If you already operate, or are considering opening a shop to sell apparel and accessories, you will want to take a long serious look at what type of clothing security measures you need to have in place. Let me list some facts found in a recent study of retail theft and shoplifting, and you can decide whether or not you are going to need to invest in a clothing alarm system.
This study was conducted by loss prevention professionals throughout the country, compiled together, and all the data averaged out.
96% of retail establishments, regardless of size, suffered losses due to shoplifting. That was up from 94.5%.
This is obviously not just clothing establishments, but also grocery, drug and electronics stores, among others. However, this information comes only from thefts that were reported. Imagine what went out the doors of businesses that had no idea it was even happening. If your store is not utilizing some type of clothing alarm to help you deter and detect theft, you could be losing big.
1 in every 11 people will steal something from a retailer today.
Only 3% of those will be committed by professional shoplifters and members of organized crime rings. More than 74% will be committed by adults, and most of them have jobs. So that means if you do have a clothing alarm and you’re only putting security tags on clothes that are appealing to kids and teens, you may be targeting the wrong audience. Working adults will steal because they want expensive name brand clothing just like anyone else, but they don’t want to pay for them, even if they can afford it. Many times these thefts are strictly on impulse, with zero pre-planning. They walk in just to look around, and then find themselves with a golden opportunity to get that hot item out the door without anyone noticing. Most often, name brand denim jeans and handbags are the top pilfered items for any clothing retailer. The good news is those items can be easily protected with clothing security tags. There are hard tags that can be pinned on in conspicuous places, soft tags that can be adhered or sewn into hidden pockets and seams, and even tags that can be attached via lanyard. When there is a visible means of deterrence present, impulse shoplifters that were “just looking” will decide it’s not worth the risk of being caught.
Clothing theft is up 30% from just last year.
Last month, a small popular clothing and accessory store made the headlines for a very brazen theft attempt. (My daughter loves to shop here, and I know for a fact they have no type of clothing alarm in place.) Two middle age women shopping around in the store, just looking, laughing, and acting normal, like they are out for a shopping day without the kids. They have very large bags, but they are not acting suspicious, and neither employee working feels they are a threat. One employee leaves the sales floor and the women apparently decide they are finished browsing. Temptation gets the better of one of the women, because just as they are walking out the door, she grabs one more item and stuffs it into her bag. She does this just as the employee that had walked away returns. The employee yells for the women to stop, but of course they make a run for it. Lucky for the store staff, the police were close enough to catch them down the street. They discovered 67 pieces of stolen merchandise packed down in those two bags, worth almost $1,300.
Will that store’s managers or owners choose to look into adding some sort of clothing security tools or will they take a chance on being victimized again? Only they can decide whether or not the cost is worth the benefits from investing in a clothing alarm system. I would say after that kind of close call, they can’t afford not to.
For more information about clothing alarms, contact us at 1.770.426.0547 or Clothingsecurity.net
If you already operate, or are considering opening a shop to sell apparel and accessories, you will want to take a long serious look at what type of clothing security measures you need to have in place. Let me list some facts found in a recent study of retail theft and shoplifting, and you can decide whether or not you are going to need to invest in a EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) System.
This study was conducted by loss prevention professionals throughout the country, compiled together, and all the data averaged out.
- 96% of retail establishments, regardless of size, suffered losses due to shoplifting. That was up from 94.5%.
This is obviously not just clothing establishments, but also grocery, drug and electronics stores, among others. However, this information comes only from thefts that were reported. Imagine what went out the doors of businesses that had no idea it was even happening. If your store is not utilizing some type of clothing alarm to help you deter and detect theft, you could be losing big.
- 1 in every 11 people will steal something from a retailer today.Only 3% of those will be committed by professional shoplifters and members of organized crime rings. More than 74% will be committed by adults, and most of them have jobs. So that means if you do have a clothing alarm and you’re only putting Checkpoint Tags on clothes that are appealing to kids and teens, you may be targeting the wrong audience. Working adults will steal because they want expensive name brand clothing just like anyone else, but they don’t want to pay for them, even if they can afford it. Many times these thefts are strictly on impulse, with zero pre-planning. They walk in just to look around, and then find themselves with a golden opportunity to get that hot item out the door without anyone noticing. Most often, name brand denim jeans and handbags are the top pilfered items for any clothing retailer. The good news is those items can be easily protected with Checkpoint Tags. There are hard tags that can be pinned on in conspicuous places, soft tags that can be adhered or sewn into hidden pockets and seams, and even tags that can be attached via lanyard. When there is a visible means of deterrence present, impulse shoplifters that were “just looking” will decide it’s not worth the risk of being caught.
- Clothing theft is up 30% from just last year. Last month, a small popular clothing and accessory store made the headlines for a very brazen theft attempt. (My daughter loves to shop here, and I know for a fact they have no type of clothing alarm in place.) Two middle age women shopping around in the store, just looking, laughing, and acting normal, like they are out for a shopping day without the kids. They have very large bags, but they are not acting suspicious, and neither employee working feels they are a threat. One employee leaves the sales floor and the women apparently decide they are finished browsing. Temptation gets the better of one of the women, because just as they are walking out the door, she grabs one more item and stuffs it into her bag. She does this just as the employee that had walked away returns. The employee yells for the women to stop, but of course they make a run for it. Luckily for the store staff, the police were close enough to catch them down the street. They discovered 67 pieces of stolen merchandise packed down in those two bags, worth almost $1,300. Will that store’s managers or owners choose to look into adding some sort of clothing security tools or will they take a chance on being victimized again? Only they can decide whether or not the cost is worth the benefits from investing in a clothing alarm system. I would say after that kind of close call, they can’t afford not to.
For more information about Clothing Security, contact us at 1.770.426.0547 or Clothingsecurity.net
JL03
Protect fragrance – 3
Alpha Keepers – 4
How to Protect Your Fragrance
Perfumes and colognes have been around almost as long as history books themselves. Ancient Egyptians used perfumes in religious ceremonies. Medieval Queens used perfumes to mask their body odors. In the turn of the century, flowers started being used for perfumes. Even now, though they are more affordable and available to everyone, perfumes are a symbol of elegance and class, and they are in high demand among customers and shoplifters alike. So, how do we protect our fragrance?
We’ve all walked into that department store with the large glass counter right up front, for all to see, with carefully constructed pyramids of bottles and gift sets. To a customer, it is a beautiful, eye catching display. To loss prevention, it is a nightmare. The hard truth is; this is exactly how stores should have their fragrances displayed. This is what will draw the customer in to that bottle of magnificence that they would otherwise pass by. It caught me once! I used to spray myself with inexpensive drug-store spritzes until I started working retail and smelled my scent of choice for the first time. Now, I am hooked and at $80 per bottle, it is quite a luxury. It had never occurred to me that scents would be a product of choice among shoplifters until my 2014 inventory yielded a $10,000+ loss in our fragrance department. At $80-$100 each, that is approximately 100-120 bottles. Upon investigation it was determined that every single bottle was taken by the same man. Our store was in a shopping mall and he would sit outside the mall entrance and wait for the associate to round the corner. As soon as the associate was out of sight, he would run in, grab the nearest display (everything on the display) and run back out. Obviously he did not take all 100-120 bottles in one hit. He did this multiple times during the Christmas season but he was so fast and so calculated that, no matter what I tried, I could not stop him. I spent many evenings sitting outside the mall entrance waiting for him to show up. Eventually he caught on and would just walk by when he saw me sitting there (it’s so hard to make friends in this line of work). I needed another way to protect my fragrance.
I pitched the idea of display cases to my boss. We had large clear cases that we displayed our jewelry in, so why couldn’t we put 5-6 bottles of perfume in each of them and put them on the glass counters. It looked just as elegant. The issue was that it limited customer access. Sure, we didn’t want the shoplifters to help themselves, but we wanted the customers to be able to gather their purchases without having to wait around for an associate with a key. It makes sense. Loss prevention should never implement a program that hinders sales because, for every shoplifter out there, there are at least twenty honest customers. Don’t quote me on that exact number. With that plan shot down, I went back to the drawing board. It was then that I discovered Alpha Keepers. Alpha Keepers are little display boxes, of various shapes and sizes, that are equipped with an alarm that activates when taken through the EAS towers at the door. The great part about these little boxes is that they are made for one item. Customers are free to select their scent, Keeper and all, and walk around the store with it before checkout. There is no waiting for an associate to unlock anything. My boss loved this idea and was more than willing to approve the expense, as it was less than we were projected to lose if we failed to find a way to protect our fragrances.
Needless to say, our shoplifter came back. It only took him one attempt at running out with a bottle protected in an Alpha Keeper. He promptly dropped the product at the door, ran and never came back. I guess he really didn’t want to be my friend.
For more information about Alpha Keepers contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.
Perfumes and colognes have been around almost as long as history books themselves. Ancient Egyptians used perfumes in religious ceremonies. Medieval Queens used perfumes to mask their body odors. In the turn of the century, flowers started being used for perfumes. Even now, though they are more affordable and available to everyone, perfumes are a symbol of elegance and class, and they are in high demand among customers and shoplifters alike. So, how do we protect our fragrance?
We’ve all walked into that department store with the large glass counter right up front, for all to see, with carefully constructed pyramids of bottles and gift sets. To a customer, it is a beautiful, eye catching display. To loss prevention, it is a nightmare. The hard truth is; this is exactly how stores should have their fragrances displayed. This is what will draw the customer in to that bottle of magnificence that they would otherwise pass by. It caught me once! I used to spray myself with inexpensive drug-store spritzes until I started working retail and smelled my scent of choice for the first time. Now, I am hooked and at $80 per bottle, it is quite a luxury. It had never occurred to me that scents would be a product of choice among shoplifters until my 2014 inventory yielded a $10,000+ loss in our fragrance department. At $80-$100 each, that is approximately 100-120 bottles. Upon investigation it was determined that every single bottle was taken by the same man. Our store was in a shopping mall and he would sit outside the mall entrance and wait for the associate to round the corner. As soon as the associate was out of sight, he would run in, grab the nearest display (everything on the display) and run back out. Obviously he did not take all 100-120 bottles in one hit. He did this multiple times during the Christmas season but he was so fast and so calculated that, no matter what I tried, I could not stop him. I spent many evenings sitting outside the mall entrance waiting for him to show up. Eventually he caught on and would just walk by when he saw me sitting there (it’s so hard to make friends in this line of work). I needed another way to protect my fragrance.
I pitched the idea of display cases to my boss. We had large clear cases that we displayed our jewelry in, so why couldn’t we put 5-6 bottles of perfume in each of them and put them on the glass counters. It looked just as elegant. The issue was that it limited customer access. Sure, we didn’t want the shoplifters to help themselves, but we wanted the customers to be able to gather their purchases without having to wait around for an associate with a key. It makes sense. Loss prevention should never implement a program that hinders sales because, for every shoplifter out there, there are at least twenty honest customers. Don’t quote me on that exact number. With that plan shot down, I went back to the drawing board. It was then that I discovered Alpha Keepers. Alpha Keepers are little display boxes, of various shapes and sizes, that are equipped with an alarm that activates when taken through the EAS towers at the door. The great part about these little boxes is that they are made for one item. Customers are free to select their scent, Keeper and all, and walk around the store with it before checkout. There is no waiting for an associate to unlock anything. My boss loved this idea and was more than willing to approve the expense, as it was less than we were projected to lose if we failed to find a way to protect our fragrances.
Needless to say, our shoplifter came back. It only took him one attempt at running out with a bottle protected in an Alpha Keeper. He promptly dropped the product at the door, ran and never came back. I guess he really didn’t want to be my friend.
For more information about Alpha Keepers contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.
Checkpoint Systems-3
Checkpoint Systems Can’t Do All The Work For You
Long before I came to the retail side I worked for a completely different industry. I was a fast food general manager for four eternally long years. I had no need for a Checkpoint System; I had no idea what that even was. I did not have to deal with external theft. I had the occasional issue with an employee taking food, mostly just hiding a couple sandwiches to take home. I did catch one guy trying to steal packs of breakfast ham, and a whole box of frozen hamburger patties. He stashed them at the back door with the trash, but he couldn’t get out until I came to unlock the door (and inspect the trash.) Manager-1, Dumb Employee-0. After that I went to work for a discount grocery chain. Although the store manager always swore we had lots of shoplifters, we didn’t have any type of anti-shoplifting devices. Even our one and only camera was fake.
When I came to work for a retail pharmacy business, that was my first introduction to the Checkpoint System or any other type of anti-shoplifting tool. Of course, I had seen the pedestals at the doors of many businesses before, and I figured they were there to detect theft. During my training period, I really assumed this was how shoplifters were caught. I learned what we had to have in order to detain someone, but I never seemed to see anything suspicious. But when those pedestals alarmed, I was like an Olympic sprinter coming from where ever I was working to stop the filthy thief! To my dismay, it always turned out the cashier up front or in the pharmacy didn’t get the Checkpoint tag deactivated. I did eventually calm down and I’m ashamed to admit I almost became like the rest of the employees, hardly even paying attention to that announcement and alarm beeping.
After about 3 months, I started really getting into the business and noticing things that I had not seen before. For one, in the back of the store, in the couple of food sections, I kept finding Checkpoint Tags stuck to the shelves or in the floor. I could tell they’d been peeled off of other items, and I knew we didn’t put them on food anyway, so it wasn’t like they were just falling off. I also noticed that when I was walking the floor, ordering or straightening, that the shelves of OTC medications would have product one day and the next day the whole section would be empty. Fast food never taught me about flea market thieves or “boosters.” Then one day I had my first experience with one, and I’ll never forget it. I was in the back aisles stocking some food items and this guy comes around the corner into the aisle I’m working in. (The shelving fixture was six feet tall, so he had not seen me.) I see the basket in his hand and it is FULL of big boxes of pain medications. He is still walking forward but looking over his shoulder to see if anyone is following him. He stops and puts the basket down, still not seeing that I am less than five feet from him, and starts peeling off a Checkpoint tag. I think the light-bulb came on in my head at the exact moment he sensed I was standing there. I’m not sure which of us was the most surprised or who had the biggest eyes. I was terrified because I didn’t know what to do. He picks up the basket like he’s going to run, and that’s when I came to my senses and my instincts took over. I very loudly told him to drop the basket and come to the front with me. He looked at me like I had two heads. He did drop the basket, but he took off running like he was on fire and he was out the front door and in the getaway car in no time.
I learned a valuable lesson that day, and I recovered some valuable merchandise as well. He knew the threat of being caught if he went through the pedestals with those labels still on the merchandise. And he had obviously been successful before in getting out the door because we were not paying him any attention. Employees have to work with the Checkpoint System, not expect it to do all the work.
For more information about Checkpoint Systems, contact us: 1.770.426.0547 or Antishoplifting.net
Our company has a pretty standard return policy. If the customer has their receipt, we have no issues whatsoever. Without a receipt, they are dealt with at the manager’s discretion. We could give them store credit, provide an exact exchange, or simply refuse and send them on their way. You have to be fair and consistent with refund decisions; you never want to allow yourself to use social bias when you choose to accept or reject a return. I have had experiences with all of those situations, and Checkpoint Tags have been the deciding factor in several.
How do Checkpoint Tags help with refunds? First of all, I guess the simplest way is that if the tag was not properly deactivated, it will still cause the system to alarm when the person brings the item through the door. That is a rare occurrence, as it is usually just the delivery guy that causes mine to sound, but it has happened. Maybe they just swiped the product from another retailer down the street and they heard your store is the place in town that will take stuff back. Once a business has that reputation, you can bet theft will increase right along with refunds. The big box down the street from our store is fighting that battle now.
The second way they help is a little less obvious, but something a trained eye can easily spot. If they stole the product, they most likely removed any anti-shoplifting device before they attempted to bring it in for a refund. If the item has a high retail, or you know it is a target for theft, look closely at the package. Inspect it for the tell tale marking or tearing that is often left by someone ripping off a Checkpoint Tag. There may be some residue left from where it had been attached. I know what items we tag in our store, so if the item they are trying to return is on that list and missing the label, then I can use that to my advantage. I can also check our inventory and see how many we are supposed to have and see how many we have sold in the past few weeks. If the box has a mark and the numbers don’t add up, the return is not happening.
Another way they can help you determine whether a refund is warranted, is they can be used to identify where the item originally came from. Our company has actually purchased special Checkpoint Labels that have our store number and location printed directly on them. I had a man come in to return a diabetic testing meter with no proof of purchase a couple years ago. The box was a little squashed on all the corners so I got suspicious. It actually did have a store identifier Checkpoint Tag on the top of it though, which indicated he had got it from one of our stores. He claimed the device did not work properly. Something told me he wasn’t being truthful, but I would never accuse someone of theft without absolute proof. I told him the only thing I would be willing to do was to exchange it for the exact same item. He thought about it a moment and said that would be fine with him. I felt I had made the right decision, until I handed him the new box, and he asked me for a receipt. I told him there was no receipt involved in an exchange, and I added I wasn’t giving him anything that would make it appear he had paid for this new meter. He said he wanted something, so if this one did not work, he could get money for the device instead of just accepting another one. I looked at him a moment, silently picked up the new box and sat it behind the counter with the old supposedly defective one. Then I called the store listed on the label, which is what I should have done in the first place, to inquire if they had reported any instances of theft with this item. He asked me what I was doing, and when he heard me tell the person on the other end why I was calling and asking for the manager on duty, he ran out the door empty handed. I should have listened to my gut feeling in the first place, and not wasted all that time with him.
For more information on Checkpoint Tags, contact us at 1.770.426.0547 or Antishoplifting.net
