. It does impact sales for a store. Consider for a moment, if a new employee hasn’t been trained on the merchandise a store carries. A customer asks if a particular widget is carried. The employee doesn’t even know what a widget is let alone if the store carries it or where it would be located. I have seen employees in this position tell a customer that the item isn’t carried by this retailer. WHOAH NELLY! The employee doesn’t ask anyone if the store carries the widget and doesn’t bother to see if there is an alternative or if the company may sell it online. Instead of making a sale the untrained employee costs the store a sale.
Consider safety in a store and what a lack of training can do. Untrained employees caught using powered equipment such as a cardboard baler or compactor by an OSHA inspector can be the cause of a huge fine. An employee not trained to block off a spill and clean it properly can lead to a slip and fall accident by a patron. From medical treatment payouts to legal fees and possible monetary settlement payments, lack of training on safety can put a financial burden on a store.
Finally how about merchandise security? Failure to properly train employees on how to put retail anti-theft devices on merchandise properly can lead to theft of goods. Properly trained staff understand the importance of testing EAS systems on a daily basis. False alarms caused by cashiers failing to remove Alpha Security devices can also lead to angry customers and unnecessary heated complaints. This can lead to a loss of customers who are embarrassed by false alarms. An employee who has not received proper training on alarm activation responses can also make false accusations of attempted theft or may try to chase a shoplifter out of the store which can have potentially worse implications.
Proper training of store associates has got to be a priority for store owners and managers. Assuming people will know what to do based on their perceived prior experience may not be a well thought out plan. Spend time training on all aspects of the business from cashiering to retail anti-theft device placement and detachment. Doing so can make your store a much more profitable business in the long run.
Alpha Security is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
Proper training of new employees is important. There are some managers who will hire someone for a position and because that new hire had prior work experience in that field the assumption is made that the transition will be easy. Learning how to straighten shelves should be the same from one retailer to the next or how hard can it be to go from one point of sale system to another? Cross training is also important, can a cashier work the salesfloor or can a sales consultant put out new merchandise? Perhaps it is knowledge of how to apply Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices. One retailer may require devices to be placed in one location and another retailer may only want them on certain merchandise. It isn’t always cut and dry. Training is important for employers to invest in for their associates. It can make the difference in whether sales increase, safety is a trademark for a store, and security of the building and merchandise is properly addressed.
I will continue with this thought shortly but I do want to discuss Alpha Security and the retail anti-theft devices they have developed since I mentioned them above. Alpha’s security devices are electronic article surveillance (EAS) enabled meaning they send out a signal that can be picked up by EAS pedestals. When tagged items are carried near a door with a pedestal located beside it the tag triggers alarms built into the pedestal. The alarm attracts the attention of workers nearby and if trained properly they respond, conduct receipt checks and recover merchandise. Alpha’s tags, wraps, keepers and cables provide retailers enough variety of products that nearly any merchandise that can be carried in a store can be protected to prevent shoplifting.
Notice I even mentioned that it requires trained employees to properly respond to alarm activations. Training is important in so many aspects of retail as I suggested previously. It does impact sales for a store. Consider for a moment, if a new employee hasn’t been trained on the merchandise a store carries. A customer asks if a particular widget is carried. The employee doesn’t even know what a widget is let alone if the store carries it or where it would be located. I have seen employees in this position tell a customer that the item isn’t carried by this retailer. WHOAH NELLY! The employee doesn’t ask anyone if the store carries the widget and doesn’t bother to see if there is an alternative or if the company may sell it online. Instead of making a sale the untrained employee costs the store a sale.
Consider safety in a store and what a lack of training can do. Untrained employees caught using powered equipment such as a cardboard baler or compactor by an OSHA inspector can be the cause of a huge fine. An employee not trained to block off a spill and clean it properly can lead to a slip and fall accident by a patron. From medical treatment payouts to legal fees and possible monetary settlement payments, lack of training on safety can put a financial burden on a store.
Finally how about merchandise security? Failure to properly train employees on how to put retail anti-theft devices on merchandise properly can lead to theft of goods. Properly trained staff understand the importance of testing EAS systems on a daily basis. False alarms caused by cashiers failing to remove Alpha Security devices can also lead to angry customers and unnecessary heated complaints. This can lead to a loss of customers who are embarrassed by false alarms. An employee who has not received proper training on alarm activation responses can also make false accusations of attempted theft or may try to chase a shoplifter out of the store which can have potentially worse implications.
Proper training of store associates has got to be a priority for store owners and managers. Assuming people will know what to do based on their perceived prior experience may not be a well thought out plan. Spend time training on all aspects of the business from cashiering to retail anti-theft device placement and detachment. Doing so can make your store a much more profitable business in the long run.
Alpha Security is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.
