Is your store a one stop shop for shoplifters? Some shoplifters come into a store fully prepared for the task ahead of them, and they have everything they need with them to commit the crime.  They may already have tools, bags or other items used for defeating anti-shoplifting devices.  Even if they aren’t prepared, there is no need for them to worry.  You likely have everything, or at least some of what they will need to steal already in your store.  Picture this, the shoplifter walks into the store and grabs a shopping cart.  While still at the front, they decide to go green and pick up some of your finest reusable shopping bags.  

Next, they find some items that they are interested in, but they are bothered by those pesky anti-shoplifting devices you put on them.  Then they head over to the tools, hardware, crafts or other areas where they can pick up things they may use to help them commit the theft.  Some of these items could be a screwdriver, razor blades, plyers, or even items made specifically for opening packages after purchasing them.  Finally, when they remove the anti-shoplifting devices, they bag all of your stolen goods, and head out the doors looking like they made a purchase.  It couldn’t be a better situation for the shoplifters to have everything they need in one place.  

If you’ve never thought about it like that before, you aren’t thinking like a shoplifter. If you want to stop shoplifting in your store, you may want to start thinking like one.  My point is that you could be making it convenient for your shoplifters without realizing it. You utilize other methods of retail theft prevention, so why not change your thinking in addition to help protect your merchandise.  Instead of only monitoring high theft areas, you may want to consider keeping an eye on some of the supplies they may use to commit the theft as well.  In addition, some of these items typically come in packaging that is easy to open or easily accessible, such as razor blades, which sometimes comes in cardboard packaging that can be easily ripped opened without tools and will then give them access to almost everything else in your store.  One option is to put these items in merchandise protection such as hard plastic keepers so they wouldn’t be able to get them out of the package as easy.  Not only would it prevent easy access, and in turn improve safety in the store because there is one less person walking around cutting things open with a blade.  

To help stop shoplifting, you’ll definitely want to take a look at this in your store.  The best way to watch for the activity is to put up a camera and then review the video, you’ll be surprised at what you’ll see. You may find that you have just as much chance of identifying a shoplifter in these areas as high theft areas you already have on camera.  If you don’t have the budget for a new camera, try increasing employee presence in the areas or make sure you walk these aisles daily to look for suspicious activity.  

For more information contact us: (anti-shoplifting) or call 1.770.426.0547

At the end of the day, the whole point of running a business is to make a profit.  After you have paid your utilities, your suppliers, and your employees you need to have some money left in the bank.  Retail stores in particular must have a plan to Prevent Shoplifting or there will be a hidden cost to the bottom line that cannot be seen on any P&L statement.  Losing money to paperwork errors, computer errors and even vendor issues is expected and can even be budgeted to an extent.  Those losses can be found, corrected, and reconciled.

When people are coming in and stealing the inventory that your store has paid for, you have to find and correct those problems too.  It is a double loss to a retail business bank account when a thief steals your products.  When the customer comes in to buy those very products, only to find you are out of stock, they leave empty handed and go shop your competitor.   There are tools out there designed to help keep merchandise on your shelves, and available for purchase by your honest cash paying customers.  My store is a big proponent of Alpha Products for inventory protection.  When our store identifies an item that has become a target or just has the potential to become a target, we look at Alpha first.  

There are the Keepers, which are clear, secure boxes that enclose the product while still giving complete visibility to the customer.  They come in many different sizes, are simple for employees to use, and easy to remove when the product is brought up to be purchased.  As far as Preventing Shoplifting, they make the items bulkier, and much harder to conceal.  Thieves want to be silent, but try getting out the door with an arm load or bag stuffed full of these boxes, and you are going to make a lot of noise.  There are also Spider Wraps, which wrap around large items from fragrance gift sets to electronics.  I have used them on boxes of hair regrowth products, electronic toothbrushes, dvd players, and even 15” televisions.  These have very strong thin cable lines that secure around the item, and they will alarm if the cable is cut.  Both of these tools will cause the Checkpoint System to alarm if there is an attempt to remove them from the store.  

These are just two examples of Alpha items that have made a big impact on our shrink numbers.  They deter shoplifters and make them choose another retailer that has unprotected inventory instead.  We have had problems in the past where we had to put items behind the counter, and put signs out front informing the customer to ask for them at checkout.  It does keep the items from being stolen, but it also puts a big dent in sales.  People do not want to have to ask a clerk to unlock the items they want to buy.  That is as bad as having to ask for a key to the restroom; it is just bad business.  When making the choices of how to Prevent Shoplifting, take a look at professional ways to protect your assets.

For more information contact us at Preventshopliftingloss.net or call 1.770.426.0547

Thieves can be pretty smart. I’m convinced that if some of the people that I’ve come into contact with would just apply themselves to a legitimate business, they could be very successful. I guess it’s just easier to steal than to work… 

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had more and more investigations that come from our e-com site. One of the more sophisticated schemes involved counterfeit purses and how a very inexpensive tool (the Alpha Shark Tag) helped us stop the losses. 

It was bright and early one Monday morning (personally, my favorite day of the week), when I got to my desk I had a voicemail from the VP of brand protection that basically said, get your butt to my office as soon as you get this! I enter her office and she has boxes of these high end purses. She looks at me and says, “Do you see anything wrong here?” Puzzled, I said no. She began pulling purse after purse and after purse out of these boxes all the while throwing them in the corner. Each one she was touching was a counterfeit. Now, I’m not a purse guy myself, but according to the boss, a well trained eye could spot the fake. How had this happened? We were looking at nearly $30k in junk. Refund fraud. 

After days of researching, we found that over the past several weeks, several individuals were making purchases of these purses legitimately through our online platform. They were all purchased using reloadable credit cards, but were shipped to the same address. Through our research we found that the purses would then be returned either through our stores, or directly back through e-comm. The catch? When they were returned, the actual product was switched with the counterfeit. During a routine walk through of the warehouse, one of the VP’s assistants saw the counterfeits and knew something was off. We had to stop this and after a bit of research, we found the Alpha shark tag to be the best solution. 

We immediately made changes to our return policy regarding this particular line of product. Each would be affixed with an Alpha Shark Tag. These nifty little tags are removed by the customer at home and are placed in a very observable place. Once snipped, there’s no way to get it back on without you being able to see evidence of it being tampered with. Our return policy was amended to include language that stated once the tag was removed from the product, it could not, for any reason be returned. Within a few weeks, we stopped finding counterfeit goods. As far as our fraudster, the feds had a little chat with him at his house… since he was kind enough to provide his home address to us!

For more information, contact us: Shark Tags, or call 1.770.426.0547